What Charlie Brown from Peanuts teaches us about being a man

This Christmas a new, computer-animated, cinematic version of Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts comic strips will  introduce millions of youngsters to Charlie Brown and his friends. For the first time they will get to know Linus, Schroeder and Lucy van Pelt, finding out why they have been a fixture of life for over 60 years.

For me, however, it will be a chance to meet some old friends. Those I first encountered at the age of eight, when my Dad passed down a dusty stack of the 1960s books to my brother and I.

Back then the comic strips were fun. Full of entertaining and funny little stories about a boy, his dog and his life.

But now, revisiting those old books, I don’t only see stories about youth and boyhood. Instead I see a boy who neatly summarises many of the challenges I, and possibly you, have faced in growing up.

A boy who is still there in spite of life’s various knock downs, still trying to kick that football and still missing every time.

I see the every man, from whose young life we can learn a lot about our own.

Here’s what Charlie Brown has taught us about being a man ...

Keep your friends close, regardless

Most of us have been let down by mates at one time or another. But to consistently have your friends bring into question your judgment in people? To be bullied, ostracised, ridiculed and still keep the bonds of friendship strong? That takes some character.

As the 1967 Peanuts musical said, ‘you’re a good man, Charlie Brown’.

To love sport is not to excel at it

Like many of us, Charlie Brown is a sports lover. Unfortunately, like most of us, he’s no good at it. Charlie is the manager of America’s worst baseball team and plagued with a roster of terrible players (including himself). The guy can’t kick a football without having it taken away from him at the last second. Even kite flying is problematic.

But in Charlie Brown we can find every five-a-side try hard, every cyclist that can’t get up the hill and every golfer with more clubs than shots. Because Charlie Brown is there every week.

He is first to practise, last on the field, and begins each season with his optimism in tact … until that first wayward pitch reminds him that it’s going to be a long one. 

Good grief.

Remember that love is hard won

"I hate myself for not having enough nerve to talk to her! Well, that isn’t exactly true … I hate myself for a lot of other reasons, too ..."

It is fair to say that our hero’s relationships with girls are not always easy or straightforward. Charlie is often the one to bear the brunt of Lucy’s ire. Peppermint Patty’s baseball team frequently thumps his own. And his only genuine love interest – the Little Red-Haired Girl – never actually appears in the comic strips.

Charlie is nervous, wary of the fairer sex and probably a little battle scarred. He knows unrequited love better than most of us. But he never gave up hope and now, years later, the Little Red-Haired Girl is rumoured to be a central character in The Peanuts Movie.

You got there in the end, Chuck.

Accept that failure is a part of life

All men must learn that no matter how hard we try for something, how much money we throw at it or how much we want it, there’s no guarantee that we’ll get it.

Here is where Charlie Brown can teach us his greatest lesson. In school he is outdone by smarter kids. On the sports field he is consistently beaten. He can’t fly a kite without getting it stuck in a tree.

But Charlie Brown is resilient, determined and kind. He teaches us that loyalty, determination to have a go and the companionship of a good beagle are more important than quick successes and easy wins.

He shows us that the important thing is to keep on going, even if there is always a chance that someone will turn around and call you a blockhead.

I wonder if Dad was trying to teach me something?