Teaching Consent ... with Dr Seuss?

We’ve all read “Green Eggs and Ham” by Dr. Seuss, where Sam follows our main character around trying to get him to eat the oddly colored food, haven’t we? As parents, we adore that book, because we use it to teach our kids that if they try new foods, no matter how “gross” they look, they will probably find out that they like them. Much like a parent, Sam offers a wide variety of incentives and enticements. However, in typical Seuss fashion, he goes to silly extremes, to teach with humor and rhyme. 

Image by  U.Leone (Creative Commons CC0)

Many years ago, I stumbled across a young author named Cory O’Brien, who has a knack for retelling myths and stories with a flair all his own (a style which he describes as “it's 3AM and I'm drunk on chat”). In August of 2015, he posted his version of the story, which he titled “Green Eggs and Ham is about the Nature of Consent.” My initial reaction was, of course, laughter. His retelling of all the ridiculous things that Sam tries to get this guy to eat the food was a more “real world “version, which is both scary and funny for being so extreme. When he reached his conclusion, though, I was a bit dumb struck: this children’s story is technically a tale of “relentless psychological torture.” 

With all the preparation I have done recently to facilitate consent discussions at a recent convention and the reading for my upcoming Consent Culture course at Cherry Hill Seminary, this story has been on my mind. Because while I think that Cory O’Brien’s conclusion is correct, I think that his title is inaccurate. Green Eggs and Ham is not a story about the Nature of Consent. Instead, it tells a story about coercion and not accepting “no” as an answer if you want something strongly enough.

Let that sink in for a bit. Go ahead, I can wait.

Has the full horror sunk in yet? The fact that in order to teach our kids that they should eat their vegetables, we are perfectly happy to also send the message that it is okay to pressure someone relentlessly until they just give up? That we somehow think that by tying this message up with funny illustrations and nonsensical rhymes, it makes this message okay?

Is “eat your vegetables” so important that “consent doesn’t matter” can be ignored? I don’t think that it is.

Obviously, I am not saying that Dr. Seuss is responsible for rape culture. It existed long before he did, and I seriously doubt that the thought even entered his mind. But that is sort of the point - we send underlying messages about things all the time without thinking about them. In order to change the existing culture, we need to start thinking about those things.

Let’s picture rape culture as a wall of bricks. 

Photo by Alexander Kliem (Creative Commons CC0)

Each time we unintentionally teach our children that consent doesn’t matter, no matter how subtly, we add another brick to that wall. We unintentionally reinforce the foundation of the very thing that we are attempting to dismantle. If we want to instead craft a culture of consent, we also need to be aware of the underlying messages that we send our children.

Please, continue to read this book to your children. It’s funny and silly, and full of learning opportunities. Just please remember, it is not just a chance to teach them that vegetables can be yummy.

It is also a chance to start a dialogue: “Wow, that Sam guy had no respect for boundaries, did he. What could he have done differently?”  And it's a chance to explain to our children that "no" really does mean "no."