The Little Red Hen Is A Jerk

When it's going well, we're approaching each day, each project, each activity as an experiment, if for nothing else than to stave off the bane of rote for both the kids and me.

It was in the spirit of this that I read The Little Red Hen at our closing circle. To summarize for those few of you who don't know this old folk tale:

The Little Red Hen does all the household work, while the Goose, Cat, and Dog (in our version) each decline to help out, saying, "Not I," each time she asks. When she finds a grain of wheat to plant, her lazy housemates continue to say "Not I" as she does the work of tending, harvesting, threshing, milling and finally baking a loaf of bread. The big finish is that when the Hen asks the others if they will help her eat the freshly baked bread, they all say, "I will," only to find that the long-suffering Hen has decided that since she did all the work, she gets to eat all the bread.

Last year's group rebelled against the whole concept, recoiling at the idea that the Hen would withhold a slice of bread from her friends. The response lead me to speculate that the kids were probably just not quite developmentally ready for the concept. Some readers agreed suggesting other stories or other versions of this story that did a better job of getting the message across, some blamed the illustrations in our version of the book, while many sided with the kids, one reader even writing that her teenage son after reading the post responded quite succinctly, "The Little Red Hen is a jerk."

It was with this sentiment echoing in my head that we read the book yesterday. But first I wanted to make sure the kids really understood the story I was reading, slowing down to emphasize at each stage that the Hen was laboring away, while the others gossiped, primped, and lazed. I don't always read our books with this much focus on meaning. Usually I'm just trying to put on a good show to wind up our day, but as I read, it dawned on me that lacking knowledge of cultural judgments about these "negative" traits, the kids might well be interpreting gossip as talking with friends, vanity as good hygiene, and laziness as taking a nap, all fairly positive things, things for which they receive praise.

Even as I read yesterday I considered stopping to have a discussion about gossiping, vanity and laziness, but dismissed it almost as soon as the thought entered my mind. They have the rest of their lives to form these judgments and they'll do it without my help. Instead I tried to remain focused on the key issue: the Hen is doing all the work while the others are saying "Not I." A couple times I even stopped to point out the expression on the Hen's face, "She looks like she's working really hard," and "That would be a lot easier if someone helped her."

But when I got to the end, there was still a chorus of: "Why isn't she sharing?" "They're hungry!" and "She should give them some too!"

Last year's experience had prepared me for this. I flipped back through the pages to remind the kids that there was more to the story than the picture at the end depicting the self-satisfied Hen surrounded by her mournful housemates, but to no avail. 

"Maybe they were too tired to help." 

"Maybe they were busy." 

"Maybe they forgot." 

"Maybe they were sick." 

"Maybe they were hurt." 

"Maybe they didn't think it would be fun."

I know my English professors would have wanted them to support their theories "from the text," but in the real world those would all be legitimate reasons for not helping, ones we've all used in our lives without sacrificing a slice of bread at the end. Maybe young children are naturally communists. I don't, of course, mean big state Leninist commies, but on the deeper, personal level. Maybe young children do understand we all sometimes do things for others without any expectation of a reward or any other kind of return other than the sense of satisfaction of having accomplished something. It's the same sentiment that's behind those little gifts children bring me unprompted; pictures to hang on my wall at home, pretty leaves or flowers they've found on their way to school, buttons or do-dads or parts of things that they hand to me saying, "This is for you." It's a very anti-capitalist notion, a Christian notion, a Buddhist notion, a Jewish notion, an Islamic notion, this idea of doing pure good. It stands outside of our cultural version of exchanging this for that, tit for tat.

No one is making the Hen do the work. It's a self-selected activity. She asks for help, but she never warns anyone that the consequence of not helping is no bread. In fact, she doesn't even tell them about her plan to make bread. In all the pictures, she wears an expression of cheerfulness. Is it surprising that her friends didn't feel a compulsion to pitch in? Can you really blame the others for assuming that she, like them, was simply following her own heart?

If the Goose made some new friends through her long chats at the fence, would she refuse to introduce them to the Hen because she didn't help? Maybe the Cat, through her daily regime of grooming and hygiene, will discover that regular hand washing helped keep her healthy. Would we think it was okay for her to hold that important information to herself? Or what about that well-rested Dog, what amazing dreams he must have that can be woven into stories to entertain the others during those long winter months when the wheat doesn't grow. (Admittedly, the Dog's the hardest one to defend.) 

The point, I think, that the children, over the course of two years, have been trying to make is: who knows what activity, if pursued with a passion, will lead to something that will benefit us all? And if we make that discovery, shouldn't we share? Yes, we adults all know that hard work and planting seeds and so on will lead ultimately to a loaf of bread, but apparently none of the characters in the story do, nor did the children to whom I was reading the story. And while there is nothing in the text that leads us to believe that even the Hen herself knew what she was doing, if she did know all along that she was heading toward that loaf of bread, putting on that cheery face, while making a show of all her hard work, then planning to punish the others with no bread . . . Well, then she is a jerk.

So maybe young children really are communists at heart, or at least they understand this story at a level far deeper than simply commerce.

Of course, it's more likely that they, being children, view the Hen as a mommy figure. In their lives this is what parents do. Performing chores around the house is part of their role, which makes it even more understandable that when she refuses a slice a bread to her "children," the kids are upset, shocked, and confused, further cementing The Little Red Hen's status as a jerk.

UPDATE: This post generated a lot of comment both here and around the internet. Here is a follow up post that carries on this discussion.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

-->