Get the feed"Getting What You Don't Deserve"
Monday, Oct 12th 2009
Nathan adds to the discussion:
[caveat: I TRULY cannot find our copy of WTWTA but am going by memory and Nancy's description]
I've never been to Stonehenge (whether full size, eighteen inches high or made of Legos) or the Please Touch Museum, so I don't feel qualified to respond. In fact, "WTWTA" is such an afterthought in our family that none of us can locate it at the moment.
Rather than an exhibition of inconsistency in parenting, I thought "WTWTA" was rather a display of grace. I didn't think that at age 8 or 10, mind you. I was too worried about a couple of the pictures and whether the monster with the bird head could actually visit my room to think about any lessons from the book.
I'm not sure that Max is a rotten kid, or if he's just a kid whose behavior has gone completely off the chain for the night. Which, of course, are two different things. He heads to his room and escapes into imagination to pass the time. While there, he exhibits the behavior that he's had modeled (sending others to bed without supper), but returns from fantasy to reality to find that sometimes, your mother gives you something that you don't deserve. In fact, something that by rights you deserve not to have.
Maybe that's why we can't find it. In my heart, I'm afraid there's a part of me that prefers watching others get what they're due...not having something good happen when they should be hungry in bed. Understandable, since I never lash out in my own anger, and always am due the good that comes my way.
Nancy French
Nancy French is an author, commentator, and mother. Her next book, about the year her husband spent in Iraq is due out July 4, 2011. Connect with her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NancyAndersonFrench and follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nancyafrench.
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