Did Beloved 'Green Eggs and Ham' Author Dr. Seuss Have Children?
By Bianca PiazzaMar. 2 2023, Published 12:28 p.m. ET
Known for his whimsical, rhyme-infused worlds filled with anthropomorphic creatures, fuzzy truffula timber, and profound morals, embellished children's author and cartoonist Dr. Seuss — born Theodor Seuss Geisel — left behind a colourful (although somewhat controversial) legacy. Whether you read Green Eggs and Ham or The Cat in the Hat as an impressionable child, something is for sure: Dr. Seuss's frame of work is timeless.
With the late Pulitzer Prize-, Emmy-, and Academy Award-winning author's birthday falling on March 2, lifelong lovers are curious to know extra in regards to the man in the back of the famed pseudonym. So, did the author who dedicated his existence to entertaining children ever build a circle of relatives of his personal?
Dr. Seuss changed into a stepfather when he married Audrey Geisel.
One thing (or Thing 1) to learn about Dr. Seuss is that he by no means had children of his own. Per PBS, the author wrote his first children's e-book, "an unpublished A-B-C book of creatures," in 1931, which used to be when his first wife, Helen Palmer — who used to be also a children's author — found out she used to be not able to undergo children.
This reality was addressed, as Dr. Seuss used to be once requested how a children's e-book creator might be childless. According to Philip Nel, author of Dr. Seuss: American Icon, he stated "You make them, I’ll amuse them.”
“I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” Philip Nel stated. “In some ways, he wrote for children to speak to that need in himself.”
After Helen Palmer's 1967 suicide (she experienced mental anguish due to worsening symptoms associated with partial paralysis from Guillain-Barré syndrome, not to mention her growing suspicions that her husband was having an affair), Dr. Seuss married his second wife, Audrey, in 1968. Though the two didn't start a family together, Dr. Seuss became a stepfather to her two daughters.
Audrey once told Reading Rockets that her husband treated his books like cherished youngsters.
"I've been requested repeatedly what was his favourite. First of all, he preferred each one; he used to be like a father. He preferred all his children, each in particular in the time in their conception," she explained.
Did Dr. Seuss like children?
Despite writing dozens of children's books throughout his celebrated career, rumors have swirled for years regarding Dr. Seuss's disdain for snot-nosed kids. As detailed by Smithsonian Magazine, this is likely merely a myth, as the author and his first wife, Helen, were reportedly devastated they couldn't have biological children.
To fill the emptiness, the couple brought an imaginary child into the world: Chrysanthemum-Pearl.
According to Encyclopedia.com, Dr. Seuss dedicated his second book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, to the invented child, whose "outlandish feats have been legend." Creating Chrysanthemum-Pearl supposedly "helped masks the Geisels’ anguish that Helen may not have children."
Though she was the first, Chrysanthemum-Pearl was one of many imagined children to appear on Dr. Seuss's Christmas cards. Philip Nel wrote that Norval, Wally, Wickersham, Miggles, Boo-Boo, and Thnud, were, too, showcased during the holidays. Additionally, one warm holiday card saw Dr. Seuss and Helen pose alongside six neighborhood children, further proving the author had a soft spot for innocent rug rats.
Whether he was once penning tales highlighting the topic of adoption (the quick story “Matilda, the Elephant with a Mother Complex,” and 1940’s Horton Hatches the Egg, in line with Smithsonian Magazine), inventing children with stupendous sewing abilities, or inviting community kids to star in his annual Christmas card, Dr. Seuss clearly had the thrashing heart of a father.
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