I decided on a whim to watch:
Target audience: Young children
Tree: Mother figure
Child: Self-insert / mirror to the reader'
The story is clearly about being grateful to your mother/parents, we are meant to be uncomfortable about the attitude of the child who takes these acts of giving for granted, and ultimately remember that it has been a while since we told our parents that we love them.
The line: "but not really" is obviously about the tree being sad the child is leaving. Happy she could help him, sad that the child is leaving for an undetermined amount of time. Silverstein didn't include this line in the animated version because he realized that it introduced ambiguity that a lot of people were evidently too retarded to resolve, and it didn't really impact the intended meaning (though it makes it less sad).
People seem to miss the fact that it is a children's book and that this must be taken into account when trying to analyze the meaning of the work. Can a child identify with a one sided romantic relationship? No, because it is a child. But mommy buying them an ice cream when they ask for one? Yes, every child has pestered their parents about getting something at some point. Even if they didn't, parents make countless small acts of self-sacrifice for their children without expecting thanks.
Am I missing something? !bookworms
The book that should really be controversial, is "The Rainbow fish". That one just has a straight up terrible message.
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I cannot think or comprehend of anything more cucked than letting people harvest your body. Honestly, think about it rationally. You are feeding, housing, and entertaining a man his whole life solely so he can enjoy your physical form.
As a giving tree, you are LITERALLY dedicating your entire life simply to please an ungrateful dipshit. It is the ULTIMATE AND FINAL cuck. Think about it logically
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That's it, I am getting a vasectomy, society won't make a cuck out of me!
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as an r-slured child i took this book literally and i was like that poor tree
i did not realize it was about parents until right noa
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i thought
the message was just about giving back in general. the most obvious 
example is with parents but it can apply to any relationship.
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Everyone has been the boy and everyone will be the tree. People think they wont ever be the tree but once you actually have a kid and you have a choice of you or your kid going hungry youll choose your kid. Its hard to teach them to be self sufficient, and many kids don't realize all their parents did to them until they are old. Plus i just dont think alot of people are wired to understand the ending. Even when a mother has nothing she can still be the rock for her child because it was never the apple or branches or trunk she loved but her that he loved.
There is lots of people who would just be happy to comfort someone and be around them I've been in the position of begging people to hang out with me and offering to buy them stuff just because I want to be around them. I do like helping alot
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I always thought this was a weird and manipulative book. Like the kind of thing Livia Soprano would write. Cant imagine a parent giving this to a child.
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The attempt to fracture the one-sided nature of any healthy parent-child relationship is deeply incestual. It is the estrangement of the child driven by the developmentally arrested narcissism of the mother. You're late on rent! But maybe there's something else you could do for me?
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It has a different meaning for children and adults.
Gratitude is a complex emotion. Younger children don't really feel it. They're happy when you do things for them, but they also feel that the nice things they get are things they should have.
As an adult you can either take the happiness as a form of primitive gratitude, and take joy in the happiness of another. Or you can seethe about it.
I like the book, I think the flexibility of the symbol makes it interesting. I don't think it's making an argument about this sort of one-directional relationship. It's just depicting one in simple terms, and we can choose how to think about it
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it's not about kids it's about simping for pokimane
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Give me money
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All i have is my bussy, you can try to sell it in the market
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