Christopher Robin was a Snowflake

"Personally I think Christopher Robin was a snowflake who needed to get over it." - Nakota Publishing, at Vox Popoli

In yesterday's post I shared the tale of how A. A. Milne ruined the relationship between he and his son Christopher Robin Milne.

My wife proposed the same idea that NP did when I shared the tale of how the runaway success of Winnie the Pooh made it impossible for Christopher Milne to escape the spotlight and threw him into a spiral of bitterness and eventual estrangement from his parents.

He could have chosen a different path.

Yes, he could have. He could have said "fine, my dad loved me and was inspired by my childhood, enough so that he wrote a series of books which made me famous. Great, give me your teddy bear to sign."

People have gone through much worse and shone. Yet not all people are created equally. Sure, Mr. Milne may have been blaming his own failure to thrive on his dad. And maybe he was a wimp. A gamma.

Man up, Christopher Robin.

Yet still:

Vespers

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

God bless Mummy. I know that's right.
Wasn't it fun in the bath to-night?
The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.
Oh! God bless Daddy - I quite forgot.

If I open my fingers a little bit more,
I can see Nanny's dressing-gown on the door.
It's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood.
Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.

Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed,
And pull the hood right over my head,
And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,
And nobody knows that I'm there at all.

Oh! Thank you, God, for a lovely day.
And what was the other I had to say?
I said "Bless Daddy," so what can it be?
Oh! Now I remember it. God bless Me.

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.


AMOG Christopher Milne all you like, but having your dad publish a famous poem featuring your faltering bedtime prayers?

Christopher had a reason for anger, and that anger ate him.

It's hard to escape the shadow of our fathers. And A. A. Milne's shadow was long indeed.

Alpha Game 2011

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