BY BRENDA STAPLETON
Most of us spend our younger years looking for Prince Charming , or maybe Snow White ? Imagine how frightening it is to grow up and realize the fairy tale image of the perfect husband or perfect wife , isn ’ t so perfect . Perhaps to understand fairy tales aren ’ t at all what we thought them to be . You see , many of us have grown up watching television or movies about what family is and who that husband of our dreams , father of the year , or wife and mother on the silver screen will be in the future . However , Walt Disney was a very creative and imaginative man , and Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a very different story than was portrayed in Little House on the Prairie . And for most of us , this is who and what created the
family that has prays before they have that meal together , and the husband and wife who hold each other as they talk quietly into their slumber .
Where did we go wrong ? Maybe we were reading the wrong books and watching too many movies . My youngest daughter , Allyson is studying German as her foreign language for high school requirements . She was completing a comparison of fairy tales just a week or so back , and she asked , “ Mother , did you know Grimm ’ s fairy tales were written in German and were very dark ?” “ And did you know many of them did not have happy endings ?” And I did happen to know , so we discussed the ones I knew , and some I did not . She then proceeded to answer the question , “ Why were they translated into the American versions with happy endings ?” Her answer was Americans tend to like everything to be optimistic , and with fairy tales , she believed the reason for the happy ending was to give people hope . I asked her which version she preferred , and she said the German version . She would rather face reality rather than dream about something that is just made up , dreamt up , or some story handed down like folktales and such .
It is disheartening to me how much innocence seems wasted on this group . I remember reading just recently referencing this last election of students having exams postponed , therapy dogs , etc . I recall thinking , we have grown adults , old enough to vote in an election who do not have the grasp of my 16-year-