Last week I found a big book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales in my basement. Out of curiosity, I’ve been reading a few Grimm’s Fairy tales each day for the past several days. More than a few of these stories involve people being desperately hungry or poor. On a regular basis, the wonderful ending is that the people end up with a comfortable house that includes a magic pantry that never runs out of food. These stories must have been written in desperate times. Reading them has reminded me how lucky most of us are that we are not chronically hungry and homeless.
Many of these fairy tales also seem bizarre, involving men actively coveting other mens wives, women treated like property, and families putting their kids to cruel tests. Reading these tales has reminded me that one of my daughters attended a Waldorf School in St. Louis County about 15 years ago. The teachers repeatedly told me that the ONLY thing I should ever read to my daughters, at least until 3rd grade, was Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I refused to follow that advice. It strikes me as bizarre today as it did back then, and it was a factor in pulling her out of that school and enrolling her in a much better school. I suspect that they were expecting us to cherry pick for better quality fairy tales, avoiding the bizarre and pointless stories. Cherry picking is common, of course. I’m reminded of the many people who have insisted that I should read the Bible, focusing on the “good parts,” not on the bizarre stories, such as the time God sent bears to kill 42 children for making fun of Elisha because he was bald. (2 Kings 2:23-25).
We also were baffled by the Waldorf theory in a few ways. One is that we were told we shouldn’t allow our daughter to read…she was reading chapter books at 4. It was her greatest pleasure. Another was that all the kids should learn to play the recorder…not bad, but there was no other choice AND all the mom’s wore long flowing skirts. That was just an observation. To us it seemed like a version of The Stepford Wives.