Jack and the Beanstalk

Children want total attention and engagement from adults at key times; at other times they want and need to be left to their own devices or with their friends.

For adults, it can be hard to give our full attention to anything, especially over a sustained period of time. Adult minds, as a rule, tend to be filled with conflicting impulses and thoughts that constantly compete for our attention. We have multiple responsibilities. We’re very busy. A child may want us to play or to read, and we may do it, but we may do it with only a fraction of our mind, and they sense that easily. Many a time I (jkz) have caught myself reading to one of my children but thinking about the next telephone call I have to make as soon as the child is asleep. Or reading a story and realizing that I was getting through the story but that I had no idea what the story was about. I was thinking universes of thoughts in between each line, if not each word.

Once, when I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open, I was telling my daughter a story about a lion, making it up as I went along. But five minutes later, in my tiredness, the lion had become a rabbit. She noticed. We had a good laugh about that.

When our son was about four, “Jack and the Beanstalk” was a favorite of his. He wouldn’t just let me read it once or twice and then move on to another story. He wanted to hear it over and over again at the same sitting. I loved the story, too, but it was hard for me to read it for the seventh or eighth time. Then I realized that he was hearing it each time as if for the first time. The deep theme of the milk running out and having to sell the cow, the tension of hiding from the giant in his castle and observing his covetousness, the challenge of stealing the giant’s gold and magic hen and singing harp, the thrill of being chased down the beanstalk, and of getting the ax from his mother just in time to cut it down and destroy the giant—these were real for him every time. His body would tense when the giant came in, and he would smile with delight as Jack tricked the giant each time.

Seeing the story through his eyes taught me that I, too, could be fully present each time I read it, even though part of my adult mind was resisting like crazy. Letting go of that, the story became like a piece of music, repetition of the essence. It is the same each time it is told or read, but it is also never the same. Realizing this expanded my world. “Jack and the Beanstalk” became part of my meditation practice for quite some time. It taught me to be present when I didn’t want to be present anymore. Once again, the child becomes the parent’s teacher. Fee Fi Fo Fum… we lumber about.