To shelter or not to shelter?

Bruno Bettelheim disagrees with the mainstream belief in parenting that to be a good parent and raise a well-behaved, angelic, and generally not screwed up child, one must show the child only good, happy images and read him similarly saccharine stories. Bettelheim's argument is that if children are only exposed to the "sunny" side of life as they grow up, when they do eventually encounter some of the darker but inevitable experiences in life they will more likely to react badly. Fairy tales, he explains, present the bad sides of human nature and some of the more difficult struggles that are "part of human existence". By exposing some of these more harsh situations through a medium like fairy tale, children learn about tenacity and hope even in the face of almost certain failure. They learn to use their minds to discern the difference between good and bad for themselves. I think that Bettelheim's point about fairy tales giving kids a "moral education" is his most important. Usually kids don't learn basic morals in a fun way. Being told ten thousand times by mom and dad that it is not nice to be selfish is not fun and often not effective either. Through fairy tales, the child is engaged in a story that takes him somewhere while he learns that if he is nice to the witch next door she'll grant his wishes.

So, I agree with Bettelheim that parents cannot and should not keep fairy tales out of their children's hands, but I do think that there needs to be some consideration for the age and maturity level of a child. I would not sit my 4 year old cousin down and read her anything about Little Red Riding Hood getting naked in bed with the wolf...but, maybe when she's older, she will be able to handle that.

Just to reiterate that "everything is connected"...we are reading a book in my History 313 course called Manliness and Civilization by a woman named Gail Bederman. In chapter 3 she is telling about a man named Stanley Hall whose theory it was that little boys were being babied and as a result were becoming wussy and effeminate. Hall suggested to kindergarten teachers at a conference, "All that rot they teach to children about the little raindrop fairies with their buckets washing down the windows must go...we shall go back to reading the old, bloody stories to children, and children will like to hear them because they are healthy little savages" (Bederman 99). I don't think any of us want little savage children running around, but I think that Bettelheim and Hall would have agreed that to keep the bad from children is a disservice to them.