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We Are All George

ByJessica Burke

I don’t know when I first met George. I was certainly a little girl. Like most people my age or younger, he was someone I enjoyed during childhood. We lost touch for a while until I had kids who found him. 

With my first toddler in my lap, I became reacquainted with my old friend. But it was my third child who loved George the most, until, recently, her baby brother, my fifth, developed a love for George that was greater than hers. Lately, I’ve been spending time with my youngest and George multiple times a day. There are plenty of imitators, but we go for the real George, the George created and written by H. A. and Margaret Rey. 

George is a good little monkey, but he’s also very curious. I think this is why George has appealed to my toddlers so much. Is there anything they can relate to more than wanting to be good, but letting their curiosity win? For both my toddlers and George, nothing gets them into trouble more than allowing their curiosity to lead them to do the very things they know they shouldn’t. And George does get into a lot of trouble. He makes the biggest of messes (yep, the toddler, too), winds up in jail (perhaps not jail, but my toddler is sometimes confined to his crib), and hurts himself (something every large family knows about!) George has two hospitalizations: one for a broken leg and the other for surgery after eating something he knew he shouldn’t!

George’s transgressions often grieve him. You see him crying a few times over what he did. He doesn’t want to be bad. Like George, I don’t think my toddlers wanted to be bad, even though they often are. My youngest, still a toddler, is in the stage where he confesses his wrongs before he has even been caught. He knows he shouldn’t have done whatever it was that he did. It is hard not to laugh at him as we offer correction and help him deal with the consequences of his wrongs.

 Sometimes, though, George just makes everything worse when he tries to fix it all. When he is trying to write a letter and ends up with ink everywhere, he makes a huge mess as he tries to clean it. That leads to him letting out a whole pen full of pigs. When the pigs don’t fix the problem, he steals a cow. It just keeps getting worse! 

But George has a friend, the man with the yellow hat, who loves him and helps him. The man with the yellow hat often saves the day and fixes all of George’s problems. George causes chaos; the man with the yellow hat restores order for George. I think there is comfort for little ones in this. They are wise enough to see how bad George can be, and yet someone still loves him and comes to rescue him. When my toddlers—even my teens—sin, they need to know that their sin doesn’t change my love for them. Both when I’m correcting and when everything seems to be going as it should, it is good for me to tell my kids that what they do doesn’t affect how I love them. 

They also need to know that I can’t fix everything for them. The man with the yellow hat is limited in what he can offer George, and I am limited in what I can offer my kids. But there is better news for my kids than what is found in the pages of the Reys’ books. Someone better than a man with a unique hat, someone even better than a mom with a fierce love for her children, came so that all of our sins, no matter how bad, could be fixed. His remedy, his blood, is the only cure for us. He even promises that he will work all things for our good—even those things we managed to mess up terribly. 

I’m going to continue to snuggle with my toddler and read and read George again and again as long as my son wants to. Hopefully, we can both remember how we are all George. No matter how hard we try, we just can’t stop being bad. And in that, may we remember that for us, no matter how curious or naughty, there is great hope.   

Jessica Burke
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