I believe in fairy tales.

Or at least I believe in reading fairy tales to children--despite the fact that a lot of them are violent, cruel, overly didactic methods of coercive acculturation. (I'm reading this at the moment.) My parents insist that they didn't read them to me, but I still have the encyclopedia of fairy tales I read growing up. I know I read them! I know I watched an animated Japanese series of fairy tales! Maybe I was introduced to them by Disney movies and pursued the rest on my own? However it happened, I did grow up on fairy tales, and I never fantasized about pushing me mum into the oven or living happily ever after with me pops. Yes, I know there are problems with the parent-child relationships depicted in classic fairy tales, I realize that they can easily be misinterpreted ("But!," I object, "So can any text!"), and I don't actually want my little girl thinking her life will work out so long as she is a diligent housekeeper who obeys the men in her life.

Many fairy tale scholars make these arguments against reading fairy tales to children, and I see their points. I also understand that many fairy tales were never meant for children in the first place, but I believe that I will be able to tell the difference and properly filter the stories for my child. I know I would have been traumatized if I'd read the oldest version of "Little Red Riding Hood" or "Sleeping Beauty" as a little girl, so I promise not to expose my kid to cannibalism, bestiality, and rape until they are much older.

Actually, the only problem I have with fairy tales for children is that, for me at least, they turned every story I was told into a fairy tale. (It makes me a bit sad to think about how my dissertation could be seen as an extension of this childhood misconception. Yikes.) I put everything on that level, including history and religion. Cleopatra was as real as Snow White; Moses was just like Tom Thumb but bigger. Obviously. This was fine, I suppose, until I found out about Santa. (GASP!) In my mind, no Santa meant no Napoleon, no Caesar, no Gretel, no Prince Charming, no Noah, and no Jesus. It wasn't until I learned that history really did happen that I started thinking maybe the Bible might not be a complete fairy tale after all, but I was the most jaded, cynical little girl you'd ever seen for those few years. Nothing anyone ever told me was real!

I don't want that to happen to my kid, but I'm not sure how to prevent it. I think part of the problem is that story time can encompass fairy tales, biblical stories, and fictionalized accounts of history all in the same setting and language. If you tell a kid three stories in the exact same tone, in the exact same environment, I think it's natural for him or her to assume all three are roughly equivalent, even if that is not your intention. Even their names can be similar. You can see how a story called "The Coat of Many Colors" might sound like a fairy tale! But how does a parent fix this? I have no idea. I'll have to think on it.