Bedtime for Frances

Frances wakes her father from a sound sleep. Father is not happy. You can see that, right?

The picture is there just to give you an idea who Frances is. She is a little girl badger invented by Russell Hoban and drawn by Garth Williams.


I love the Frances books. Each one of them is actually about something and each story is so simple. For years now, I’ve enjoyed understanding these simple episodes in needlessly complex ways or putting them into categories that were likely not in the mind of the author.

This is Bedtime for Frances. It is about what you think it is about. Frances can’t get to sleep. In the picture above, she is relating her tribulations to her father for the last time. It is the last time because this legendarily patient father has said he will spank her if she comes back.

The piece of this little story that has been catching my attention is this: just what is it that is different about Frances’s last little distrubance; the one that causes her to decide not to go bother her father with it? Hint: It’s not the promised spanking.

Father and Mother are wonderful parents. Hoban wants to leave no doubt about it and documents it lavishly. He needs to do that because later Father is going to threaten Frances with a spanking and Hoban wants to be sure we keep focused on Frances. I referred to the “last little disturbance.” It is the last one because after it, Frances goes to sleep. And she goes to sleep because her father has given her two really valuable gifts: a firm limit and a useful attribution.

If these is really any point to this reflection on Frances, this is probably it.

Here’s a brief synopsis of the prior disturbances. One: Frances says there is a tiger in her room. After making sure that the tiger has not bitten or scratched Frances, and after denying her request to stay up because of the tiger, Father sends Frances back to bed. Two: Frances says there is a giant in her room. After saying yes to Frances’ request for cake and no to her request for some TV time, Father sends Frances back to bed with instructions to ask the giant what it wants. The giant is the bathrobe on her chair. Three: Frances sees a crack in the ceiling and starts to think about scary things that come out of cracks. Father checks it out and says the crack is too small for anything bad to come out of. That’s the last of the preparation events. Now we come to the crisis.

Frances sees the curtains in her room moving and wonders if Something is moving them. Something must want to GET her. She goes to her parents’ bedroom and wakes her father. Father explains that there is an order of things, both natural and social. The wind’s job is to go around and blow all the curtains. His job is to go to work tomorrow, which is why he has to sleep tonight. Frances’s job is to go back to her room and go to sleep (I think he means go back and stay in bed) and promises her a spanking if she gets up again.

Ah. Now we get to cash in Hoban’s care with Father’s character. Frances goes back to bed and there’s a noise at the window. She jumps out of bed and heads back to her parents’ bedroom. When she got to door, she stopped and thought about it and decided not to bother them. Score one. Back in bed, she heard the sound again. This time, she wonders what it is. What a significant advance: she wonders. Before, she only feared. Score two.

And here comes score three. “If it is something very bad,” Frances muses, “Father will have to come and chase it away.” At that point, she goes to the window and finds out it is a moth bumping against the window. So she went to sleep. Score six. End of story.

But…what happened to scores four and five? Oh yes. Them.

Score four is the inversion of Frances’s choices. Always before, finding the parents and proposing some reason to stay awake have been her first choice; finding out what is going on has been second. That’s not good for Frances. Actually, it’s not good for any child, but let’s stay with Frances. Her father has changed the priorities by threatening a spanking and by being the kind of father who will come and take care of things if that’s what is really needed. Frances knew very well that if the disturbance at the window turned out to be an actual danger, and not just an excuse for getting up, that Father would come and take care of it and comfort her afterwards.

This changes every disturbance from an occasion for getting up into an occasion for finding out what is going on. The relationship is shifted from Frances-and-Father to Frances and “what is going on.” That is a substantial gain, certainly, but it is made possible because Frances knows that if she finds out what is going on and it really needs the intervention of a caring adult, that she has two of them right next door. She is given, to say it briefly, a reason to find out and the security to dare to find out. Invaluable gifts for a child to be given.

And score five? We call ‘em “causal attributions” in my line of work. These are explanations for why things are happening the way they are. I can argue that Frances got out of bed those earlier times because she would rather be with her parents than alone in bed and I think that is true. But if we are looking at the causal attributions, we see that two kinds of worlds are created.

In the first world, there is a tiger in her room because she was afraid there might be. And a giant who probably wants to get her. And a crack in the ceiling that something might come out of. And curtains that are moving for no reason Frances knows. Those events belong in the world created by the first kind of causal attribution. Each event is given meaning by “something that might hurt me.”

In the world created by the second causal attribution, things have their own natural place. The wind’s job is to blow the curtains. Question: What does that mean for me? Answer: Nothing. The moth’s job is to thump and bump on the window. Question: What does that mean for me? Answer: Nothing. Things are happening the way they do. Things are happening the way they should. The world that is created by these causal attributions is not a world that impinges on Frances. It is safe and orderly (the attributions) and she has investigated it herself to be sure (her new behavioral priority).

So, it’s an insignificant little children’s story. And I have liked it very much for years and don’t plan to stop now.

We can add an example from the social world which will certainly seem part of “the natural world” to Frances. Father’s job is to go to work and provide for the family. Question: What does that mean for me? Answer: Nothing. For Frances, Father’s working and the wind’s blowing are part of “the way the world is.” As I write this, unemployment in the U. S. is around 10%. It makes me think about what is happening to all the assumptions of all the Franceses which will now, much too early, have to be examined.