Enforcing dress codes on girls is nothing new. Enforcing them because they might tempt the boys in their classes is nothing new. We’ve all heard the phrase “She asked for it” in relation to a girl getting assaulted because of how she was dressed. But rarely do we hear why it’s up to the girls to control how their peers react to them, and rarely do adults address the real issue: kids who feel like they are allowed to assault a girl because she likes spaghetti straps, and the unspoken rule that they’d be justified in doing so. “Boys will be boys, after all.”
Blech. I don’t have a solution to generations-old assumptions about who is at fault for sexual assaults, but I do know one way that we as parents can fight that victim-blaming culture: teach all our kids the meaning of consent.
It’s never too early to teach your kids about consent, both their own bodily consent and also how to respect it in others. Even something as simple as tickling or giving grandparents a hug goodbye can teach your kids the wrong lessons on who has control over their body. But today we’ll start with how the media we consume and the books we read to our children can inadvertently show them it’s okay to be “groomed” by a predator at a young age.
One day in my early life as a parent, I figured we should get into some Dr. Seuss. We began at the beginning and bought The Cat in the Hat. How exciting! I knew the character but nothing about his origin.
Now I have to read every Dr. Seuss book myself before I read it to my kids
Well, it was quite a shock. The whole story reads like a manual for predators. The Cat arrives when the kids (Nick and Sally) are home alone:
“I know some good games we could play,”
Said the cat.
“I know some new tricks,”
Said the Cat in the Hat.
“A lot of good tricks.
I will show them to you.
Your Mother will not mind at all if you do.*
Then Sally and I
Did not know what to say.
Gross, right? Maybe it was the new title of “Mother” that was just thrust upon me but I was immediately icked out. Now, I in no way mean to imply that Theodore Seuss Geisel was encouraging children not to follow their instincts about the creepy family friend who wants to show them new and good tricks while Mother is out. I don’t think that was his intention at all, regardless of other problematic issues in his works.
But many children have a similar experience as Nick and Sally, and are subtly or violently bullied into staying quiet by the perpetrator. The PBS Kids cartoon, produced over 50 years later, made a big effort to turn this phrase into a learning moment. Every single time The Cat invites them on an adventure, he says “Your Mother will not mind at all if you do,” and then Nick or Sally run and ask the permission of whichever Mother is presumably watching them that particular day. (I have strong feelings on how their Mothers and Fathers are portrayed in these sequences as well, but that’s a whole other blog post.)
The Fish in the story vehemently disagrees with The Cat’s presence, and The Cat responds by punishing Fish and playing “the game that I call UP-UP-UP with a fish!”
Fish cries and asks for the game to stop, for he is not having fun. The Cat merely raises him higher, saying “Have no fear!” Fish repeats that he does not like this game at all.
How does Cat respond? By saying that because he, The Cat, who has taken control of the situation, likes the game, he will not go away, but show them another good game that he knows.
I want to explain how coercion plays into the child molester manual. (Let’s not even start on Green Eggs and Ham.) I don’t want my children to believe they have no say in what games they play, especially if they are uncomfortable. Alternately, I don’t want them to learn how to convince a friend to do what they want by negating their friend’s feelings. We don’t force hugs or kisses in our house or make them feel guilty when they don’t want to embrace anyone, even grandparents. We give them agency over their own body and try with all our might to instill confidence and trust in us so that they will say something if anyone ever makes them uncomfortable.
I know it seems weird that kids, never mind very small ones, can grasp the concept of consent, but they know when and how they like to be touched. I want my kids to understand that they can change their mind in the middle of a game, too. Trust me, if there is any word that a toddler understands, it is “No.”
So it doesn’t feel right that we should go to all these lengths so kids feel comfortable with their bodies and feelings, then read a story where the main character tells the children how they will feel in no uncertain terms, and railroads any objections.
“I call this game FUN-IN-A-BOX,”
Said the cat. ”In this box are two things
I will show to you now.
You will like these two things,”
Emphasis is mine, but “fun in a box” made my hair stood on end. Then we’re introduced to Thing One and Thing Two.
“These things will not bite you.
They want to have fun…..
Would you like to shake hands
With Thing Two and Thing One?”
And Sally and I
Did not know what to do.
So we had to shake hands
With Thing One and Thing Two.
We shook their hands.
How many people do you know who found themselves in a situation where they did not know what to do, or say, and so just froze and went along with an uncomfortable sexual situation?
There are a million ways it could happen, a million scenarios that could play. It doesn’t change the vomitous feeling in my stomach when I first read that out loud to my kid, or how my voice faltered as I recognized what Nick and Sally felt, and knew I never wanted my kids on either side of that scenario.
Kids learn lots of lessons from just one book
Even while realizing this, I did not know what to do and so stayed in a state of mild shock, that kept me reading to him, but now in a monotone. I felt the pressure of “This is a classic book” and minimized my own feelings on it, exactly the opposite of what I want to teach my kids.
That feeling took days, even weeks to process. I hid the book in my desk drawer and skipped that track on the audiobook (sorry, Kelsey Grammar. Your dulcet tones somehow made it worse).
I hid it, just like sometimes you hide unintended or unwanted sexual encounters. I joked about it to my husband but didn’t express how I felt, not really. I let it fester. I thought about writing this blog for weeks.
It got to the point that I had trouble enjoying anything Seuss-related because I wasn’t admitting to myself how much I disliked this specific book.
Basically, I had all the same feelings about the book itself that I didn’t want my son to feel in any sort of physical or sexual situation.
Consent is a tricky beast. Even as I write these thoughts, I feel both empowered to express them and plagued by the assumptions people might make about me or potential comments on how I am overreacting. Some may say it is just a story and the intent to make children feel they should give into an abuser was never the point of The Cat in the Hat. I agree that Dr. Seuss likely never meant that. Yet I feel it, and stories are powerful teachers for societal constructs. I cannot ignore these feelings when my husband and I do everything else to live our lives in the happiest ways possible and work so hard to show our sons values by example.
The ending is the real kicker. Returning to The Cat’s insistence that “Your Mother will not mind at all if you do,” of course eventually The Cat leaves and their Mother returns. But Nick and Sally don’t know if they should explain what happened. They ask the question:
Well, what would you do,
If your Mother asked you?
It’s good that it ends with that question. I could stomach it more if the story didn’t make me feel like Nick and Sally were bullied into going along and then sit by the window suspended with confusion as to whether or not they should tell their Mother anything.
I don’t want my kids to think that is okay and normal. By our reading it to them, we would send that message. I could frame it, I suppose, as a way not to act, but there are so many good books by Dr. Seuss that I in no way want to tarnish those experiences. So I threw this one out and focused on the ones that send good messages (Yay for The Lorax and Horton Hears A Who). It may seem like a small step, but it is in these stories and daily interactions where we really show our kids the values we hold close.
KEEP READING: I Said “No!”: One Teen Shares Her Story to Put an End to Victim Shaming
Photos: Unsplash
An earlier version of this essay appeared on Dwarf+Giant.
