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.

Frances 1, Jesus 0 (7th inning)

At least it is a close game. A pitchers' duel obviously.

The pitches I want to look at in this consideration of Russell Hoban's Bargain For Frances and Matthew's construction of the Sermon on the Mount. I am just teasing about the score. If I do this right, I will be explaining how I came to believe that Matthew and Hoban were really after the same point.

This pictures shows Frances, probably facing away in this picture although it's hard to tell for badgers, having a tea party with her "friend" Thelma. They are friends because they have played together for a long time, but it is an odd friendship. Frances serves as Thelma's javelin catcher. Mother reminds Frances as she heads out that she always gets the worst of it when she plays with Thelma and that she should be careful. Wise words.

Very simply, Thelma is the predator of the "relationship" and Frances the prey. I think now and then of Woody Allen's skepticism about the lion lying down with the lamb. (See Isaiah 11 for details). He says it's nice that the lion and the lamb lie down together, but only the lion gets back up. That's the way it is with Thelma and Frances. You can't deny it's a "relationship" but the name of the relationship is predation. This story is about how that changes.

The story, like all of Hoban's stories, is simple. Like most of them, it has some pop to it if you look at it with certain categories in mind. Thelma tells a series of lies to Frances, the result of which is that Frances buys Thelma's ugly plastic tea set for enough money to allow Thelma to go to the store and buy the set Frances had her heart set on. Thelma cheats Frances. When Frances realizes it, she cheats Thelma--a good deal more imaginatively and without actually lying--and gets her tea set back. Frances put a penny in the tea pot and called Thelma to ask if the "no backsies" agreement Thelma had insisted on should be honored in light of "the money" Thelma had left in the pot.

Thelma returns Frances's money and looks in the pot. She sees that a very unlikely thing has happened. Frances, the perpetual victim, has cheated her. "That is not a very nice trick to play on a friend," said Thelma.

"No," said Frances, it is not. And that was not a nice trick you played on me when you sold me your tea set." (Note the "and" there. That is where Frances prepares to pivot and move in a new direction.)

"Well," said Thelma, from now on I will have to be careful when I play with you."

"Being careful is not as much fun as being friends," said Frances. "Do you want to be careful or do you want to be friends?" This is a very substantial little badger.

Let's start now with Matthew. Jesus says, "Forget the old practice of an eye for an eye (or a fraud for a fraud). Instead, offer no resistance to the wicked. Turn the other cheek; give the other garment; walk the extra mile." I struggled with this two years ago in an essay called The Six Antitheses. If you don't want to wade through it all (and it does take wading), you can look at lines 220--247. I added line numbers to cut down your workload.

The case is easier to make with Frances's help.

Frances does not "offer no resistance to the wicked." That's what she had been doing all along. That's what fastened Thelma into her role as perpetrator and Thelma into her role as victim. It is very hard to stop being a predator if the other party in the relationship continually presents herself as prey. As Frances's friend, I urge her to stop doing this awful thing to Thelma. Of course, if I were Thelma's friend, I would urge her to stop doing this awful thing to Frances, but I think changing Frances's behavior is going to be easier.

I think Frances did what Jesus wanted her to do. She stopped the old practices of exploitation and offered, in their place, a friendship. It's the friendship she wanted. The tea party fraud was just a way to get there. Frances is looking down the road, past non-resistance to evil, and all the way down to reconciliation with an enemy.

There's no way Frances can make a friend without resisting the predator. Thelma couldn't be a friend even if she wanted to with Frances acting the way she always has and there is not indication Thelma wants to. Ending the predation is step one. But if it is the only step, it is only a defense of herself. Not that the defense of herself is bad. But going beyond the defense to a wholly gracious offer of friendship is much better.

Frankly, I think (and made my best case in the hyperlinked essay) that Jesus was more interested in reconciliation than in extending victimhood. It may be that the people in the three examples he gave could only be victims. Certainly the guy who lost his tunic in court is a victim as is the bystander who becomes a mule for the occupying army of Rome. We don't know enough about the cheek-slapper.

But Frances is in a position where she can do better. She can take the line of thought Jesus was pursuing and follow it further. And she does.

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.