The Giving Tree

In the book, “Between Mothers and Sons: The Making of Vital and Loving Men,” author Evelyn S. Bassoff sheds a new perspective on a classic children’s book. She reinterprets the story of the “Giving Tree.” If you remember the “Giving Tree” is a children’s classic work telling the story of a relationship between a selfish boy who takes and takes and takes at the expense of the mother tree who gives and give until nothing else is left to give. Most of us read the story as an example of self-sacrifice. Rather than life-giving, Bassoff sees in the tree a mother who will not let her child grow. By indulging her son and truncating her own life, the mother-tree stunts both her son’s growth and her own. Bassoff reminds us of the mother’s responsibility to keep growing and to allow for the growth of the other.

Part of the wisdom process is finding a healthy balance between the parent as giver of life and the child as takers. In order to allow our children to grow to experience the fullnesss of life mothers will need to see themselves in the relationship. We are not so much preparing our children for a future as we are to guide them to live in the present. If we can be present with our children now and guide them through life experiences today they will be more prepared to face the future. Some parents are so consumed by the future that they forget to live in the present with their children. You can not teach a child Shakespeare when she is four-years old. But reading to her the adventures of Winnie the Pooh today will prepare her tomorrow.