April 26, 2010 9:32 AM
Why your child needs traditional fairy tales
Tripp sent me this over a year ago, and I never got around to running it because I wanted to respond at length. I don't know what I was thinking, as I really only need a few words to present another perspective than the one currently in-vogue. Then you all can make up your own minds:Traditional fairytales 'not PC enough'
Parents have stopped reading traditional fairytales to their children because they are too scary and not politically correct, according to research.
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
Favourites such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Rapunzel are being dropped by some families who fear children are being emotionally damaged.
A third of parents refused to read Little Red Riding Hood because she walks through woods alone and finds her grandmother eaten by a wolf.
One in 10 said Snow White should be re-named because "the dwarf reference is not PC".
Rapunzel was considered "too dark" and Cinderella has been dumped amid fears she is treated like a slave and forced to do all the housework.
The poll of 3,000 British parents - by TheBabyWebsite.com - revealed a quarter of mothers now rejected some classic fairy tales.
Sarah Pilkinton, 36, a mother-of-three from Sevenoaks, Kent, told researchers: "I loved the old fairy stories when I was growing up. I still read my children some of the classics like Sleeping Beauty and Goldilocks, but I must admit I've not read them The Gingerbread Man or Hansel and Gretel.
"They are both a bit scary and I remember having difficulty sleeping after being read those ones when I was little."
Two-thirds of parents said traditional fairytales had stronger morality messages than many modern children's stories.
But many said they were no longer appropriate to soothe youngsters before bed.
Almost 20 per cent of adults said they refused to read Hansel and Gretel because the children were abandoned in a forest - and it may give their own sons and daughters nightmares.
A fifth did not like to read The Gingerbread Man as he gets eaten by a fox.
The most popular book read at bedtime is now The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
The simple tale, which features a greedy caterpillar eating too much food, was written in 1969.
It also emerged 65 per cent of parents preferred to read their children happier tales at bedtime, such as the Mr Men, The Gruffalo and Winnie the Pooh.
Three quarters of mothers and fathers try to avoid stories which might give their children nightmares and half of all parents would not consider reading a single fairy tale to their child until they reached the age of five.
Top bedtime stories of 2008:
1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle (1969)
2. Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves (1971)
3. The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson (1999)
4. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne (1926)
5. Aliens Love Underpants, Claire Freedman & Ben Cort (2007)
6. Thomas and Friends from The Railway Series, Rev.W.Awdry (1945)
7. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (1908)
8. What a Noisy Pinky Ponk!, Andrew Davenport (2008)
9. Charlie and Lola, Lauren Child (2001)
10. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Robert Southey (1837)
Top 10 fairy tales we no longer read:
1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. Hansel and Gretel
3. Cinderella
4. Little Red Riding Hood
5. The Gingerbread Man
6. Jack and the Beanstalk
7. Sleeping Beauty
8. Beauty and the Beast
9. Goldilocks and the Three Bears
10. The Emperor's New Clothes
What is sad about well-intentioned parents filtering out traditional fairy tales (and I don't mean the Disney versions) is that they are eliminating an important traditional resource in the child's psychological development.
If you have time to read it, I heartily recommend Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, which will open up a world of new understanding to you about the critical role played by traditional children's literature. I fist read the book 30 years ago - and it helped me look beneath the surface to understand not just the specific fairy tales Bettelheim discusses, but also traditional poems, songs and nursery rhymes.
To whet your appetite, I've excerpted some highlighted portions of the Introduction from my dog-eared copy:
The prevalent parental belief is that a child must be diverted from what troubles him most: his formless, nameless anxieties. . .Many parents believe that only conscious reality or pleasant wish-fulfilling images should be presented to the child - that he should be exposed only to the sunny side of things. But such one-sided fare nourishes the mind only in a one-sided way, and real life is not all sunny. . .
[Here] is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence- but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.
Modern stories written for young children mainly avoid these existential problems, although they are crucial issues for all of us. The child needs most particularly to be given suggestions in symbolic form about how he may deal with these issues and grow safely into maturity. . . .
It is characteristic of fairy tales to state an existential dilemma briefly and pointedly. This permits the child to come to grips with the problem in its most essential form, where a more complex plot would confuse matters for him. The fairy tale simplifies all situations. The figures are clearly drawn; and details, unless very important, are eliminated. All characters are typical rather than unique.
Contrary to what takes place in many modern children's stories, in fairy tales evil is as omnipresent as virtue. In practically every fairy tale good and evil are given body in the form of some figures and their actions, as good and evil are omnipresent in life and the propensities for bother are present in every man. It is this duality which poses the moral problem, and requires the struggle to solve it. . .
The figures in fairy tales are not ambivalent - not good and bad at the same time, as we are in reality. . . A person is either good or bad, nothing in between. One brother is stupid, the other clever. One sister is virtuous and industrious, the others are vile and lazy. One is beautiful, the others are ugly. One parent is good, the other evil. . . Presenting the polarities of character permits the child to comprehend easily the difference between the two, which he could not do as readily were the figures drawn more true to life, with all the complexities that characterize real people.
Christian parents, of course, have the greatest story ever told to share with their children. But I think the kind of understanding Bettelheim provides is like another tool in the parental toolbelt.
In this, I am not a Montessori purist. Maria Montessori believed that children under 6 - with their minds like absorbent sponges - could not distinguish between reality and fantasy; therefore they should only be presented with reality.
But Montessori taught me to see the world through a child's eyes, and I'm inclined to agree with Bettelheim, that children have fears and anxieties that they don't know how to speak about. Fairy tales meet an archetypal need, and parents need to understand and reconsider them:
"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."--G.K. Chesterton
~~~~~~~
The Uses of Enchantment is probably available at your local library - also at Amazon, and one copy at PaperbackSwap.
Posted in Books, Mothering, Preschoolers, Reading, Toddlers | Permalink
Comments
I was going to mention that GKC quote if you didn't. But you did. I think it's perfect.
What do you think of O'Brien's A Landscape With Dragons?
Posted by: Stacie.Make.Do. | April 26, 2010 1:39 PM
Wow, Barbara. This comes at exactly the right time for me as I have been pondering this exact topic lately. I was exposed to all the traditional fairy tales, poems, rhymes, as a kid and don't remember being particularly frightened by them (and I was easily scared). But when we checked a few of these fairy tales out from the library recently I was a little taken aback by the evil, and unsure how to proceed. I think I will be requesting this title at the library. Great quote, as well.
Posted by: Crystal | April 26, 2010 2:04 PM
Oh dear, I've read most of the second list to my 2 year old son (and not the Disney ones), I must be warping his poor innocent mind. He loves it when I do voices for "scary" characters, and he has yet to have a nightmare after I read him a bedtime story. In fact, all of his nightmares come when I don't read to him.
He looks at the Eric Carle books (which I love just because they're so beautiful) during the day, the same for the Thomas books. But most of the books on that first list I don't recognize.
When I was a young child my mother read the Chronicles of Narnia to me...now there's some scary characters! And I *twitch* turned out *twitch* just *twitch* fine.....
Posted by: Courageous Grace | April 26, 2010 3:00 PM
I read Bettelheim's book many years ago as part of a (very good) Children's Literature course. I now work in a library in an elementary school in a very rough neighborhood. Many of our students have never been read anything at home, much less fairy tales. I find it interesting that the one kind of book the students ask for more than anything is "scary stories." I hadn't connected the two before reading this today, but now I wonder if it isn't those "fears and anxieties that they don't know how to speak about" that they are looking to deal with in those books.
Posted by: melissa | April 26, 2010 6:13 PM
Melissa -
I had that thought today too - wondering if since their subconscious fears were not addressed appropriately at an early stage, they came out in choosing to read and see horror in the tween/teen years. Of course, with the wrong timing and writers not passing down archetypal stories so they cannot meet the need for moral understanding.
I was also thinking that for older kids and adults Charles Dickens spins mighty tales of good triumphing over evil and individuals facing all sorts of adversity and wickedness who "live happily efver after."
My favorite: Nicholas Nickelby - especially the movie. Highly recommended.
Posted by: Barbara | April 26, 2010 10:18 PM
It is terrible that the classic fairytales are being deemed too violent/scary. Children must learn to regulate their emotions. Better for them to practice via a book or story than have thrust them into real life situations unprepared.
That said, I do like *The Very Hungry Catepiller* for what it isL a days of the week nature book about a catepiller becoming a butterfly. He isn't greedy; he is prepping for cocoon stage.
Posted by: anon | April 26, 2010 11:38 PM
anon -
I agree with you about The Very Hungry Caterpillar - it's a classic and one of my Top 50 books for kids. I'm not saying that Fairy Tales should replace all other books - just that they should be part of the mix.
Posted by: Barbara | April 27, 2010 6:35 AM
I really liked this. Thank you for linking to it.
Posted by: paigeu | April 27, 2010 8:58 AM
Fairy tales are okay once in a while but we must make sure children realize they are only fantasy. Most traditional fairy tales teach children horrible lessons. Girls are portrayed as lazy, stupid and worthless and that they only have value if they marry some man. They also teach vanity by only placing value on physical appearance and material possessions. They also teach that girls have to be abused in order to be virtuous and that its okay for a young teenage girl to marry an adult man she doesn't even know.
Posted by: Dina | April 27, 2010 9:30 AM
Dina -
I have to say I disagree with you completely.
Did you read the Bettelheim quotes above? Things are portrayed simplistically and dualistically so children can absorb the message. In contrast to anyone portrayed as lazy, stupid and worthless - which includes boys and girls, men and women - are the characters who are the opposite and the archetype to which we want our children to aspire.
They don't teach that girls have to be abused in order to be virtuous, but that virtuous people are often abused - as in Dickens' novels. And in many cultures throughout history - and as represented in the Bible - girls married older men in arranged marriages. While that's not our custom here and now, I can't say that our way has produced more stable marriages :)
Did you come to these conclusions through your own reading of fairy tales - or through some feminist-inspired teacher or tract? As a recovered feminist, I hear some familiar propaganda pitches.
Posted by: Barbara | April 27, 2010 10:31 AM
My favorite bedtime reading is the Bible. My children read anything I will let them but for bedtime I ask them to read the Bible first and then whatever they are reading at that moment. My 11 year old has read more books at 11 than I did by time I was 30.
Posted by: Ouida Gabriel | April 28, 2010 8:28 AM
