It's All About Me

Some years ago, I read a scathing review of Mitch Albom’s book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. The devastating lesson we learn in “Heaven,” said this reviewer, is that heaven is just like earth: “It’s all about me.”

That would be a truly awful thing to learn about heaven, I think; it’s bad enough as a focus here on earth. It is, nevertheless, the cast of mind and heart with which we are born and one of the first and most difficult developmental steps is to learn that it is not true. It is, actually, not “all about me.”

Russell Hoban’s A Birthday for Frances is a story about that. It is about transcending the self-centeredness with which we are all born. At a certain age, a child learns that others see things differently, know different things, and feel differently about them. Frances may even have learned this lesson as a general matter, but sometimes when the going gets really tough, we forget the lessons we learned as a general matter.

In this story, the tough going is provided by Gloria’s birthday. Gloria is Frances’s younger sister and the two haven’t been getting along. We know that not so much by learning that the sisters have had conflicts (hello! reality check!) as by how long the grievances have lasted.

Here is an exchange between Frances and her mother. There are three important elements here.

Frances: Gloria is mean. She hid my sand pail and my shovel and I never got them back.
Mother: That was last year.
Frances: When Gloria is mean, it was always last year[1]

The first element is that the grievance is long-standing. Or that it comes back quickly when times are hard. It’s hard to say which one applies to this story.

The second is that Frances’s defense against Mother does not take a personal form. That’s odd for a child. We would expect something like, “You always take Gloria’s side.” But there is no “You…” in Frances’s response. There is, instead, the description of a “system” which is fundamentally unfair.

The third is that defending your behavior by claiming that the system isn’t fair is like climbing on a horse you won’t be able to control. If “the system” is messing with reality, what behavior of Frances would not be justified? What path to reconciliation is left open? Those are two sides of the same question, I think.

Frances is just a little girl having a hard day, but the “unfair system” critique can take on a life of its own and when you are on a horse that big and it takes off, you go with it. If this remark were a lifestyle rather than the petulance of an unhappy little girl, I would say that paranoia would be right around the corner.

The next step is this drama is easy to pass by, so I would like to pull over and park there for a little while. That will give us a chance to see it better. And since it is something that does not happen, it isn’t easy to see.

Frances climbed up on one of the porch rocking chairs and looked through the
window at the boxes Mother was wrapping. “What is Gloria getting from you and
from Father for her birthday?” asked Frances.

This question is the beginning of Frances’s way back into the family. It is the beginning of her ultimately successful participation in Gloria’s birthday. In this scene, we see that there is still "something going on." It is something Frances will be able to join. Frances’s nose is out of joint, but the birthday preparation continues nonetheless.

And what does not happen? These four things. Frances’s unhappiness does not become the new focus. There is no notion that the party might be postponed until Frances is more favorable. No one asks Frances to feel differently than she does feel. No one even asks her to behave differently.

This party is going to happen. Frances gets to choose how to respond to that. In the context of this story, that is the gift of wise parents. The practice of “not responding,” of ignoring children who have grievances or emotional needs, has never been uncommon. Some parents are so caught up in their own lives that their children’s needs seem more a casual irritant than a crucial task. Parents who would do better if they could, but who are working three jobs, also wind up ignoring the emotional needs of their children. As I say, it isn’t at all uncommon.

But it isn’t what is going on at the Badger house. Mother continues to relate to Frances as she works on the party. In the process, she takes some lip from Frances that she really shouldn’t have to take. Mother continues to support the reality that, hard as it is for Frances today, the way we do it here is that Gloria is celebrated on her birthday and Frances on hers.

As a result, a tradition that the adults believe to be fair and appropriate is affirmed and defended. This gives Frances something to stand on. The party is not pre-empted by her pique. So her complaint turns out to be no more than the last gasp of the natural self-centeredness of a child. It is one of the first and hardest deaths of “it’s all about me.”

Frances joins the birthday event to the extent of buying Gloria a Chompo Bar. She is not reconciled to Gloria and does not want to be, but “Gloria’s Birthday” is the family project on this day and her choice is to be a part or not. Her father helps her to move forward although she is clearly wavering.

There are three little exchanges with Father; three ways to get out of actually giving the
Chompo Bar to Gloria. Father heads off each one. He doesn’t have to absorb Frances’ petulance as Mother did, but his job, like his wife’s, is to cap off Frances’s attempt to rescue “it’s all about me.”

Frances: Are you sure it is all right for Gloria to have a whole Chompo Bar?
Father: Not every day. But today, for her birthday, it will be fine.

Frances: Probably Gloria could not eat more than half of one.
Father: Gloria loves sweets. I am sure she can eat a whole Chompo Bar.

Father: You would not eat Gloria’s Chompo Bar, would you?
Frances: It is not Gloria’s yet.
Father: Maybe I should take care of the Chompo Bar until you are ready to give it to Gloria.

Now the party has started and Frances is there and has bought Gloria a present. There is one step left. It’s huge. Frances needs to patch up the relationship with Gloria and she needs to give wholeheartedly the present she has so far been prepared to give only grudgingly. This is not something she is going to be able to do by herself, but she gets help from Gloria.

Gloria’s birthday wish is that Frances would be nice and not mad because of the sand pail and the shovel last year. She concludes, “And I am sorry, and I will be nice.”[2] Frances has had all the room she needed to express her displeasure. Mother gave her that. Every avenue of escape has been blocked by Father. Through it all, the event proceeds and finally, Frances has to fish or cut bait. Gloria has acted on her own to move the relationship back toward reconciliation. A lot of good things have happened for Frances. Then finally, this.

Frances finally gives it up. “It’s all about me” loses again. “Here,” she says after one final squeeze of the Chompo Bar, “You can eat it all, because you are the birthday girl.”

[1] This is not the only instance of what I am calling “the system defense.” When Frances is singing “Happy Thursday” to her invisible friend Alice, Mother points out that it is Friday. Frances says that it is Thursday for Alice—a “reality” only Frances controls. When Mother says that Frances’s birthday is only two months away and that she will be celebrated then, Frances says, “That’s how it is, Alice. Your birthday (i.e., Frances’s birthday) is always the one that is not now.”
[2] If anyone from BP is reading this, that’s how it’s done.