Monday, March 30, 2020

Fairy Tales for Children

"They lived happily ever after" is the most common finishing line of any fairy tale we have read in our childhood or in the fairy stories we read for our children today. It sounds so positive and poetic, & happy and hopeful. ЁЯШКЁЯШКЁЯШКЁЯШК

More than boys, girl children seem to be attracted to these tales. Why is it so? May be for the simple reasons that 
(1) girls/women are the lead characters of the tales, 
(2) fairies are always girls/women and 
(3) these fairies turn girls of the stories angel-like and bless them abundantlyЁЯШЗ! 

Boys prefer ultimately different stuff, thankfully ЁЯШВ

What are the beautiful sides of these fairy tales?
  • The punchy or attractive titles (mostly the girls' names or their description for Eg. Cinderalla, Snow White and the seven dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast)
  • The vibrant colours used in the books
  • The expensive fairy-like dresses used to depict the lead character
  • Magical/Fantasy side to it.
  • The palace, garden and similar environment in which the story is set
  • The typical fairy-tale ending, very positive and hopeful
Given these, I strongly recommend not to read these stories for children for the following reasons. (you may take out those fairy tales you have to check this interpretation. Therefore, I did not give examples here)
  • Most of these stories revolve around BEAUTY and FAIRNESS of the girl lead
  • We often come across STEPMOTHERS and STEP SISTERS, those cunning ones and beast-like, that ABUSE the girl
  • CURSE occupies a prime position in many fairy tales
  • It is mostly a PRINCE that saves the girl at the end, the saviour
  • The girl's story is supposedly settled happy once she GETS MARRIED to the prince and steps into the palace
There can be few more added to these points, but I restrict to the key ones that are not at all positive for a child to read or for a parent to read for the child. There are hundreds of stories for our children on earth, why these so-called fairy tales???!!! Definitely these tales are not just good vs evil, it has more hidden venom.

P.S.: I once heard from a group of male college students studying English literature in a rural area that they had never heard of Cinderalla story. I said good that they did not learn about child-abuse and girl-abuse at their early age.

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