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The Baby Website recently surveyed 3,000 British parents about fairy tales and the results, at least for a blog like mine, are not good.
While 66% of the survey respondents said that they believe that classic fairy tales have “stronger morality messages” than contemporary children’s stories, they don’t believe that the old tales by the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen among others are appropriate for 21st-century kids. The classics, in the view of parents, are too scary, too sexist or too socially out-of-step and not politically correct.
Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs? Offensive to little people. The Gingerbread Man? Nope, too violent. The tasty snack with two legs suffers a gruesome, violent death when he gets eaten by a fox. Hansel and Gretel? An uncomfortable portrayal of parental neglect and abandonment. What about Cinderella? Scratch her off the list as well. She’s essentially a housebound slave who can only be freed by attracting the interest of a rich man.
Here is the listing of the winners and losers in the children’s stories sweepstakes, according to the survey:
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
Personally I believe that the classics are classics for a reason. They touch upon our universal fears and doubts, not to mention that they are memorable and entertaining. They also crank up your imagination. Remember what it was like as a kid picturing, in your mind’s eye, the image of a boy using a gigantic vine to climb up to the sky? The very first book I can remember reading on my own as a child was an illustrated anthology of fairy tales. I read and reread that book so many times that the pages eventually started to fall out.
Motherlode, the New York Times parenting blog, also discussed this survey and the reader reaction was immense. All viewpoints were reflected but the majority were in favor of not watering down the old-time fairy tales. Here is a sample of the reader comments:
I think fairy tales should be required reading. They are foundational archetypes for much of modern literature. If we erradicate all these unpleasent or uncomfortable ideas from literature it will all be bland nicey, nicey crap. No wonder kids are not reading. Great literature needs to have tension and even a bit of un PC challenge to society’s norms. Plus these fairy tales often have many cultural narratives. One thing my daughter and I have done with great pleasure is to read the many variations of Cinderella and compare how each culture depicts the conflict.
— CharlotteYears ago, I had a literature professor tell me that the reason that so many classic fairy tales featured an absent mother was because it was one of the few deep tragedies that a small child could immediately understand and respond to – and that in years (and centuries) past, many women died during their childbearing years, leaving many, many children to grow up without their mothers.
That said, I’m in no rush for my children to vicariously experience the loss of their mother, classic literature or not.
-AnnaThe loss of parents sets a child up for an adventurous, if sometimes frightening life. When these stories were written, many children lost their parents when they were quite young. Reading these stories to kids provide us with a window into a world that is gone forever. However, our world is not without its own “wolves”. Even if it was, children would still make up their own monsters. Do you know a child who doesn’t have at least one monster? My son, 8, made up monsters of his own when he was 2.
-Anonymous
What’s your opinion? How do you like your fairy tales? Scary and flawed, warts and all? Or dipped into a gooey vat of political correctness and “modernized”? Share your thoughts in the comments’ section.
Photo by Lugo, used under license from iStockPhoto.com
I have to say that I love fairy tales. For those who think fairy tales could make negative influences on children, I need to say that, children are really simple and pure humanbeings, they don’t have the intention nor the ability to expand the meanings of the tales they read, they actually wouldn’t get the message that the way to a happy life for a poor girl is hooking up some rich guys (after listening to Cinderella)… Children care only about the story itself, they’d be pleased knowing the prince and the princess got married in the end, they’d cry because little mermaid was dead. Classics are classics. It is not by accident that we still have chance to read and admire them today after several centries. I’m not against those modern tales but I grew up reading classics, and I’m perfectly healthy spiritually.
Finally… un beso a cody’s cuentos, I love this podcast.
Los niños crecieron leyendo los clásicos y no había tanta violencia como la que hay ahora. Siempre pasaron la idea de qué al final vence el bien. Que existe el amor. Los niños siempre crecieron usando la imaginación y era natural saber que cuentos eran cuentos. Vida real era vida real.
Yo me acuerdo mi mamá o papá leyéndome estos clásicos, después yo les escuchaba en los discos y más tarde los pasé a leerlos yo.
@tiunfan: You hit the nail on the head with your comment. Sometimes I think we underestimate what kids can handle not realizing that they’re viewing the stories through a totally different prism than ours.
@Yolanda: Estoy de acuerdo contigo que los cuentos clásicos deberían ser una parte de la niñez.
Gracias tiunfan y Yolanda por comentar.
I think the Classics are important and tend to carry themes that although mature promote discussion and question. Many of the Disney fairytales have dark themes yet positive endings. My daughter enjoys books of all kinds both classic and modern. What is most important is that we read and discuss them together.
I have 8 grandkids aged 10 to 1. They like both the old and new stories. The girls love Cinderella and any other story that involves girls as independent persons. Dora, the Explorer or the Disney stories about women. One of the boys is a great Caterpillar fan but all the boys like Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, etc. Some of the things they watch make me uncomfortable, but then I took my two older boys to the first Star Wars movie when they were 6 and 8. I remember reading stories to them and then acting out some of the scary parts like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood or startling them with a stomach tickle when they looked too intense. They loved it. The way I looked at it is that by making the scary scenes into a fun thing, they were not left to let their imagination run wild about what may have happened in the story. Now that my oldest kids are in their thirties, I don’t see that it has done any harm. The way I look at it, the world is a violent, politically incorrect place. Hiding kids behind some artificial sensibilities breeds kids who don’t know how to think critically.
My $ .02,
Tom
I’m sure that i will come back to your blog soon. Keep us posting