Scary Fairy Tales

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

There was an article on the New York Times website that caught my attention. It asked the question, are fairy tales too scary for children?

Do you remember that, Martha?

I sure do, and I agree. We posted it to the website, and our listeners have been talking about it. It turns out that for a lot of people, the answer is yes, fairy tales are too scary to read to children. More than half of British parents surveyed by a website said they wouldn’t read the stories until their children were at least five years old. One in five parents said the oldies were too politically incorrect and that they wouldn’t read them at all.

Now, my perspective, Martha, you know I’ve got a two-year-old son, is that he’s too young for that. But on the other hand, I know that when we read the Curious George books, for example, if something bad happens to George, my son is very concerned. The emotions of a child are very raw, aren’t they? Very powerful.

And so I do wonder if some danger, there’s some danger about reading the version of Cinderella to children in which the sister’s feet are cut off or their toes are cut off or their heels are trimmed back in order to make them fit the glass slipper. You know the original version? Is that, I mean, is that too nasty and weird?

I mean, could children handle that? I mean, there’s this school of thought that fairy tales are cathartic for children, that they help them learn to deal with the outside world.

But I tell you, I don’t like them. And I was shocked to realize I read that article that you’re talking about. And I was thinking about the fairy tales that I knew growing up, and I had forgotten that most of them had happy endings because I was so focused on the creepy parts.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That’s interesting. My son, he’s very young, but he understands what pretend is. He understands what play is and not real is. And he pretends to be things like a kitty cat. He knows that stories are where strange things happened. And George can’t really paint a jungle scene on the room of a house like he does in the books.

Curious George, don’t you feel like your guidance would help lead a child to understanding that some things are true and some things are false and some things could really happen but didn’t really happen?

Sure, sure.

So you don’t think that he would be traumatized by Hansel and Gretel when he’s five years old?

I, you know, I still, every time I get into a hot car on a summer day, I think of poor Gretel being told to climb into the oven. I don’t, they still skeeve me out. I don’t think I ever read that stuff as a child, as a very young child. I do know that by the age of 10 or 11, I’d pillaged most of the folklore and myth section of the local library and probably did read all that.

And I, maybe that’s why I’m like I am.

You’re Exhibit A. Come on.

No, no.

But the other thing is, you know, parental fears are sometimes way out of proportion to the true damage that can be caused.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that’s a really good question. And we’d love to hear from you about that. What fairy tales are too scary for your kids? Or what scary fairy tales do you read to your kids and why?

You can call us to talk about that or about any other aspect of language. The number is 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-WAYWORD. Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.