Parenting - 2,945 1/2

OK…I know that you all know where I stand on overbearing and over the top parenting.

My philosophy is simple….let kids interact, learn, experience and enjoy their childhood. Yes…keep your kids safe and never put them in harm’s way…but at the same time you need to TEACH them …not hide them under your wing as to not experience what our world actually consists of.

I ran across a copy of Smithsonian magazine today and an article talking about children's stories caught my eye.

These stories are suffused with the same purity that makes children appear so marvelous and blessed,” wrote Wilhelm Grimm in the preface to his volume of fairy tales. If true, then life in the 19th century was worse than I’d ever imagined. Reading these stories today is like sitting through a Quentin Tarantino movie.

How will a child who has been overly sheltered (and yes…that is my nice way of saying it) react when he or she hits high school or college and has to experience sleeping in a bed without rails for the first time…or when the freak out at a friend’s house when they see a pair of scissors in the night stand?

I saw this article and almost threw up on the magazine…in the middle of the doctor’s office waiting room.

…A few more excerpts (enjoy!!)

Have you ever added up the body count? One poor girl is transformed into a block of wood and thrown into a fire. A father risks his daughter’s life by boasting she can weave straw into gold. An evil queen tries to off her stepdaughter with a poisoned apple.

I’ve come to realize that many popular children’s books are rife with malice and mayhem. Do you have any idea of the dangers that may lurk on your little ones’ bookshelves?

Let’s start with Goodnight Moon. Margaret Wise Brown’s beloved bedtime tale is a veritable hotbed of child safety hazards. First of all, the child’s—excuse me, bunny’s—great green bedroom contains an open fireplace filled with dangerous tools like tongs and pokers. The bed has no side rails. And what about the grandmother—a careless caretaker if I ever saw one. Why, she leaves knitting needles unattended in a child’s bedroom!