Humperdink's lesson to all

MIRA SUCHAROV

My almost-five-year-old daughter isn't sure about Dr. Seuss these days. Hop on Pop, with its whimsical rhymes, has long been a favorite at our house. So has Horton Hears a Who – especially since she saw the movie version with her Babba Faye and again at our neighborhood community centre's family movie night. But Hooper Humperdink...? Not Him! has confounded her moral sensibilities.

The 1976 book sees a young narrator planning a party. "I'll ask Alice, I'll ask Abe, I'll ask Bob and Bill and Babe." (The tale doubles as a reminder of the alphabet.) But Hooper Humperdink is not going to make the cut. Why? "Because Humperdink's a party pooper." (Spoiler alert: Humperdink ultimately makes it to the A-list – or H-list – and everyone parties lavishly ever after.)

We've been reading this book at bedtime for a couple of years now, but recently I have noticed a look of concern register on my daughter's face because, while the party-pooper accusation seems at first blush a plausible justification for his exclusion, one still empathizes with the guy.

What gives me pause is thinking about what it means to be a party pooper, a downer or a killjoy. We know that pro-social behavior generally entails exhibiting a positive, get-along-go-along attitude. "This party sucks!" Humperdink might have said about an earlier gathering. "There are only babyish, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey games. I wanna go home and play with my X-Box." Maybe it was his negativity that kept him off the invite list.

But maybe his spoiler demeanor arose instead from his moral compass. "This party's gotten out of hand: the kids have broken into the parents' liquor cabinet. I wanna go home and get out of harm's way." Or perhaps he had been teased or bullied and refused to submit to the humiliation.

The story provides an important opportunity for thinking about empathy and narratives. The protagonist tells us that Humperdink is a party pooper, but we're not privy to how Humperdink experienced those previous social gatherings. The one-sided tale forces us to think a little harder about Humperdink's version.

When I was in high school – a leader by all institutional accounts – I stood apart from my peers when it came to drugs and alcohol. No doubt there were many parties I wasn't invited to once my friends learned that their adolescent experimenting made me uncomfortable. Surely, had I felt more secure than the average teenager, I would have been able to avoid projecting a judgmental demeanor at these parties, but such is the way I coped with my "counter-rebelliousness." Why I chose a different path during high school is harder to discern since all of us, by all accounts, became kind-hearted, productive members of society. (And most of us have remained close friends, to boot.)

Hooper Humperdink is a concise and intriguing novel for what's left to our imagination. But it also provides a teachable moment for talking with our kids about social roles, personal choices and what it means to be cool – particularly in the context of seeking peer approval.

Coolness, of course, is an overused term, originally referring to an I-don't-care quality, a lack of pretension or a natural self-assuredness. Think James Dean. Once the term caught on, though, it arguably took on a directive of conforming to those very standards that others had already set. This resulted in a perversion of the original concept, giving rise to often-desperate attempts to ape the style, dress and behavior of those around you. Out with individuality and in with the herd mentality.

When we're talking with our kids about peer pressure, their evolving identity and the importance of listening to their own moral compass, it's unlikely that we'll be able to redefine the essence of cool for them. (What parents think is cool usually has the opposite meaning for their kids – at least as they approach adolescence.) But we can remind them of the necessity of putting themselves in other people's shoes as they decide who merits their social attention.

Interestingly, Horton Hears a Who, penned more than two decades earlier, is all about listening to others – even when they are nearly invisible to the naked eye. As that story showed, people who we don't immediately notice are no less worthy of our attention. They have stories and experiences that can enrich our own. More subtly, Hooper Humperdink reminds us that we should peel away the thin layer separating projected image from others' reality.

Reflecting on these childhood tales can help us understand how others have come to where they are, how to understand why they do what they do and how to build a sense of community where everyone feels valued and no one feels compromised.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University.

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