The Ranting Tree

My youngest child, not yet two years old, has discovered Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.   “Tree! “Tree!” He begs, pleads, and ultimately demands.  I have read it to him four times today.  It was a light day.

I hate The Giving Tree.  I remember it vaguely from my own childhood, when it was read to me, presumably without incident.    More recently, reading it to my own child left me deeply, inconsolably sad.   As I thought about it (and given my son’s appetite for repetition, I had plenty of time to think about it), sadness turned to anger.

As you may recall, the illustrated poem tells the story of a relationship between a female tree and “a boy.”  In the boy’s youth, the tree was the center of his abundant free time.   The tree was delighted to share her leaves, her apples, and her shade, for the boy’s company and the pleasure of his joy.  As he grew older, the boy made increasing demands of the tree, who ultimately invited the boy to take everything, leaving the tree with nothing, a stump, utterly alone.  The story closes with an elderly “boy” sitting upon the stump, who was again “happy” to be giving to the boy, and to be in the boy’s company.

What a terrible story: one character sacrifices herself utterly while the other exploits.  Is Silverstein extolling this relationship as an ideal for love?  The debate about this work has gone on since its introduction in 1964.  I am cursed to read this story, over and over, to a cheerful toddler…who just takes and takes…

Then I realized: throughout the story, the exploitive character is identified only as “the boy.”  He appears in his youth, in adolescence, through early and late adulthood, and ultimately in very old age.  He remains “the boy.”  This simple convention reveals the source of my angst.

I am struck by a global shortage of adulthood.  Our political debates have devolved to childish over-simplification, name-calling, and, all too often, fear mongering.   I work with many wonderful (adult) leaders, but I also encounter too many business people – and business students – who try to cover naked selfishness and short-sightedness with a cloak of “market discipline” or “commercial rationality.”  They seek short-term gains, at all costs.  They don’t believe in building trusting relationships, because they are equipped neither to trust, nor to earn trust.  They are boys and girls, engaged in (or pursuing opportunities for) exploitation.

These traits are much cuter in a toddler.  Even the tree was equipped to meet the needs of a young child, sustainably.  While the “boy’s” body and desires grew, he did not mature.  He gained neither foresight, nor any concern for the tree’s well-being.   Adults care for those who love them.  Good adults care about the well-being of others, more generally.  Wise adults have foresight.

With only 620 words (I counted them while trying to desensitize myself to the text), Shel Silverstein  taught at least two generations much about life.  Not all lessons are easily learned or accepted.

CAW