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elegran, I must have misread. I apologize

I wasn't attacking anyone at all, Summerlove, nor was I claiming that "my way" was perfect. It was different but it was just as loving and sensible. When our greatgrandchildren are our age, and their greatgrandchildren get their turn to reset the guidelines of parenting, the same will be true - we all act as best we can for our children.

Elegran Could it be because there is currently such a very strong atmosphere of "Old people = bad people who got us into all this mess" that we feel we must defend ourselves

Can you not defend without attacking a different generation though? If your ways truly were better, you should be able to stand the ground without going low

When I and my children were young almost all storybook heroes were male: Pooh, Paddington, Mowgli, Ratty and Mole, Biggles, Stig, most of Ronald Dahl’s, Bilbo and Frodo, Spot, Thomas and friends, the Gingerbread man etc.
These more than outweighed Cinderella, Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty.
We didn’t expect social realism in children’s stories yet we are the ones who demanded equality and respect. It had damn-all to do with what we read, more with the families and communities we lived in.

We are all a product of our time, what ever that happens to be at the time, personally I think the 50s & 60s was a good. But the most damaging situation overall is the ever present inequalities & I am not sure that will ever really change.
The Earth our blood line is inching its way to end & the inevitable, I doubt that we will ever achieve basic equality for all.

My point is:
Parents have always faced challenges raising children, they may be somewhat different but they are no more challenging than for previous generations.

The biggest actual change is the introduction of effective contraception which has freed women from yearly childbirth and allowed them to achieve things themselves.

Putting food on the table for large families and protecting the family from the many fatal illnesses was just as (if not more important) than internet exposure. Getting a child to the age to work and contribute , 8 or 9years old in 18th centriry, and 14 in my mothers generation was more important than the literal content of a book ( apart from lady C's lover that my mother thought she had hidden under her bed). The naughty men and dangerous situations have always been there and will always be there.
Smaller families have resulted in forensic parenting where, as stated in one programme this week, many children spend less time outdoors than a prisoner.

There are some Amazingly tolerant, well adjusted Gay, straight ,mixed etc etc, humans who were brought up in non tolerant & tolerant environments. Banning traditional fairy tales is to me as intolerant as banning all the above.
Most of us do not need legislation to behave & get on with people from all walks of life, if we go do the route suggested it will IMO bring about more prejudice & intolerance not less ! Stop forcing kids into an adult world. Let them enjoy all age appropriate literature .

Could it be because there is currently such a very strong atmosphere of "Old people = bad people who got us into all this mess" that we feel we must defend ourselves or become like the Chinese intellectuals during Mao's purge, metaphorically in sackcloth and ashes and grovelling, pleading to be humiliated and cleansed by the victorious illiterate peasants?

I agree that things need to change , and yes - 5 isn't too young! However, the tone of this mum's letter made me cringe! The consent thing - yes there should always be - but, I think that this can be picked up without ruining fairy tales. Happy to add new ones and characters for balance. Brave, Frozen and the Princess Knight all come to mind.

No one believes they are the first people to parent.

What they believe, is they have a different way of doing things. Doing things differently is not always a slight on the previous generation.

Banning of books is wrong, but a lot of stories DO need people to talk about and counterbalance them. Why is that a problem?

So many people complaining that younger generations are blaming older generations for all of the problems. But the people on this thread are throwing just as much shade on the younger generations. Why, If you were so confident in the way you did things, are people doing things differently such a threat to your parenting philosophies?

Yes, Bradfordlass they are allegories. Understanding the meaning behind allegories, parables and metaphors is a useful skill for children to learn. Some people never acquire it and continue to take everything literally.

I have bought the Kindle version - no forward by Fay Weldon, but it sounds as though his writing will speak for itself!

His name is 'James Austen Leigh' and the book is called 'A Memoir of Jane Austen'. I am not sure it is in print at present but no doubt AbeBooks or your local library can get it. Try and get the Penguin version (I think) edited by Fay Weldon. The first couple of chapters are wonderfully morally superior about the manners of Ladies and Gentleman of a previous period. He is responsible for the impression most people have of Jane Austen as a very prim and proper Victorian lady, gender perfect in everyway. As Fay Weldon points out that was probably very far from the truth.

JAL's writing is at times as good as anything written by the virtue signallers of today.

Most fairy stories and nursery rhymes are allegories.
They teach what we now call 'life skills' but the reader has to see through them to understand this.
The Guardian had a good article on fairy tales some years ago.

I didn't alter stories for my sons because of political correctness (did it even exist 50 years ago?) but because the stories as read, displeased or even upset them.

"Why does Rumplestilstkin have to be so bad tempered? I don't like him stamping his foot through the floor."
Me: 'So what do you think should happen?'

And thus developed a very instructive and educational fun game.
Now of course, he's learned what they really mean

Found a 99p Kindle version!

I've not read Jane Austen's nephew's memoir of her, Monica, I must find that.

I do not think every generation is any better than the previous, just different and building on what the previous generation has done, each in reaction to the one before.

When Jane Austen's nephew, in old age (1870s) wrote his memoir of his aunt and had to describe ways of life common in the late 18th/early 19th century, he sounded just as sanctimonious as quite a number of GNners, in seeing his age as an age of virtue and knowledge so much more moral and pure than that that preceded it and referring to how the younger generation would be shocked to know some of the things that were done then in the best of households. Gentlemen rubbing down their own horses was, I think one of them.

Every generation thinks they invented sex and invented parenting just because the, themselves, haven't done it before. Remember Philip Larkin and Sexual intercourse began, In nineteen sixty-three, (which was rather late for me) -Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban, And the Beatles' first LP.?

Back in the early 1960s I went to university to study economics and made a career in industry, my best friend became a lawyer, another a doctor. This despite a childhood of reading literature which showed women in gender specific roles. I wonder why? probably because gender roles in fiction had as much affect on us as all the wonderfully improbable adventures the Famous Five got up to or happened in the mythical Chalet boarding school, about as far from real boarding school and its mundane life as was possible. Because we were quite capable from telling fact from fiction and, most importantly parents even then brought girls up to think about education, and careers as seriously as their brothers, divorce may have been less common, but two generations of women had lived through 2 world wars that left many married women with children, widows with only small pensions and a need to work to support their families.

Every child (boy or girl) should know enough about the world not to be conned by superficial charm. They get that knowledge partly from what they see and hear, partly from the media bombarding them and partly by reading widely about people who live different lives to theirs, but mostly from their parents' attitudes.

Narrow lives lead to narrow and naive perceptions. Having traditional myths and legends banned removes a valuable dimension, as the stories, even the gruesome ones and the unfashionable fantasy ones like Sleeping Beauty, have survived exactly because they illustrate facets of human psychology.

Previous generations were not all excellent - they were the same as all generations, a mixture of good bad and average. They were NOT universally operating ^"decades of misogyny, sexism and oppression^" That is the language of the revolutionary who can't believe that any previous regime had any good points whatsoever and should all be lined up against the wall and shot at dawn, every last one of them. That attitude results in the current mania for blaming everyone over 50 for every problem in every country.

Exactly. Every generation is better than the previous.
I am disagreeing with the comment that I quoted how this generation believe they are the first to parent.

The previous generation didn’t fight what this one are.

Why sneer at it? I’d be happy for my daughter to stand up against any injustice that she faces in her life.

Past generations and society have failed girls and women. I think statements like this are ridiculous.

In a different period there were different constraints driven by entirely different circumstances. Men had to follow their fathers into the paternal occupation. Many could never afford to marry because they, single handed had to take the the full responsibility for supporting their families.

The past is another country they did things differently there we need to remind ourselves of that and stop judging the past other than by its own standards. We should extend to the past the same licence we give today to other countries and cultures that do things differently to us now.

I am a child of the 60s, flower power and peace and love, we were the generation who were going to do everything so differently and make everything on earth perfect. Just like today's generation of young people think. In just the same way today's generation will come up against reality and realise that life isn't that simple. They too will have their Harvey Weinsteins and Jimmy Savilles, obviously not exactly the same, but they will have them all the same

100 years from now their children/grandchildren will be criticising today's younger generation because they did not recognise and remedy a completely new set of inequalities that their descendants recognise but nobody now sees as inequalities, I cannot suggest any because if I did it would invalidate my argument. Perhaps that everyone has a right to a plot of land to keep chickens and Past generations and society have failed in not recognising this essential requirement for equality and mental health.

In the meanwhile to think that fairy stories and the like influence children's perception of gender roles is silly, perhaps we should cease teaching them history for the same reason because women in the past are usually in subservient roles.

Most women alive today, especially in the western world have had opportunities for education, and have gone into jobs and had careers that were unimaginable 150 years ago and done it despite literature that places them in traditional gender roles and despite their parents not take(ing) it as an opportunity to discuss the issues and ensure I(they) balance it out.

They’re ere exactly like the Prince Charmings! They literally used they’re charm and power to not on manipulate and coerce these children and women but they also had the power to silence those around them.
You say it wouldn’t have happened if you knew about it but you can’t speak for others.

There is another thread on here right now where a mother covered for her rapist son against the victim. Blames the victim for the schism in the family.
This is a generational issue that is being broken. So yes this generation are fighting against decades of misogyny, sexism and oppression and they are doing it from every angle.
Again I personally don’t think fairytales need to be banned. No good has ever come form censoring literature.

However I think it’s so ignorant to sneer at the current generation and lord over joe excellent the previous ones were when they were so blatantly flawed.

And don't blame "the generation . ." who brought us these two examples (and there were and are plenty more in the box) It was basic greedy and self-indulgent human nature that brought us those charmers, not any specific generation. People who can believe lying narcissistic politicians are still around.

But Jimmy Saville and Harvey Weinstein were not typical Prince Charming figures, were they? JS was a monster, possibly made so by his rather odd mother, HW was a chancer who was in a position to trade career advancement for sexual favours. They don't equate with a kiss to the sleeping beauty from a young and attractive man who marries the girl and lives happily ever after.

If girls have enough confidence in themselves and their abilities they can tell the Harvey Weinsteins that they will take their talent elsewhere. As for JimmySaville - why was he repeatedly left alone with vulnerable girls and women? That would not have happened if I, my mother or grandmother had been responsible for them, however much he acted the concerned celebrity, and we were aware as children that not all people could be trusted. This was while reading traditional fairy stories - and also reading a whole lot of other books as well.

I wonder why nowadays some parents assume they are the first to undertake child rearing and also forget that they and their parents and grandparents were once children and very likely exposed to all of the classical fairy stories with no negative psychological impact.

You mean the generations that brought us Jimmy Savile, Harvey Weinstein etc etc.

Past generations and society have failed girls and women.
Rape convictions are now less than 2% I believe.
So we may not be the first to parent but at least there’s people fighting to break the cycle.

However. I have nothing against fairytales being present. I just take it as an opportunity to discuss the issues and ensure I balance it out.
Luckily now Disney have started to create stronger female roles like Moana and Brave.