Wild Things

Having a child gives you the opportunity to revisit favorite books. Sometimes you can relax into a familiar story, but sometimes the unchanged story reminds you how much you yourself have changed. Last month, a book club I went to read Forever, by Judy Blume, and I realized the last time I read it, I was a preadolescent wondering what love would be like; now, though, I read the story as a concerned parent of a future teenager.

Ben has recently discovered Where the Wild Things Are. I bought it for him last year, but we just started reading it a few days ago. When I bought it, I glanced over it and liked how the book deals head-on with kids' unacceptable urges, how it shows the richness of imagination as a tool for dealing with frustration. The book illustrates two competing urges of childhood: the desire for independence, and the need for love and support.

When we read it a few days ago, I noticed something new. Ben has been strong-willed lately, and I've been frustrated with his misbehavior. Like Max, he has been torturing the family pet and making "mischief of one kind and another." This time when I read the book, I noticed the mother.

Sendak never shows her; after all, this is a book about Max. But she has the first dialogue in the book: she calls Max "WILD THING" and sends him to bed without supper. Name calling and withholding food as punishment--she's certainly not an ideal parent!

To escape his confinement, Max imagines his trip to the kingdom of the Wild Things. After rumpusing with the great beasts, however, he becomes lonely and wants "to be where someone loved him best of all." When he smells food, he decides to go home. Back in his bedroom, he finds supper waiting for him: "and it was still hot." His mother has relented, and he gets his supper after all. You can read this as further poor parenting on the mother's part (she can't even be consistent!) but I see it as her cooling down and apologizing for her overreaction. Max knows that even though she got angry at him, she still loves him best of all.

I used to think I liked Where the Wild Things Are because there's no tidy lesson, but now I think there is a lesson--and a reassuring one. Where are the Wild Things? There's a bit of them in all of us, parents and children. The book shows us that family relationships aren't perfect, and we all act out from time to time--but ultimately we can turn to each other for love and security. Despite their negative interactions earlier in the evening, Max's mother still provides for her son and shows her love for him.

Now that I'm a parent, I wonder what she imagined while Max was in his room....