"Please! Pleeeeeeeeease!" begged Jamie. "I need those shoes. They are so cool. Nobody else at school has them yet. I will be so envied if I wear them tomorrow."

"But Jamie, they cost $149.00," said his father. "That's ridiculous for a pair of sneakers. You'll grow out of them while they're still new and then they'll just sit around catching dust. Anyway, I can't afford to pay that much for a pair of shoes. I don't even pay that much for my own shoes."

"I need those shoes, Dad. I'll wear them every day," Jamie said as he grasped his father's hand and looked pleadingly into his face. "I'll do extra chores to pay for them. You won't have to give me an allowance for a month! I'll remember to feed the fish. I'll walk Barfy every day. I'll wash the dishes and I won't complain. I promise. Please. Please. Pleeeeeeease!"

Frank Asher looked guiltily at his ten-year old son. Poor kid. He looked so unhappy. He wanted these shoes so badly. Frank remembered feeling that way himself as a child. It seemed so cruel to say no and prolong Jamie's misery. And he couldn't bear it for his son to think of him as ungenerous.

"Well, all right Jamie. I guess I can charge them. But this is just between us guys, okay? You'd better not tell your mother. She'll hit the roof if she knows we paid this much for a pair of shoes."

Frank smiled with pleasure at the joy on Jamie's face and ignored the tiny prick of doubt and shame he felt in some deep, secret place. Tina was too uptight about money and budgets and all that stuff, he told himself. In some ways his wife reminded him of his mother, a widow who had raised him on a secretary's meager salary and carefully counted every penny she gave him. Thank goodness for Aunt Gertie. At the thought of his great aunt who had lived with them for many years, a memory of her slipping a twenty dollar bill in his pocket behind his mother's back flashed into his mind. Good old Aunt Gertie. She always came through in a pinch. His tightwad mother never suspected a thing.

Again the twinge of shame. Again, Frank ignored it. He gave his son a conspiratorial wink as they carried the shoes to the cashier's counter. I'm nothing like my mother, he thought with satisfaction.

"I'm sorry, sir. Your card was declined," said the cashier as she handed back his credit card.

Damn! Is that one maxed out too? Frank thought to himself. "There must be some mistake," he said aloud. "Here. Try this one." Frank handed her another credit card.

"Sorry. That one's declined too," she said after a moment.

Jamie looked anxiously up at his father. "Well that's ridiculous," said Frank. "What's the matter with your computer? You should have that fixed," he said angrily. Frank pulled out his checkbook. "You do take checks, don't you?" he asked sarcastically.

"Of course, sir," said the cashier. Frank hurriedly wrote a check and thrust it at her with his driver's license. In a moment he and Jamie were walking toward the door with the treasured shoes clasped tightly in Jamie's arms.

"Give me the bag for a second, son," said Frank. Jamie looked questioningly at his father as he handed over the bag containing the shoes. Frank found what he was looking for and gave the bag back to Jamie. As they passed the trash can by the front door, Frank tossed in the wadded up receipt and gave his son another wink. "Don't forget. It's our secret," he said.

"Sure, Dad. I won't tell."

Frank's slow and silent drive home belied the chatter of confused thoughts rushing through his mind. Tina's going to be furious when the bank sends back another bounced check, he thought. Slowly, his shame turned to anger. Darn it! Why does she always have to give me such a hard time about money? She can be so tight sometimes just like my mother. Always making a big deal about every dollar I spend.

His anger turned into self-pity. I would have given anything to have been the first kid at school with the newest style of shoes. But I was always the last! For a moment a tiny, secret part of him enjoyed the tragedy of growing up poor. The world can be very cruel, he thought philosophically. Something about the tears welling up in his eyes felt bitter sweet. He imagined himself as the sad and pitiful hero of a tragic drama, like Frank McCourt, the poor Irish boy in the movie Angela's Ashes. The idea gave him comfort.

And then, as he turned into his driveway, his thoughts took another turn. I'm nothing like the irresponsible alcoholic father in that movie, he thought with grim satisfaction. I hardly drink at all. I work hard. I give my son everything he wants and needs. His self-satisfaction swelled into pride, and he sat up a little straighter as he turned off the car key. Jamie will never have to suffer like that Irish kid. I'm a really good father to my son.

I'm a good father, he repeated to himself, nodding his head decisively and smiling warmly at Jamie as he got out of the car. A good father, he thought again, pushing down the growing nausea in the pit of his stomach as he opened the kitchen door.

A good father!



Discussion Questions

1. Frank wants to be a good father to his son. What are some of his positive parenting qualities? What are some of his negative qualities?

2. The healthy Queen promotes lawful order and moral virtue in society by wielding her authority with caring, mercy, and compassion. Does Frank appear to be a caring, nurturing parent? Does this make his inner Queen healthy and positive? Why or why not?

3. What does Frank's willingness to write a bad check say about his moral ethic? What does it say about his Queen?

4. Consider Frank's relationships with his mother, wife, and son. Who, in each of these relationships, appears to have a healthier sense of personal authority? Who appears to have a healthier sense of responsibility toward the family and society? Who assumes the role of victim in each of these relationships?

5. Describe Frank's Shadow Queen. What factors in his childhood appear to have contributed to its formation?

6. Consider your own history. Who, if anyone, in your family exhibited qualities of a Shadow Queen? How did the attitudes and behaviors of this person influence the development of your own Queen archetype?

7. What impact do you think Frank's Shadow Queen will have on his son?

8. If Frank wanted to heal his Queen archetype, what changes would have to occur in him? What risks would he have to take?

9. Do you recognize any Shadow Queen qualities in yourself? If so, answer question #8 as it pertains to you.



Discussion

The Queen's desire to nurture otherness with warmth and compassion is a natural and powerful part of all of us. When conscious and fully developed, our Queen fosters orderly, ethical, and loving relationships by honoring individual differences and being an encouraging, enabling, and healthily sacrificial mentor and guide to her family and community. But every archetype has both a positive and negative pole, and every good quality can turn bad if we are unconscious of how and why we use it. For example, when we are ruled by our emotions and fail to think a situation through with logic and reason, our choices are based on how we feel rather than on what is truly appropriate to the situation. It makes little difference whether we consider our emotional motivations to be "positive" (for example, caring, generosity, and compassion for another's discomfort), or whether they are based in negativity like hurt, blame, anger, or self-pity. In either case, our failure to consider the consequences of our nurturing activities can lead to negative results. By being overly emotional and sentimental and by disregarding the need for fair and reasonable standards, Shadow Queens can unconsciously teach those who are dependent upon them to be selfish, demanding, and insensitive of the needs of others. A pervasive problem associated with the Shadow Queen is the inability to represent herself fully. The Shadow Queen feels unworthy and believes that her own needs are not as important as those of others. Lacking a sense of her own value, she has a powerful need for love and acceptance and a deep fear of disappointing, annoying, or inconveniencing others. One consequence is that she often becomes an unauthentic martyr who makes unhealthy sacrifices.

Another consequence is that she becomes a victim who must either give up wanting anything for herself or else obtain what she wants by manipulating situations from behind the scenes. People like this unconsciously abdicate their authority and give it away to others whom they consider more entitled. Then, utterly convinced that what they want is the correct and loving thing, they tell themselves that their secretive, dishonest behavior is necessary and inevitable in the face of opposition from the more powerful other.

Examples are rife in mythology, history, and literature. Stereotypically, manipulativeness is often assigned to females. For instance, the spiteful and vindictive Hera, wife of Zeus, King of the gods in Greek mythology, was always sneaking around her husband's back manipulating situations so as to undermine his authority and have her own way. But we need to remember that it is not only women who possess this archetypal energy. In truth, the Shadow Queen is every bit as present in males as it is in females. One only has to take a brief glance at the history of the papacy or the British monarchy to see the strong presence of the Shadow Queen in the many men who schemed and plotted behind the scenes to acquire authority they professed to eschew.

A final characteristic of the Shadow Queen is that she can lack selective values. One who does not think with logic, clarity, and discrimination has little sense that one value should have higher priority than another and thus has neither the motive nor the means for improvement, either morally or otherwise. If all the Shadow Queen wants to do is mother all, accept all, give all, and forgive all, then any person, value, law, religious belief, moral code, or political movement is as good as another. She will nurture them all, willy-nilly, and the results can be as disastrous as the King's single-minded idealism and perfectionism.

This Shadow Queen shows up in the sentimental and sacrificial parent who will not punish the children for wrongdoing or correct it in his or her mate, thus subtly encouraging irresponsible, spoiled behavior. Having repressed the capacity for clear moral reasoning, such a person believes she must always sympathize, excuse, affirm, and forgive. She does not want to acknowledge or confront evil, nor will she hold the partner or the children responsible for dishonest, antisocial, or immoral behaviors when it would clearly be in their best interest to do so. This kind of Shadow Queen not only lacks moral maturity, but is also naively vulnerable to being taken advantage of and victimized by others, and too willing to martyr herself to unworthy causes.