Oh, Curious G. I love you, but it's time to start listening.

Dear Man In The Yellow Hat,

You have a lovely, curious monkey we all love very much. And curiosity is a very good thing to have. But I must say, after years of reading your books, I have some concerns.

We'll ignore the horrors that take place in the first book when you poached him out of his natural habitat and brought him home (the book was written in a different time, so I suppose I'll give you a pass for that...)

But now, after you've lived with George for a long time, you may want to consider changing your parenting behavior.

Whenever you go to a new place with George, you immediately walk away to get something and say "Be good George." The rest of us know exactly what is going to happen next. Spoiler alert: George wants to be good, but he is too curious.

The minute you leave he quickly sneaks off and gets into some sort of trouble that impacts a significant number of people in your community. We know he doesn't mean any harm, but perhaps you might want to think about not letting him out of your sight. He could come with you to get the movie tickets. He could even help you count out the money. Now he's not getting into trouble, and you are having a meaningful learning experience!

Parenting classes might be beneficial at this point. George will never change his behavior and follow your directions unless you change yours. And sir, losing him once is OK. We've all been there. Twice? OK, it's hard to keep up with a monkey. But in every single book? You have a problem that you have the power to change.

In fact, in Curious George and the Fire Fighters, he even wanders off on a school trip, switches up all the fire fighter gear, and slows down the fire truck from getting to a real fire. But in the end it is all OK because he's cute. I fear he learned this pattern of behavior (don't listen, sneak away, do whatever you want, then be cute and all is forgiven) at home.

We love your monkey, we really do. But he's influencing our little monkeys. Toddler-hood is hard enough for us parents without George as a role model for our already anti-authority tykes. Let's unite in this crazy war called parenting. Let's join forces. You set some expectations for your monkey to listen, and I'll do the same for mine.

Thank you,

A Parent (AKA the mother of "Don't call me H! I am Curious George! Call me GEORGE!!  CALL ME GEORGE!!!!" )