Today's Kids and Fairy Tales: Snow White Who?

What ever happened to fairy tales?

A new Shumway family favorite show is “Once Upon a Time.” It’s a really smart concept, whereby fairy tale characters have been put under a spell by an evil Queen (Snow White’s stepmother) and transported to a small town called Storybrooke. The twist is that they don’t remember who they really are, and the only one who knows the truth is the 10-year-old mayor’s adopted son. He spends his time trying to convince the new town sheriff – his birth mother, the daughter of Snow White herself – to believe him.

We’ve been watching it with Ben and Georgia each week, and it’s become a fun tradition for all of us. However, after about four episodes, it started to hit me: they don’t know who these fairy tale characters are!

The series opens with Prince Charming finding Snow White “asleep” in the forest; upon kissing her, she wakes up. Ben and Georgia took it all in and just accepted that Snow’s stepmother was mean and tried to kill her, but didn’t ask questions.

When they introduced one of the town villains, the kids didn’t seem at all surprised when it was revealed that he was really Rumplestiltskin. They told me that they didn’t know who that was, but I figured that he was sort of a fringe fairy tale character and didn’t think much of it. But this week, when Hansel and Gretel went to the Gingerbread House and ate the witch’s candy, I felt for sure that they would understand.

NOTHING.

I thought about the myriad of stories that I have read to the kids over the years and realized that the books we’ve covered really don’t fall into that genre. We’ve read everything from old standbys like “Goodnight Moon” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to fables like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and even perennial favorites like “Make Way for Ducklings.” But I realized: no Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood or Pinocchio.

Have I been depriving my kids of an important part of their childhood?

Recalling the stories in a giant book of fairy tales we had when I was growing up, I have a theory as to why they may have fallen out of the bedtime rotation. Let’s see: a beautiful girl gets kicked out of the castle by her wicked stepmother, has to go live with seven little men and when she slips into a poison-induced coma, has to rely on a handsome prince’s kiss to save her.

An uber-creepy little man helps a to save a young girl’s life by spinning straw into gold, on the one condition that she’ll give him her first-born child.

And, the aforementioned two children lost in the woods who find a house made of candy and are almost EATEN by the cannibalistic witch who lives there.

Bedtime story? Try NIGHTMARE-INDUCING HORROR TALE.

I guess that while I can understand why many of these have fallen by the wayside to make way for more current stories about Fancy Nancy and A Little Blue Truck, they might be something to work into the nighttime routine. Although they may seem a little outdated, a good story is a good story no matter how far-fetched it may be. I suppose that’s the whole point.

And if for nothing else, when Little Red Riding Hood shows up in Storybrooke, they’ll have some context.