What "The Giving Tree" Gets Wrong About Love and Happiness |
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There are few children’s books as beloved as Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. According to YouGov.com, it is the 35th most popular children's and young adult fiction book in America, and it has sold more than 14.5 million copies worldwide. Though, you don’t need statistics to know this. For most of us, you can just re-read the book to know it is a classic.
The tree gives everything it has to the boy – its apples, branches, even its trunk. After each act of giving, we are told, "the tree was happy.” Such is the effect of unconditional love…
When I was young, I thought the tree was the hero of the story. I thought it taught me good parenting, and it became the standard by which I judged my own parents. As a parent now myself, I’m no longer so sure I understood the book correctly.
In fact, each time I re-read the book, I become increasingly convinced that The Giving Tree is not a model of healthy love. I believe it is a cautionary tale about what happens when we confuse love with self-erasure. Moreover, the warning is not only for those of us who are the tree. It is also for the little boys who grow into men.
“And the boy loved the tree…very........