What You Teach Your Kids Parents in modern day society love to scream about what people can and can't teach their children. After all, children are highly impressionable, and monitoring what one's kids see and hear is a crucial part of being a parent. It is this concern that causes numerous angry parents to show up at every school PTA meeting and yell at that the schools complain that they shouldn't be teaching their children subjects such as sexual education and evolution. While some may find these parents reactions ridiculous and bizarre, it is well with in their parental rights to protest. Although, what many of these parents fail to realize is they are teaching their children many of the the same things they are protesting using fairy tales. Nobody ever stops to think about the true meaning behind fairy tales, after all what harm can come from reading a bed time story, but the truth is that many of these stories have subliminal messages. Cinderella, for example, seems like it's just about a hard working girl who perseveres, though suffering, is payed off by her living happily ever after with a prince, right? One could not be more wrong, Cinderella contains messages which teach kids a sense of entitlement, vanity, and to not stand up for ones self. Children are constantly asking their parents for toys, junk food, and money. Parents should just be able tell their children yes or no when they make such requests, but sadly thats not the case. When a parent tells their kid no quite often that kid responds with yelling, screaming, crying, and slamming doors. Kids refuse to take no for an answer because they have learned form stories such as Cinderella that all they should have to do is ask for something, and it will be immediately given to them. Regardless of which version of Cinderella one reads, in every story she asks a magical entity for the clothing and amenities necessary to go to a ball, and then she immediately receives them. For example in Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm's version of the tale Cinderella goes to the hazel tree planted on top of her mothers grave and says, “Shiver and quiver my little tree, Silver and gold throw down over me. Then the bird threw down a gold and silver dress down to her, and slippers embroidered with silk and silver.”(Grimm 243) Furthermore in the Grimm's version, the next day Cinderella repeats these same word and receives an even grander dress. Those who say Cinderella abuse was her working for those beautiful garments couldn't be more wrong. Cinderella didn't know she was going to obtain these extravagant gifts prior to accepting abuse, these gifts were miraculously bestowed upon her. Not once does any version of the story say that Cinderella was accepting her abuse because she knew she was going to get her dress and slippers. If the tale was about a girl named Cinderella who sewed her own dress and then went to ball then it would be a tale teaching the value of hard work; but as it stands the tale is just giving children a sense of entitlement. Now more then ever children are being sexualized and have vast amounts of importance placed on their appearance. If one flips on the television they can watch shows such as “Toddlers and Tiaras”. A show about young children being dressed up in revealing clothing and being paraded around on stage. The sexualization doesn't stop there, Barbies, Bratz dolls, and Monster High dolls are all common children's toys that are all scantily dressed up in various outfits. Cinderella contributes to placing this importance on appearances by having the Prince that fall in love with Cinderella based on her looks. The Prince doesn't love Cinderella because she is a hard worker, he loves her simply because she is the hot chick at the ball. Even in the Disney version, “Cinderella was the loveliest of them all. The Prince never left her side, all evening long.”(Campbell 249) Cinderella isn't teaching children to be diligent workers, it teaches children to be vain. That who someone truly is isn't half as important as what someone looks like. Cinderella goes against what the vast majority of what parents teach their children: the importance of standing up for one's self. That if one is bullied, abused, or put down they should shouldn't accept it and cry in the corner, they should be proactive and tell a person of authority about this problem so it can be fixed. Just letting ones self be repeatedly victimized isn't displaying strength or courage. Parents who push stories like Cinderella on their children aren't realizing what they are actually teaching their children. What's being taught to children is that when those mean “stepsisters” pick on you to just accept it. After all that what Cinderella did, never once did object to the perpetual mistreatment she was subjected to. To take it a step further, Cinderella is rewarded with lavish gifts for accepting her abuse. That is the antithesis of what you should impress on a child. Cinderella is not the innocent tale most parents believe it to be. Like many fairy tales it has subliminal messages which are passed on to children. In this case these messages are creating a sense of entitlement, preaching vanity, and teaching children not to stand up for one's self. The ritzy clothing Cinderella get just by asking. A story about a girl who marries a prince isn't teaching children about love, it's teaching them that what they see in the mirror is what it truly matters. Someone who never once stands up for her self isn't someone who should be a role model. Yet parents insist on reading their children stories like Cinderella with out considering what they are actually saying. So it may not be the schools that are a problem, or the toys they play with, but rather its those innocent looking books on your shelves.

Works Cited
Campbell, Grant. "Walt Disney's Cinderella." Reading And Writing Across The Curriculum. 12th ed. New York: Pearson Education, 2013. 247-49. Print.
Grimm, Wilhelm. "Cinderella." Reading And Writing Across The Curriculum. By Jakob

Grimm. 12th ed. New York: Pearson Education, 2013. 240-45. Print.