The Classic Children’s Stories
Many of us were raised on the so called “classic” stories for children. These are the stories by the brothers Grim, the rhymes of Mother Goose and their like. It is thus no surprise that such books are readily available and well marketed for our children. Perhaps we even feel the importance of handing down this wealthy heritage of literature to our children.
The Grim Brothers
Actually we are not being very accurate about the whole issue. I would like to divide my insights into the subject into two separate parts. The first part is the issue of “classic stories”. When we say that these stories are classics we might think that we are continuing an ancient tradition of quality fables. This is sadly very far from the truth. The aforementioned tales by the brothers Grim are actually so violent and bloody that the stories we were told and tell our children are actually heavily censored. In fact, the original Grim stories are so unimaginably bloody that it would be inappropriate for me to even describe what takes place. Thus we are not really continuing any tradition at all when retelling these stories.
The Moral of the Story
The other point I would like to raise is that these stories are also sadly lacking in morals. I mean, exactly what are our children supposed to learn from Hansel and Gretel? Perhaps they are supposed to learn that trails left behind should always be of stones and not crumbs? This would not be so bad. Unfortunately there are worse things that they might learn. They might learn that their parents would not really mind getting rid of them. They might learn that eating children is a frequent pastime. They might even learn that shoving old ladies into ovens is a good thing. The same is true for many of the other fairy tales. Education is not something we parents take lightly so why should we encourage our children to read such horrible stories. These are stories that reflect another time and society and should probably best be studied as cultural literature in the university. Just as you would censor the news items that your children watch, the movies that they see and not allow them to play online blackjack, you should prevent them from reading these kinds of stories. They are certainly not for little kids!
