What the Sneeches Teach Us

My daughter has been on a Dr. Seuss reading kick which has been brought on by her school making a big deal about his upcoming birthday.

Last night we were reading about the Star Bellied Sneeches. I love Seuss, there is usually always a moral message in all those funny words. If you aren't familiar with the story here is a quick synopsis (skip the next paragraph if you have read it recently):

There are two type of Sneeches, those with stars on their bellies and those without. The first think they are better than the latter. A schmoozy sales-guy, McBean, shows up with a contraption to add stars to bellies. Those without stars pay him to go through his machine. They then think they are equal to the other Sneeches, who proceed to pay McBean to remove their stars, ya know, cause they are so last season. Now the first want their stars off and so on and so on. McBean makes a fortune as they add and remove stars. When they are out of money he takes off and laughs that you can't teach a Sneech. But he was wrong, after he leaves they all realize that stars don't matter and they all decide to get along. The End.

While reading it with my six year old we talked about how the Sneeches are dumb because one group spent so much money to look like someone else instead of being happy with who they were and the other group taunted the first because they didn't look like them. And McBean took advantage of the situation and became rich selling an image.

I talked to her about how that is applicable to us as well. There will always be those flaunting their looks and insisting we must buy a magic product or name brand clothes to be as good as they are. However, it's a desperate race that no one wins except the McBean's out there selling us their products to turn us into something we aren't. We talked about how it's good to take care of yourself and there is nothing wrong with wanting to look our best and buying products to do that, but we shouldn't get caught in the race of trying to be better than others, or just like someone else.