“Don’t Go in the Worknest!”: Responding to rules and rule-breaking in Anne Negri’s With Two Wings

Abstract

ABSTRACT In “Don’t Go in the Worknest!”: Responding to Rules and Rule-Breaking in Anne Negri’s With Two Wings,” I explore a generative “collision” between the focus on rules and rule enforcement in contemporary discourses around parenting, the actual lived experience of parenting, and the representation of rules and rule-breaking on stage. I begin by examining the role of rules and rule-setting in popular parenting books. I argue that the discourse around rules, rule-breaking, and rule-enforcement creates a particularly fraught environment for Negri’s play, not only because of the way in which Lyf, the play’s protagonist, deliberately and repeatedly breaks his parents’ rules but also because the rules are based on a lie. Using my own experience as a model, I argue that Negri’s complex consideration of “rules” presents a profound opportunity for caregivers to reconsider the role of rules in the life of children in their care, and the rule-breaking within the play offers critical opportunities for dialogue between caregivers and youth about growing up and pushing beyond the boundaries of the family nest.