Passing-Thought

The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies: Its observations, concerns, and message.

The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies makes several observations about the problem of greedy “gimmie” behavior in children. The first observation is that children are only partially to blame for their greedy behavior. Their greedy behavior has an environmental factor: exposure to a market full of things appealing to children gives rise for the occasion of greed. That’s not all, however. Greedy behavior is primarily the result of a parental factor: parents tend to give their children too much of whatever they want from these things, whenever children throw a fit about not having them. Thus, the behavior of children under these circumstances depends largely upon the behavior of their parents. Parents who try to alleviate a social scene by giving kids what they fuss for are effectively training their children to be greedy and to fuss in order to get what they want! The parental quick-fix actually recycles and perpetuates the very social embarrassment they are hoping to alleviate themselves of in the public eye! Ultimately it is not the greedy behavior of the children that is the main problem, but the resulting public shame that behavior brings to the family.

The book presents two basic competing parental philosophies (thesis/antithesis) through the plot’s character development of Mama Bear and Papa Bear. First, Mama Bear in the story represents the voice of law and social order, restraint and education, who desires her children to grow up and act like mature adults. Papa Bear, functions as an antithesis, a mediator for the children (“you’re only young once” and “cubs will be cubs”). When all else fails, like a good pragmatist, he even tries out his wife’s education philosophy. Neither the father’s philosophy of childhood nature, nor his wife’s philosophy of maturity bring resolution to the family conflict. In the end, only the wisdom of the grandparents provides the synthesis that actually saves the family from shameful greedy behavior. The synthesis addresses the environmental factor: it suggests that the children decide upon one thing they want to get ahead of time in order to remove the decision making from the hostile environment. The synthesis also combines the two parental philosophies: it restrains them from getting too much, but still allows them to get something they want. If they break this family contract and fuss, they return empty handed. In this manner, peace, harmony, and love are restored to the family so that they might occupy space together in the public eye without disgrace or embarrassment.

But that’s not the end of the story. The family gains something it didn’t have at the beginning of the story: family pride. No longer are they victims of their environment or under shame in the public eye, but can together despise that shameful “gimmie” behavior when they see it occurring in other families, and can leave as a family triumphant.