THE STORIES WE TELL OUR CHILDREN - JACK AND THE BEANSTALK

So. 


I've been listening to a lot of kids' audiobooks lately (I have to catch myself because I always go to say "stories on tape", which is of course showing my age!) and I've heard the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" about fifteen times in a month. A couple of weeks ago the Gospel in Mass was the parable of the unjust steward, which finishes with the line "For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light."

I never quite got this story, I think as a child I couldn't wrap my head around it, because the Master, who has dismissed his servant without notice, commends him on his shrewd action even though he has defrauded him. It seems injustice is piled upon injustice, but the servant still wins approval in the end. As it is with many firstborn children, my main aim in life was to win the approval of my parents and others, and so I think I assumed that Jesus was also approving what the servant had done. The clue is the Master's unjust dismissal of the servant; God is a just ruler, so unlike many other parables, in this parable the Master is not supposed to represent God. The Master is a master of this world, drunk on his own power, which is also why the Master eventually praises the deceitfulness of his steward. 

Anyway, this is all very well, but what has this to do with Jack??

Well. Jack and his Mother are poor, starving, and desperate. Jack takes the cow, the only asset they have (which suddenly becomes a liability when she stops producing milk) and goes to sell her to scrape together enough money to feed themselves. There seems to be a devastating lack of foresight here; once the money from selling the cow is gone HOW are they planning to feed themselves THEN? One wonders, is it the effect of a brain that is not adequately nourished to behave in a reckless manner?

Jack comes home with a handful of beans (hunger impairing brain function?) but as so often happens when one makes a leap of faith, a magical beanstalk springs up in the garden! The starving boy climbs the beanstalk and comes home with a bag of cash. Hurrah! Jack and his mother are saved... At least for tonight. Short term gain, buys short term security. The hungry brain can only really be expected to think as far as their immediate needs. However, once Jack has experienced a full belly for a time, he unsurprisingly decides that's not enough.

So up he goes again, and this time he comes back with the hen that lays the golden eggs. Jack's mother speaks prophetically, "We'll never go hungry again!" Once we are accustomed to comfort, we seek security. Once he is no longer starving to death Jack is able to consider his future, and plan accordingly, so symbolically the next thing he takes is a source of passive income.

Finally, with their future needs provided for, Jack becomes simply an opportunist. Jack's final visit to the Giant's house sees him take for himself a total luxury, the magic harp. Finally, having reached security Jack sees there must be more to this world than simply having your bodily needs provided for, there is art, beauty, and perhaps one day, dare we hope, truth? But Jack has pushed his luck once too often, and of course the Giant comes after him. And we all know how the story ends; the Giant tumbles to his death, Jack is the victor who lives out his days in comfort and security. Naturally we pity Jack, a hungry child, and fear and loathe the Giant, who is big and scary and consumes little boys for breakfast!! Consequently children finish the story in no confusion that Jack was right to steal, because the good guys always prevail in our story, and because Jack is left standing at the end he must be GOOD.

However if we compare this story to the unjust steward, we can see maybe all is not as it seems.

We can see how hunger might blind someone, how those struggling under the weight of poverty might not have access to so-called simple solutions. Even if they could somehow arrange to have a bull service their cow, Jack and his mother don't have time to wait for her to calve again, they need food now. No matter how good a cow she is, she's never going to be able to compensate for the fact that they have no investments or assets, and no skills to fall back on. They also face the extreme risks associated with her being their only source of income, the length of her lactation is a finite resource. Why don't they have two cows, people say, that would be more sensible than relying on one! Heck, why don't they have a whole herd of cows, that makes more sense than two! And a few sheep too, why rely on just cows?? Well maybe keeping cows was all they'd ever known, maybe they did have more cows and they couldn't afford to feed them, maybe they don't have enough land to keep more than one cow... The unjust steward has spent a lifetime in loyal devotion, so when that loyalty is not rewarded by the protection of his master he too must act in a drastic manner to look after himself, and indeed only himself.

Both tales demonstrate how we justify our own sins when they are done to those we consider less than human, those who are different to us, those who don't appear to care about us, those who have more than us... After all, will the Giant really miss one of so many sacks of gold? What right has he to hold onto that wealth when others are starving? If we were in any doubt about his character he threatens to "grind his bones to make my bread!" I don't doubt that Jack was probably "a nice boy", I mean, in desperate times he was going out to sell the family cow, not steal from the next door neighbours. But it's easy to justify a crime against someone who would perpetrate the same crime on us. Similarly, when he is turned out by his master, the unjust steward wastes no time, repaying betrayal with betrayal is simple logic, especially when his master has so much and he has nothing.

In Jack's case the path of "small" sins, leads swiftly to much much bigger ones. We ought to keep this in mind then, when examining the links between poverty and crime. When one crosses the line of crime as a matter of necessity, particularly in his youth while his morality is still being formed, one has already consoled the conscience when it comes to future crimes. Desperation is a poor educator for conscience.

It could be argued too that it is this desperation that fosters Jack's eventual greed. We've heard of children rescued from dangerous home environments, found to be hoarding food in their bedrooms in foster homes because of a scarcity mentality. Scarcity mentality forces not only the poor into crime, but also helps those of us who are resource-rich to justify our lack of generosity. After all the end of the story says Jack and his mother never went hungry again, it doesn't say Jack and his mother set up an independent foundation to help feed all the hungry in their village. And the unjust steward only seeks to set himself up in comfort, he doesn't rally and unionise the other workers so none of them will suffer the same fate.

As you've probably guessed by now, Jack is not my favourite character, he's certainly not a role model for young men! But there is one small fact of redemption for him; Jack's first crime at least is unpremeditated. Jack's hand is forced by his starvation, he can see no further than his next meal. Jack should have paid attention at school... But what if he was so hungry he couldn't focus? What if he was so busy cutting wood to keep warm he forgot to do his homework? What if he was so devastated by his father's death that he was too depressed to study? The unjust steward is backed into a corner, he justifies himself that he has nothing to fall back on, no time to learn a new skill, and too much pride to beg. 

Essentially each is story about looking out for Number One. It's a story of fear-mongering about what the evil-overlords, all corrupted by power, might do to ME. We cannot trust anyone to care for us, so we must do whatever it takes to look after ourselves. After all, it is simple logic that if we all look after ourselves we will all be fine. What goes unexamined here is that we can busy ourselves so much with our own needs that we fail to see how our actions will impact on others. When our only concern is ME, we don't even have to justify it to ourselves that the authorities are traitors, or that those poorer than us aren't trying hard enough, any action is justified by the fact that it is in my interest.

Habitual selfishness is in some instances fostered by desperation, and in some instances the cause of our desperation. After all, Jack and his mother seem marooned together in poverty with no way out, no neighbours or relatives to call on to pull together and help them. The unjust steward also was alone in the world. His main concern was to pull together enough wealth to see him out in comfort. Why did neither have family or community to support them? Was it perhaps the constant turning inward toward themselves, that stopped them looking outward and upward to God to provide for them? Did this stop them finding the source of love, so they had no love for others? 

It seems that, yes, even in desperate times, God calls us to look outward instead of turning inward. I suppose this is why I didn't understand the story as a child, it didn't occur to me that the Master could be anything but good, or that the Giant could be anything but bad. And it didn't occur to me that the main characters might not be supposed to be role models, even if everything worked out in their favour at the end.

And it didn't occur to me to examine the story of Jack and the Beanstalk as anything more than an entertaining little story. We need to be careful about what we are feeding into our children's minds, because the lessons are likely to stick for longer than we realise. Children ask a lot of questions, but only in order to understand our reality, not to challenge that reality. We need to provide them with resources and opportunities that support their ability to learn right from wrong. If we present them with only selfish, subjective stories about how immoral actions can sometimes be justified, they will never develop any courage...And they're going to need courage.