To the Miss Honeys of the World: A Tribute

Reflecting on found family, Matilda, and gratitude for those who create environments of care

Photos: TriStar/Netflix

“This movie just breaks you,” my ten-year-old daughter said as we sat through the 2022 musical update of Matilda. It was not our first Matilda viewing. Certainly, not my first time welling up over one.

“It’s Miss Honey,” I explained, a familiar lump in my throat over what would become the title character’s favorite teacher. For me, it’s always the Miss Honeys of the world.

If you’ve been reading along these past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it was like for many kids raised in restrictive homes, faced with physical discipline, told they must yield their will or face spiritual consequences. (Obviously, for many, spiritual abuse layers in there too.) Over the years, I’ve interviewed a lot of adults who still carry that weight. I also know many who carry histories of abuse from far outside church circles.

Those old scars sometimes never heal quite right.

But if there is promise of healing, if there was a chance at hope or something better, often there was a caring adult at the right moment, a teacher or an aunt, or a Miss Honey-type figure who intervened. Sometimes it was because it was simply the right thing to do, and sometimes the intervention was merely having someone to listen. Sometimes it was because they knew the signs, because they’d walked that hard road too.

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Some of you might not have grown up with the particular movie magic of Matilda (adapted from Roald Dahl’s book). In the 1996 movie version, Lonely Matilda Wormwood is a girl raised with a neglectful father and mother who occupy themselves, respectively, swindling people at a car dealership and playing semi-professional BINGO. By age four, Matilda was left alone to cook and care for herself; her one outlet became sneaking off to the library.

Matilda finally heads off to school years late—only to fall under the care of a tyrannical headmistress, Miss Trunchbull. The headmistress is a former Olympian who used to throw hammer and now throws children by the pigtails. She keeps a student-sized torture chamber, “the Chokey” available for kids who disobey.

I didn’t exactly grow up with the 90s version of Matilda. (I was driving by the time Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman were haranguing little Matilda to watch more TV.) The first time I saw it, I was myself a young mother.

I was protective. Seeing Matilda’s mistreatment, I almost turned it off from the jump.

I didn’t want my babies to know parents could intentionally hurt their children. As DeVito’s father character says to his daughter (after she calls him out for committing a crime), “Listen, you little wiseacre, I’m smart. You’re dumb. I’m big. You’re little. I’m right. You’re wrong, and,” poking her in the chest, “there’s nothing you can do about it.”

But I was stuck, because there was Matilda, and once in, we all deserved to see how the precocious, brilliant girl would prevail.

By the time she arrives at school, due to reading on her own, she’s figured out a good deal of math and already adores Dickens. But a valuable surprise is in store: her teacher, Miss Honey.

In class, Miss Honey appreciates every child for who they are. She covers the walls in children’s art, values them. There’s simplicity to her gifts. After school one day, Miss Honey tells Matilda, “You were born into a family that doesn’t always appreciate you, but one day, things are going to be very different.”

Over time, it’s revealed that Miss Honey is actually Trunchbull’s niece. When she was young, Miss Honey’s father committed suicide or met an untimely end (depending on the version of the story) and suspicion builds around the circumstances of his death—that really Trunchbull, who inherited his home, raised and abused Miss Honey, and Trunchbull was also the one who actually killed him.

But the revelation of Miss Honey’s upbringing is core to the story. In the 1996 version of the film, Miss Honey holds her abuse in quiet, stubborn ways. Trunchbull still maintains a hold over her, to be sure, but actress Embeth Davidtz’s portrayal is a step closer to her Matilda. She’s buttoned up, wears bobby socks and floral dresses, almost childlike herself. She too is perfecting the craft of navigating an abusive personality and their oppressive world, but with one firm foot in another of her own making.

When Matilda’s parents abruptly plan to uproot the family (fleeing the feds), and they are still unable to even get their own daughter’s name right, Matilda doesn’t want to go. She wants to stay with her teacher.

“Miss Honey doesn’t want you. Why would she want some snotty disobedient kid?” her mother barks back, pulling Matilda to the car.

“Because she is a spectacularly wonderful child, and I love her,” Miss Honey pronounces.  

As it’s kids’ fiction, Matilda already has adoption papers written up, and her parents quickly cede to her wishes to let Miss Honey adopt her.

Her Miss Honey wasn’t a brash or loud person, simply firm when volunteered care needed to be found. And it changed Matilda’s life.

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In the newer, musical version, we learn the devious headmistress not only is responsible for the death of Miss Honey’s parents, but that Miss Honey herself has had her spirit nearly squashed. This Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch) is more nervous, eyes more often darting. Her losses and hurt ride closer to the surface.

To balance this scale, the musical’s Matilda comes with a refrain, a mantra of sorts underscoring that it is unjust to expect a person to be taken from unrelentingly.

When wronged, our 2022 Matilda, doesn’t sink sadly into herself, watchfully plotting, she dances on rooftops, singing: “Just because you find that life’s not fair, it/Doesn’t mean that you just have to grin and bear it/If you always take it on the chin and wear it/Nothing will change/Even if you’re little you can do a lot, you/Mustn’t let a little thing like little stop you.”

Her Miss Honey has suffered. Her Miss Honey lives in a forgotten shed because her inheritance has been stolen. She cannot ask for much for herself. There’s a beautiful song with the chorus, “it isn’t much, but it’s enough for me.” This Miss Honey is heartbreakingly meek.

What Miss Honey has adapted to is not enough, as seen through Matilda’s eyes.

But she’s extended care when Matilda has needed it, and Matilda fights for Miss Honey too. In their way, they save each other.

I find beauty in the mutuality, the recognition between generations. There’s a daring in Miss Honey, an urge to mother better than she’s been parented, that is both sweet and brave. And it creates an opening for a better path for Matilda.

I think that’s why Miss Honey always makes me tear up, within the silliness of a children’s story, she embodies a cycle breaking.