By: Revanche

Children’s stories and life lessons

October 23, 2015

I recently removed Jack and the Beanstalk, the pop-up version that we have, from the bookshelf. It’s now a chew toy for LB because what a terrible story!  What are we teaching our kids??

Let’s see:
Dependence: Jack doesn’t do exactly as he’s told, exercising his judgment, and his mom throws the beans out instead of hearing him out.
Sneakery: When the beans grow and he goes exploring, he breaks into the giant’s home. Excuse me, just because you’re in a strange place doesn’t make breaking and entering OK!
Thievery: Then he decides to steal a goose that lays golden eggs. Child…
Destruction and Murder: Having nearly escaped with his ill gotten gains, he decides to deal with the righteous pursuing giant by cutting down the stalk and killing the giant!
They live happily ever after with the golden goose.
No, no, and no! These are not virtues that deserve to be rewarded with wealth!

Then again, I guess that would be a useful analogy to explaining much of Wall Street, wouldn’t it? Maybe I should rescue that book.

***

We’re big fans of If you give a mouse a cookie, not least because I am that mouse, so we were excited to pick up the other books in that series. I was excited there were other books in the series. Then we read them. And we read them again. And it occurred to us there was something not quite right about them.

I started to think that these particular stories are just cautionary tales about the kinds of friends who you don’t want to have. One day I heard PiC mutter: Did the author just have a bunch of freeloading friends that she was writing about, disguised as these animals?! GET YOUR OWN MUFFIN MIX, MOOSE!

Apparently if you give a moose a muffin, the great honkin jerk eats all your muffins! Then he wants more, but instead of offering to get them, you have to go to the store?? But he wants to come along, for kicks, I guess, so he has to borrow a sweater. And then proceeds to make a huge mess in the house that he barely helps to clean up.

The whole book sounds like that kid is being used and pushed around. At least when the mouse is getting a cookie, he’s asking for things that make sense and aren’t entirely gimme gimme gimme. You want to sweep up? Ok. Wash the floors? Have at it. He wants to draw a picture? Sure! Of course he needs Scotch tape to put it up, why not?

But that Moose, man. He eats all your food, then he makes a mess of the house, and then he asks for more muffins. But GUESS WHAT. You never went to the store did you, Moose? Because you were too busy freeloading!

And that pig…. Never mind, we’d be here forever. (But the number of pictures that pig takes, and the stamps she uses! Are you kidding me? Polaroids are expensive!)

***

We hope that LB learns that if your friends expect you to do All The Work, and provide All The Things, that’s an uneven relationship and they’re probably not the best friends to have. And saying No is not a bad thing.

Also, don’t give a moose any food ever. Have you seen those things? (Although really, I would just have pulled over and waited that moose out. From her perspective, you’re stalking them!)

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