rationalizing

[malka]

James James
Said to his mother,
"Mother", he said, said he,
"You must never go down
To the end of the town
Without consulting me."

My young niece and I have been reading A.A. Milne poems together. By "reading together" I mean that I read and she listens while disassembling the other book with her feet, but that's pretty standard when reading to a small and active child. I've been reading the poems pretty much straight, although I did adjust the line that referred to "a baby of [her age, of which she's very proud, thank you very much]."

Yesterday we read the James James Morrison Morrison poem. I really like that poem, for a number of different reasons, but it does not make my feminist self happy.

I was thinking about it this morning on the way to the bus: Well, it is amazingly patronizing in a gender-based way, but there's also the age difference between the characters. Other poetry in the collection expresses its focus on and sympathy with children by patronizing adults. Milne was writing poetry for a son, so it makes sense that the main characters in his poems would generally be small boys. It's okay. It's not a sexist thing.

And that? Not true. The poem does contribute to an unhealthy view of gender, especially when read to a small, fervently absorbing, child.

That does not make it a bad poem. That does not make it a poem I am unwilling to read to my niece. That does not make it a poem I am unwilling to recite to myself, or joke over with family. The unpleasant gender roles are simply a fact, like the slightly dodgy meter in the middle, or the fact that small American children whose parents drink tea when they are sick have no idea what you mean by "back in time for tea". All of these facts make it a less good poem; none of them are deal-breakers.

It was so tempting, even knowing better as I do, to say that one of these facts was not true and therefore not a problem. It is the far more accurate and courageous thing to say that it is true, and that I can live with that.