"I am HORTON" a step parents lesson

My 8 year old daughter (by marriage) was reading Horton Hatches the Egg this evening. If you are a parent or have been a child you might remember the story. Lazy Mazie convinces Horton the elephant to take over sitting on her nest. This seems so ridiculous to us all, it fits right in with Dr Suess genre of stories that have ridiculous characters with challenging circumstances. I've read the story hundreds perhaps thousands of times. I can almost recite it by memory, yet tonight as I sat listening I was hit in the forehead with a reality. Dr Seuss wrote a story about dead beat parents, long long before we lableled them as such.

Now perhaps there is a children's literature Ph.D. out there somewhere who has examined the themes of Dr Suess's writing as they pertained to our social structure. However I doubt that when Horton Hatches an Egg was first published in 1940 he intended it to hit home like it did for me as my 8 year old read the story of her life. (See the below chart to see what the divorce rates were at the time of he wrote the story) It was as if a light switch had been flipped in my psyche as my daughter read the passage. I suddenly empathized with Horton like never before, "one hundred percent" I know how it feels to have taken on the responsibility of another mothers children.

"But Mayzie, by this time, was far beyond reach,Enjoying the sunshine way off in Palm Beach, and having such fun, such wonderful rest, Decided she'd NEVER go back to her nest"²

My thoughts began spinning "how could he know?" How could the old DR have spoken it so? I have loved his stories since before I could read, listening to my mother and father go through all those silly books indeed. I thought maybe I loved him because I grew up in San Diego where he lived and we would drive by his house in La Jolla and mom would point it out. I loved his silly stories. My dad would read them at bed time and leave out words or say the wrong word and I would correct him. They were great fun, and I have the same fun reading them with my 8 year old. Yet how could Dr Suess have known how poignant his story would be in 2012?

"I'm Horton" I thought, as she read Horton's plight. But I'm not alone, there are many out there mothers and fathers who brace up the tree, and sit tight. We forget that the man who was perhaps the most published children's writer to date had no children of his own. He understood the basis of human compassion. He saw the world through the lens of reality, not perfect and his stories reflected the wrongs of society.

I find new comfort in Horton Hatches an Egg, While I sit in the medical offices of my 3 step children, when I find myself bitter that their "lazie Mazie" mother is in the city of angels with few responsibilities, and not sending a dime. I will recite Horton's line "an elephant's faithful ONE HUNDRED PER CENT!" I will remember the day I took vows to my husband and to his wonderful loving 3 children. I will sit on this tree until these 3 precious children grow and can fly from the nest by themselves. I take comfort in knowing that Horton's 51 weeks were rewarded with "something brand new! AN ELEPHANT BIRD!!"

I have new faith that my time, sweat, tears, and joyful moments will mold great citizens of the world. Nurtured because I take my role seriously to be a mother to "lazie Mazie's" children and treat them not as my husbands baggage but the extension of myself that every child is to his/her parents. Scream out as loud as you like Mazie, in the end I will be rewarded and as the illustration shows Mazie ends up disgruntled in the corner of life.

Say what you like about his silly rythms but he spoke more truth then we realize at age 3,4,5,or 6 as we giggled through his silly stories. I'm over 40 and still learning from my favorite children's author thank you Theodore, I'll keep reading with delight!

Average divorce rate, (per 1,000 people)

1920-1929: 1.6
1930-33: 1.4
1934-39: 1.8
1940-46: 2.8
1947-64: 2.5
The economic hardship of the Depression made couples somewhat less likely to divorce, as individuals (especially women) stuck in unhappy marriages often decided to tough it out rather than risk financial ruin by leaving their spouses. The very different tensions caused by World War II, by contrast, brought a spike in the divorce rate, and divorce rates throughout the postwar period never fell back to levels as low as in the 1930s.¹

Other interesting stories on Dr Suess:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/12/23/021223crat_atlarge?currentPage=all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s42tbkFboTk

¹Historical Statistics of the United States: Bicentennial Edition, Colonial Times to 1970, Vol. 1 (Washington DC: 1975), p. 64, http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p1-03.pdf, accessed 2 February 2009.

²Horton Hatches an Egg, Dr Suess, 1940.