Is the Nanny State telling tales?

[Chris Newman]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17024101

[salymap]

I had an old family volume of Grimms' fairy tales and read them for myself when quite small. I knew they were FAIRY tales and wasn't frightened.
How long before Pantomimes are banned for the under tens. I remember see them at the theatre was far more upsetting that anything in a book and they were full of adult jokes that went right over my head. My parents enjoyed them more than I did.

[MrGongGong]

No one has "banned" anything ?
So a bit of a non story really

(I'd recommend a bit of Angela Carter though !!!! )

[Pabmusic]

I'm with you, Mr G-G. I don't recall that fairy tales ever featured large in our home (at least, not as much as Treasure Island). They weren't frowned upon, they just weren't very interesting. However, some people didn't like them - there was certainly a move to ban them from my junior school (this is late 50s-early 60s). I certainly don't carry any scars because of it, nor do I feel I've 'lost touch' with fairy tales. When it came to my own daughter's upbringing, fairy tales didn't get a look in. It was The Lord of the Rings before fairy tales any day. That doesn't mean that she's ignorant of Cinderella or Hansel and Gretel.

[Simon]

I can't see GGs post, but I'm surprised that there was ever some move to get rid of fairy tales for little children, even in the apparently insane 60s. What prompted that, I wonder?

Mum was a teacher and I was reading all kinds of things by the time I went to school, as she gave up teaching to look after her family (as in my view all mothers should if at all possible - their time and the security of their presence is the finest thing that they can give to their children), and as far as I recall I was allowed to read anything, within reason, including fairy tales. I don't think I was frightened by them, as I think it was clear that they were just fantasy stories, though I remember, like Saly, a pantomime that I didn't like, with a horrible black beetle and a treacherous wasp in it!

As regards Lord of the Rings - writing that I've never really got into - isn't that really just a fairy story too, albeit longer than most?

[MrGongGong]

I can't see GGs post, but I'm surprised that there was ever some move to get rid of fairy tales for little children, even in the apparently insane 60s. What prompted that, I wonder?

There wasn't

to quote someone not a million miles away

"So convinced are they of their own rightness that they are always the first to call for censorship and the banning of anyone else who disagrees with them."

so why can't you see my post ?

[Byas'd Opinion]

If you read the article, it's not the Nanny State that's responsible, it's "some parents".

[Simon]

If you read the article, it's not the Nanny State that's responsible, it's "some parents".

Thanks, yes - but I was referring to Pab's post above: "...some people didn't like them - there was certainly a move to ban them from my junior school (this is late 50s-early 60s)."

[amateur51]

I can't see GGs post, but I'm surprised that there was ever some move to get rid of fairy tales for little children, even in the apparently insane 60s. What prompted that, I wonder?

Mum was a teacher and I was reading all kinds of things by the time I went to school, as she gave up teaching to look after her family (as in my view all mothers should if at all possible - their time and the security of their presence is the finest thing that they can give to their children),

What about mothers who have to work, Simon, to put a meal on the table? And what about fathers? Can't they provide loving care too?

[Anna]

If you read the article, it's not the Nanny State that's responsible, it's "some parents".

And a very small survey comprising 2,000 parents in one location. Possibly they didn't enjoy fairy tales when they were young and therefore pass on their preferences to their children? As I recall, from childhood, the more frightening aspects of the tales were the illustrations(which lingered in the imagination) rather than the content of the story because we knew it was just make believe and everything ended happily ever after. I think children are exposed to more violence, political incorrectness and other frightening/upsetting things whilst reading a copy of The Sun that their parents have left lying about I think the important thing is that children are read to on a daily basis, whether Sleeping Beauty or The Gruffalo.

[doversoul1]

What about mothers who have to work, Simon, to put a meal on the table? And what about fathers? Can't they provide loving care too?

Here goes, am51, so that Simon can see your post.

I was wandering, too, if Simon would have been happy to give up his bright future and stayed at home, cleaning and cooking and doing no more intelligent thing than reading his children Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And what would have happened when he was free to go back to work?.

[amateur51]

Here goes, am51, so that Simon can see your post.

I was wandering, too, if Simon would have been happy to give up his bright future and stayed at home, cleaning and cooking and doing no more intelligent thing than reading his children Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And what would have happened when he was free to go back to work?.

Many thanks doversoul!

[Chris Newman]

I think the important thing is that children are read to on a daily basis, whether Sleeping Beauty or The Gruffalo.

Exactly so!! and parents who do not do so are highly guilty of negligence and fostering censorship because they stifle their child's intellectual and inquisitive development.

[Simon]

Here goes, am51, so that Simon can see your post.

I was wandering, too, if Simon would have been happy to give up his bright future and stayed at home, cleaning and cooking and doing no more intelligent thing than reading his children Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And what would have happened when he was free to go back to work?.

Hardly given up, just delayed for a few years. And yes, if that is what is necessary to give any children that I may have a stable, secure home background, then I would and will stay at home. And if that means doing without a big car, a plasma TV and holidays on the Algarve - I'd give all that up too. If I choose to have children with my partner, then it is their right to be secure and cared for whilesoever we can. They didn't choose that we had sex to conceive them. Therefore our first duty is to them, not to ourselves anymore. Too many parents have the children then begrudge the material sacrifices needed to care for them properly - and very few are wealthy enough not to need to make at least some such sacrifices.

As for cleaning and cooking - there's nothing wrong with doing that. My Mum did, and brilliantly - and she taught our generation to do it too. But the suggestion that housewives do "no more intelligent thing than reading Goldilocks" is as demeaning as it is incorrect as it is unforgiveable. It doesn't actually merit a response, but in defence of all those mothers who work hard at and from home, and get involved with so many local and community and often charitable issues, to which they bring along their toddlers, I have given it.

----====----

Regarding Am's comment - as usual he's missed a point. If you look at what I wrote I cover his first question - I'm well aware of those who have no option but to work, due often to circumstances not of their own making, which is exactly why I worded my comment as I did.

As for his second question, yes, of course fathers can provide loving care, and many I'm sure due it very well. Nonetheless, the bonding of a child with its mother is the most natural and best way of securing its steady early development.

[Lateralthinking1]

On the original question, I am strongly of the view that it says much about the parents. The more attuned they are to the underbelly of life, the far greater the likelihood they will see that in things they then read to their children.

This may be because (a) they themselves wander into it so frequently that there is a need to displace it in childrens' books and/or (b) there is saturation coverage of it in the news media which brings it into the home hourly.

In a nutshell, in adult personal affairs and employment, there is an expectation/requirement of moral equivalence with which many are uneasy deep down. Furthermore, the broader knowledge that everyone has now is very arguably detrimental without measured context. My parents certainly did not have the education to analyse supposedly true meaning. That was a definite plus.

Young children never analyse to that extent. I got through the nursery rhyme stage thinking of them as nice songs to sing, learning about basic language in the process.

I can recall when much later the very first programmes were broadcast explaining the history of them and what the content meant. This no doubt was believed to be a step forwards in establishing the truths but in many ways it was a backwards step.

What it did was to deny that any meaning should have been allowed to evolve into the benign. It was also an adult academic territorialism into the unique domain of childhood, perhaps largely brought on deep down by a jealousy in the serious minded of having lost their own innocence.

Obviously for this they would use the protection of their own children as an excuse for blaming other adults, with little concern for planting thoughts in their own childrens' minds.