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The Berenstain Bears and the Big Question
By Marc | April 18, 2008
Before I get into this, you should know something. Our sons love the Berenstain Bears. They have about ten or so books, and we go to the library quite often to check more out, sometimes the same ones two or three times. When I was a young’un I remember reading Old Hat New Hat
Also, both Julie and I have great respect for Stan and Jan Berenstain, and their son Mike. They have had great success for many many years with hundreds of books published (252!). They have covered just about any topic under the sun from strangers to television to Santa Claus to doctor visits.
There are two things that make us cringe about the Bears, though.
Number one: Those parents. Mama Bear is almost always the voice of reason and wisdom, while Papa is a complete idiot who often carries his bad habits past the end of the book when Brother and Sister have already learned their lesson. And there is occasionally very little respect for each other as parents. One will butt in while the other is parenting and so there isn’t a real strong idea of backing each other up.
Number two is one of the books: The Berenstain Bears and the Big Question
It starts out with Sister hosting a tea party for her dolls. She says grace before dining, but has to ask her mother who God is, because it hadn’t been explained to her before. Papa overhears and butts in, coming up with a long-winded lecture about the nature of the universe or something.
Mama then cuts him off and takes Sister away to help with the Gardening. That’s where she offers her only a bit of information to this young inquisitive mind: “…all you need to remember is that God made everything…” Because everything is part of God’s Great Plan. Kind of vague, don’t you think? When confronted with some of the bad things in life, it throws Mama for a loop, so she has no answer.
Just then, as luck would have it, Gramps and Gran happen to be walking right by their fence on their way to “services at the chapel in the woods”. That gives Mama a wild idea about dragging the whole family to the chapel, Papa goes along after realizing he has no say in the matter. Also, evidently church is where we go when we “want to think about the Big Questions”. So, that’s the only place possible to have these epiphanies.
Will they get some questions answered? Will they learn more about the nature of God and how to have a relationship with Him? Will they be shown how to be better people? Will there at least be a life lesson to be learned? No.
They happened to pick the one day the slacker of a minister didn’t prepare a sermon. I’m not sure he flaked or not, but what he does next makes me wonder about his mental faculties: He turns over the services to the crowd. That’s like me letting go of the wheel of the car and letting the kids drive for a while. Sure, they love it, but it can get awfully dangerous awfully quick.
He tells them to think about the big questions of life and talk about them. Amazing, isn’t it, that they just happened to question who God is right before ambling off to church and having the lazy preacher hand over control to the crowd and have them talk about the big questions! Coincidence happens far too often in these books for them to be taken seriously.
Do they get some questions answered? Do the kids learn about who God is? Do they learn why bad things happen? Not on your life.
Instead we are treated to people standing up and thanking God for the stuff. Thanks for the land, thanks for family, thanks for this moment to embarrass myself by uttering the most inane gibberish I could think of.
On their way home, Sister asks if God made questions. Papa answered, “Yes…Mostly Questions.” That’s it.
What did we learn, kids? First of all, never go to the chapel in the woods. More than likely the preacher is tripping on mushrooms and forgetting his job. Secondly, parenting is not about teamwork. It’s about bullying your spouse for control of your children’s minds. Thirdly, misdirection and vagueness are the tools essential for answering deep questions. And finally, a blue polka dotted housecoat is perfect for every occasion.
As I have said before, we really respect the Berenstains, but this book is an insult to our four-year-old’s intelligence. He has had deeper insights into God than the questions The Big Question skirted.
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