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Although I haven’t done graduate work in the social sciences, I’ve always been fascinated to learn about the different rituals with which people were raised. I’m weird: I love hearing people’s dreams–no matter how seemingly mundane–and I love hearing the bedtime stories people’s parents told them (or, I suppose, didn’t).
My own father had a knack for always saying goodnight right after the first or second act of his long-running bedtime series, The Raccoons. It was kind of like Watership Down meets “Dynasty”–with a bit of Hardy Boys and The Secret of Nimh thrown in. I don’t remember every plot point, but I know I was always rabid (ha) for more reports from the hardscrabble world of nocturnal vermin.
In my own adventures in babysitting, the kids always responded to different characters/themes, or commanded me to improvise on a saga their parents had begun. Most of these tales involved brave animals in unlucky ecological conditions, but a few involved well-intending mosquitoes, or ostracized appliances (think The Brave Little Toaster). Patterns were obvious, but what did they mean?
When parents/proxies craft these bildungsromans, do they do so with a specific intention? This is from Lawrence Shapiro’s How To Raise a Child with a High EQ (which, honestly, is always the deal breaker, right?):
In his book The Competent Child, psychologist Joseph Strayhorn, Jr. teaches parents to make up what he calls “positive modeling stories” that address their child’s real-life problems or concerns. In these stories, the protagonist, who has similar traits to the child, models realistic thinking and problem solving in her thoughts, feelings and behaviors. The protagonist may or may not be externally rewarded for exhibiting particular psychological skills, but she always rewards herself for being internally motivated.
Hmm. Did I learn to see myself as a raccoon? Actually, perhaps…Other people’s garbage does have a certain hold over me, but I love dogs too much. If you’d like to perform an impromptu exegesis on your own childhood parables or the ones you now spin, I’m all yours…
Comments (15)
Comment
Sadly, there weren’t too many original bedtime stories for me growing up. As the youngest, I sort of raised myself on scifi and fantasy novels, like The Hobbit, Anne McAffrey’s Pern series, and Piers Anthony’s Xanth series. I guess the result was that I model myself on the unlikely hero, out of his element.
I like the idea of telling alternate versions of Watership Down, though (as long as there’s a Thlayli character).
posted by Jack on 8-15-2007 at 8:01 pm
My Grandpa used to tell us the same bedtime story…
Once upon a time, there were three bears; flopsy, mopsy, cottontail and peter. One day they were going through the woods taking a basket of goodies to Grandma’s house…
at that point my little sister would break in with “Tell it right Grandpa!”
Mostly my parents told stories from their childhoods about themselves or relatives.
posted by Cheryl on 8-15-2007 at 8:18 pm
My father and my uncle used to tell me “Take Turn” stories. One would get the hero (always Agamemnon, for some reason) into an impossible situation, and then tell me to go see Daddy (or Uncle Ed) if I wanted to know what happened. The next teller would extricate Agamemnon from the impossible situation and get him into even more perilous circumstances. Then off to the other teller.
I was one lucky kid! Those stories were amazing!
posted by Barbara on 8-15-2007 at 10:30 pm
mom read to us every night and sometimes for more than an hour. Pippy Long Stocking , Winnie The Pooh, Huck Fin (series), The Chronicles of Narnia,Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and many more. Inspired by mom’s reading we would make up our own stories and sometimes we’d “play act” our adventures after she left the room. So much for bed time!
posted by etienne on 8-15-2007 at 10:53 pm
My parents read to me more than they made their own stories…And thank god for it–I figure it’s the cause of my learning to read at three and being always advanced in my reading. Although, I did have a Meeko puppet (from Pocahontas) that my dad would have go on silly adventures, although mostly he would goof off. Hilarious, that puppet. Gotta love raccoons–and that’s why your post made me smile, Becky.
posted by Courtney on 8-16-2007 at 1:02 am
How interesting, I first assumed you were talking about the animated Disney series called “The Raccoons.” It had a very different feel to it than most cartoons, which is why Watership Down-meets-Dynasty seemed like such an apt description of the show.
From retrojunk.com:
Cartoon about the misadventures of Bert Raccoon and his friends who together try to stop the greedy Aardvark Cyril Sneer from destroying the Evergreen Forest. The series was a spin-off from the popular tv specials The Christmas Raccoons (80), The Raccoons On Ice (81), The Raccoons and the Lost Star (83) and The Raccoons: Let’s Dance (84).
posted by Aaron on 8-16-2007 at 6:01 am
My daddy, almost every night, used to make up storys to tell me at bed time. They were of Princess Melissa and Snowball her magical cat that could morph into anything. I loved theses tales as a kid. I looked forward to the adventers in the land of castles. They somtimes had some lesson to be learned, this happend if I had been naughty that day. The storys always ended happly. I now find myself telling a revamped version to my nieces Princess Madison and Princess Chloe.
posted by Melissa B on 8-16-2007 at 6:18 am
My Dad told me episodic stories about “Ralph The Bunny.” He was a young boy bunny, whose adventures always had titles rather similar to whatever I was doing or going through at the time: “Ralph The Bunny’s Halloween Costume” “Ralph The Bunny Goes to Grandma’s House” “Ralph The Bunny Meets the Tooth Fairy.”
A year ago, at Easter, I gave Dad a stuffed rabbit- Ralph, “live” 20 years later. And since then, he and I have been pranking each other with the bunny, passing the bunny back and forth, mailing it to friends, bribing waiters and bartenders in restaurants to bring it to the table, etc. He got me good with it on my birthday, and I’ve got to come up with something really good to pass it back. Hmmm.
posted by E on 8-16-2007 at 6:25 am
i babysat this crazy girl for like, 3 weeks last spring. we would go play in the park and the only way i could get her still was by telling her stories (her command) which involved her (her command). they had to be scary stories (i used huge pumpkins, skeletons, etc.) where the scary characters tried to get her, and then i’d yell or grab her shoulders or something like the skeleton got her. she was crazy.
posted by Katie on 8-16-2007 at 7:38 am
my grandmother used to write stories for us and send them to my parents to read to us. she ALWAYS had talking animals or elves and fairies or other fun stuff in them. the main thing i remember from them is an owl that would hoot “who, who, who cooks for you?” every time i hear an owl, i think of that.
posted by mri on 8-16-2007 at 7:44 am
When I was really little my dad read Where the Wild things are so many times he had it memorized. He would always do actions and change his voice. Then, when my twin brother and I were older, he read Greek mythology to us. Those were always good stories.
posted by Sally on 8-16-2007 at 9:03 am
My mother was very manipulative with her storytelling. For example, she loved to tell tales while playing “Let’s Pretend” And it would always involve me being an exiled princess forced into hard labour by an eveil witch. Then she would pretend to be the witch, hand me a can of Bon Ami and tell me to get to work scrubbing the bathroom. Of course in the end, my “princess” character was set free from bondage. But it took me years to realise Mom just wanted me to clean the bathroom.
posted by Allison on 8-16-2007 at 9:16 am
My dad actually used to sing me and my sister to sleep, we still can sing all of those songs.
As for stories, he’d read from the book The Wonder Clock, which was a book of old fairy tales that I loved. But he had two main stories that he made up that were the same but a little different each time - How Percy Penguin got his name, and How Cookie Monster learned to make cookies. My mom would sometimes chime in with crazy adventures on a yellow submarine (I think we all know now what that was influenced from…)
Much like the above reader with ralph the bunny, 25 or so years later Percy the Penguin is a running joke in my family, and we have many stuffed penguins. :)
posted by Sue on 8-16-2007 at 12:07 pm
A lot of research has been done on child development and one thing they’ve discovered is the value of repetition. That’s why “Blue’s Clues” shows the same episode five days in a row. (Read Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” for more information). But what I remember, and what I believe has an immense value, is repeating the story ‘wrong’. My parents used to read “Jack and the Beanstalk” to me all the time as a child. But every time they read it, something was wrong. The cow was traded in for magic… socks or something.
“Hey!” I would say, “That’s not right! It’s magic BEANS!”.
I think this is a great way for children to learn. Picking out errors, thinking critically, and other skills are enforced early on.
posted by Mike on 8-16-2007 at 2:39 pm
so great. maybe i’ll tell my kids stories about a raccoon named agamemnon. & “the raccoons: let’s dance” sounds completely formidable. wow.
posted by Becky on 8-17-2007 at 12:40 am