No More FairyTales

Today, I was thinking about my girls and how I want them to grow up to become strong independent women. I want them to love and value themselves more than I love and value them. They are my world, but I want to give them enough knowledge to reach for the stars without allowing someone else to rescue them from an uncomfortable situation.

Therefore, I don’t read my girls fairytales because the moral of those stories deepen the impression that beautiful women need a man to rescue them and make their lives perfect. Those stories reinforce made-up female inadequacies that I do not condone. Those stories that I grew up hearing about: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Repunzel, and the list goes on and on.

While I don’t mind them being princesses because that is exactly how they are in my eyes. There has never been a happily ever after in anyone life, and I’m sure it will not start for them. A little adversity will be good for them, it will help them stay grounded. I don’t want my daughters to daydream about their wedding day and long for prince charming to ride in on his white horse. All too often in my life, I have seen women sacrifice their intellect and beauty for a prince that didn’t value their “Queenliness.”

It’s weird to me, how we look at our little girls and think these fairytales as just stories, but those stories make impressions upon their hearts and help guide their thoughts. The notion that her prince charming will make her life blissful and perfect is just as real as unicorns. While they are little I’ll let them write their own non-rescue, damsel-free fairytales and ride off into the sunset. Let them ride their own white horse, alone, valiantly and strategically.

It often saddens me when women who are unwed and childless are depressed because the one thing she thought was “making it” in life, she doesn’t have. Because the books she read growing up, basically steered her in the wrong direction, they were just fairytales, unreal. Even if you are well over 40 and childless as long as you are happy that is all that matters, happiness cannot be dependent upon having someone else in your life because people are uncontrollable, but happiness is waking up in the morning knowing that you are content with your life just the way it is.

Happily ever after is found within your attitude. It’s about your confidence in the decisions you make and not in who you are forced to make decisions with. So when the day comes for my girls to talk to me about the fairytales they’ve been daydreaming about i’ll  let them know their life path is limitless. They are free to chart the coordinates of their future in any direction they choose, just don’t count on any fairytales.

 

Image Source: Victor Habbick and FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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