The Wild Robot Shows No One Has “Mum Programming”

Learning poignant mum lessons from a robot was definitely not on my bingo card for 2024. But well, here we are: Roz, the robot protagonist from the Dreamworks movie, The Wild Robot, is my unlikely mum-spiration for the year.

Before catching the show, I’d assumed that its main themes were nature and technology, I had also read that it packed a punch with concepts of fitting in and bullying.

The show opens to a shipment of Universal Dynamics ROZZUM robots shipwrecked on an abandoned island, with one unit, ROZZUM unit 7134, accidentally activated when some otters tear into the crates. 

Going by the name Roz, she initially chases the animal inhabitants of the island around, attempting to help them as her programming tells her to. I laughed along with my kids when Roz slaps a sticker on each irate animal she helps – a task marked as completed.

However, when she’s faced with the task of raising a tiny gosling Brightbill, whose entire family she had inadvertently wiped out, she finds it to be a never-ending one. 

From teaching it how to feed itself, how to swim, and finally how to fly, Roz is absolutely clueless. She muddles along the way with the help of some animal friends from the island, even exclaiming plaintively: “I do not have the programming to be a mother.”

She finally succeeds in her task in raising Brightbill to be ready for his migratory flight, but has to face Brightbill’s petulant outrage when he finds out the truth about his family, culminating in him adamantly refusing to acknowledge her as his mother anymore.

Roz is broken-hearted and decides to return to Universal Dynamics after Brightbill leaves, but she ends up sticking around till after winter, to catch one last glimpse of Brightbill returning.

The rest of the show follows Roz’s fight to escape Universal Dynamics when she changes her mind, the animals’ great effort to rescue Roz, and Brightbill’s emotional reunion with a powered-down Roz.

My fellow mums, you need to watch this movie. You will feel seen in ways you never thought possible, and feel all sorts of things seeing Roz make sacrifices at the expense of her own well-being – with the single-minded ferocity of a mum wanting the best for her child.

Because that’s each and every one of us mums.

There’s no “mum programming”

As a mum, Roz’s declaration could not feel more true. I never felt like I had the “correct” programming to be a mum.

And the response she got from Pinktail, the experienced possum mum? “No one does. We just make it up.”

Indeed, we do. Yes, even though I’m now a mum to five, and 11 years into this motherhood thing.

Roz’s quizzical disbelief at how she needed to keep a completely helpless creature alive mirrored mine when I first became a mum.

All the antenatal classes I’d attended, the parenting books I’d read, the mum forums on the web I’d scoured – nothing prepared me for the utter shock I experienced when I gave birth to my eldest child 11 years ago.

I remember how he used to wake up every two to three hours, crying to be fed milk or from a gassy tummy; how I had to hold him upright after every feed to burp him and let his milk settle in his tummy or else everything would come right back up as spit-up.

I remember crying in the shower after I’d barely slept for two hours in the first week of having a child, thinking: "Is this it, is this my life now?"

I also remember thinking sadly, when my eldest wailed whenever I carried him, stopping only when his grandparents picked him up: “I’m not cut out to be a mum at all, even my baby doesn’t want me. What have I gotten myself into?”

11 years and four more babies later, I’ve definitely learnt to take the broken sleep, round-the-clock feeds, and baby spit-up more in my stride… But I still feel myself flailing around at times, especially when it comes to being a mum to my older children.

The truth is, you’ll never feel ready, equipped, or programmed to be a mum.

Somehow, you just do it. Like Roz, who had no clue how to keep Brightbill the gosling alive, but yet managed to feed him, teach him how to swim, and even how to fly, by observing how other animals did these.

As a mum to two primary school kids, I know this more than ever. While I no longer struggle with baby things, I find myself needing to learn to deal with bigger children things – like academics, friends, extracurriculars, and even Gen Alpha lingo and trends ("Skibidi Ohio rizz" always gets me) – largely by trial and error.

Trust me when I say this with all the love of a fellow mum: it’s okay to not have the programming to be a mum. 

No one is made to enjoy years of broken sleep, round-the-clock feeds, baby spit-up, mum brain, or the never-ending litany of worries no matter how old your child is. 

You only learn to function in spite of it. You get better at it, sometimes after making lots of mistakes. And it’s okay.

Finding your mum village

Feeling like you lack the programming to be a mum is one thing; being completely alone in this mum journey is another.

Roz, for all her comical fumbling, ultimately managed to teach Brightbill all he needed to know to survive because of the unlikely village of help she’d found.

Thankfully, I didn’t flail about too much even with my eldest, because my wonderful mother-in-law taught me all I needed to know in the earliest stages of being a new mum, from bathing him as a fragile newborn, what to do when he had a gassy tummy, and even how to soothe him to sleep when he was inconsolable (she’d discovered that stroking the small of his back worked magic).

My parents, who were working when I first became a mum, eventually retired, and have been so willing and so happy to help out in whatever way we needed. If I can’t make it to pick one of the children up because of a last-minute work meeting, they’ll be there. If my older children are bored while I tend to the baby or am out picking up a sibling, they’re always up for playing pretend tea party, board games, or card games with them.

I may not have the programming to be a mum, but I definitely have had a wonderful village every step of the way. 

And while being a mum can be debilitatingly lonely, there were always people who walked with me along the way, teaching me and helping me at different points in my motherhood journey. 

Even mum acquaintances and friends I’ve made recently while I wait for my kids to be done with their classes are people who I count as part of my extended village, because as I chat with them about our kids, I learn and see that I’m really not alone.

So here’s the truth: without my village, I may not have had so many kids after that. (I have five.)

Watching Roz discover this for herself on screen made me tear up, NGL.

In the initial days of trying to care for Brightbill, Roz’s hapless attempts to feed him with food completely unsuitable for a gosling really tugged at my heartstrings. She had no one to teach her otherwise.

As she goes along and finds help from animals, Roz learns more and more about how to be a good mum to Brightbill. Wily Fink the fox ends up being her sidekick and constant companion, even teaching her how to tell Brightbill a bedtime story the first night they spend in the new shelter; while experienced possum mum Pinktail dishes out hard-hitting mum truths and wisdom.

Finding her village is the turning point for her, as it was for me.

Separate POVs

When the credits rolled, I found myself blinking back tears quickly while I asked my two boys: “How did you find the movie?”

My eldest son said something which caught me off guard. “I totally felt for Brightbill, mum. If I were Brightbill, I’d do the exact same.”

“Really, son?” was the response that escaped from my lips. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t sympathy for Brightbill for sure, who I felt was a bit of a brat for stomping off and saying hurtful words to Roz.

“Didn’t you feel bad for Roz?”

He frowned and said: “Not really, she deserved it. She killed his family and didn’t tell him the truth. What else could he have felt?”

I stayed silent.

As we drove home, I thought long and hard about his response, and continued ruminating even as I showered and tucked my children into bed that night.

How could he take Brightbill’s side? I kept asking myself. Is he lacking in empathy?

As the days went on, I began to realise that my son’s response is entirely his view as an 11-year-old, and a completely valid one at that.

As I watched the movie from a mum’s POV, feeling absolutely seen as I followed Roz’s journey as an unwilling mum, my sons were watching the movie from a child’s POV, understanding everything through Brightbill’s lens.

It also hit me then that my son has become his own little person, whose identity is growing more and more separate from mine each day. 

Seeing all this playing out on screen – as Roz lets Brightbill leave in anger, and yet staying on in the hopes that he would someday come back – was a punch to my gut and made me want to ugly-cry.

While I knew this would happen someday, I never expected to deal with it so soon. One day, my son may also walk away in anger when he thinks I’ve done him wrong, and I’d probably have to do as Roz did – just wait hopefully for him to come back.

For now, we continue to walk hand in hand, his tween hand becoming bigger with every month. Where once he used to ask me what I think and copied my thoughts, now I ask him what he thinks and he shares his own thoughts with me. 

That’s the beauty, heartache, and wonder of motherhood all at once. Slowly untangling yourself from the little person who once considered you to be his entire world.

Slowly saying goodbye, watching them fly, and hoping they’ll come back again.

The Wild Robot is still showing in cinemas. You can catch it on Apple TV from 27 November 2024. If your child enjoyed the show, they’ll enjoy reading the book trilogy by Peter Brown too.