How well you taught your child to be able to make wise choices will be evident in how they behave when no one is watching. When a bad idea enters your child’s head, what they do is based on the experiences they have of being guided by a solid foundation of making good choices. While you are watching your children you teach them. When you leave them to their own devices, they have only the gift you have given them to be able to make the right choice.
In the classic story by Dr. Seuss, the cat comes into the house when the mother is not there. He is the first idea the children have. The cat is trying things that the kids feel they couldn’t do while a parent is at home. He represents their imagination, the moment of pure freedom, unashamed to go for some danger, unafraid to be reckless.
The goldfish is always there. The goldfish is a constant that stays in the house all the time. The fish is there to help the child decide.
Think of the inside of the house as the inside of the child’s head. The cat comes in, he is full of bad ideas. When the mother is not watching, what will he try? Only what the child will let him get away with.
Clearly, the fish is a gift from their mother. The fish is their conscience, meaning their ability to judge right from wrong. When a bad idea comes into the house, full of reckless behavior, will the child have the gift from their mother of the ability to judge right from wrong, or will the cat rule the house and cause a mess?
Well, the cat does start to get wild. He picks up the fish and bounces it around. This is to say, the freedom the child feels, the sudden ability to do whatever they want causes their ability to judge right from wrong to get picked up and toss around. Suddenly the cat goes too far, and the fish is dislodged from it’s original home to a pot.
Now the experience of misbehaving once has thrown their conscience into a new spot. The ability to judge right from wrong is coming from a new perspective. The child was having fun.
Wait a second, misbehaving is fun!
But wait, it’s still wrong. So the fish wins. The cat leaves.
But he didn’t give up, he comes back with Thing 1 and Thing 2. The cat in the hat says they are tame, and the children welcome them, albeit shaking their hands. But the fish knows right away to be wary.
Soon Thing 1 and Thing 2 cause even more of a ruckess than the cat. This is the children pushing the boundary even further after learning that misbehaving was fun. But finally, the children take control, finally listening to the fish once and for all, and physically gets the Things out.
Then the cat comes back. The same creative energy that taught the children that pushing the limits of wildness and recklessness can be fun, comes up with a way to put everything back together. He even puts the fish back in the correct spot.
The lesson of the book is as much for the parents as it is for the kids. It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how. When the mother is watching her children’s every move, the cat in the hat (their imagination) is outside, waiting at the door. When the mother trusts the children and lets them play on their own, the cat in the hat (their imagination) is there ready to open the door and jump on the opportunity to play and really let the imagination rule.
The cat in the hat is teaching the children how to have fun on a rainy day. The cat in the hat is the mischief they secretly wish they could cause but they know they aren’t allowed. This is what makes the cat in the hat look so bad, he is being reckless and making a mess… but if he cleans it up, and leaves a lasting impression, is the price of a broken rake and a ruined cake really an unfair price to pay? It’s obvious this is a small price to pay for the lesson the children learn from letting their imagination in.
They know the cat will fall if he juggles all those things and bounces on the ball. What we are seeing is the children imaging the type of trouble they could cause, but instead reasoning themselves out of it. The goldfish is the children’s voice of reason. Because the children are making up the scenario for both things, we can see that the cat in the hat is being kept at bay, teaching the children what it means to go too far, and that they are truly good kids who don’t want to cause trouble.
This is beautifully done that the reader can draw this conclusion without the author having to say, this is how you become a good kids who don’t want to cause trouble. But that’s what happens, as we read the book we can see the kids are making the right choices. At first they are bored. They mess around with some household items and toys, they break some things, and they realize they went too far and they clean it up and act like nothing happened before the mother comes home. Then they have to decide, will they tell her?
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Donnie Ray Jones on Flickr Under CC License
