Once Upon A Time

On Saturday my kids won two Fairy Tale CD's at my son's preschool carnival. After we got home, I quickly realized that somehow my children have slipped through their earliest years without knowing hardly any of these stories. With excitement, they popped in the first CD and settled in for a story.

One of the first things we heard was a disclaimer about talking to your parents if any part of the story bothers or scares you.

Wha??? What kind of Fairy Tales were these anyway?? It was not what I was expecting, but it did get me thinking.

First up was Hansel and Gretel - The wicked step-mom convinces the push-over father to abandon his children in the woods. First try fails, so he does it AGAIN. The wicked witch turns one child into her slave and begins to fatten the other child so she can eat him.

It sounds similar to "All My Children".

Next on the CD was Rapunzel - A soon-to-be father agrees to hand over his baby to an enchantress to spare his own life. The child is locked in a tower with no way to leave (where was SRS?). The prince is thrown out of the tower and blinded, and Rapunzel is disowned (for the second time) and cast out into the wilderness.

Hmmm...."The Young and the Restless"?

CD number 2 gave us The Frog Prince - A beautiful, spoiled princess meets a talking frog. She lies to him by giving empty promises to get what she wants, and then tries to run away. The princess is forced to be with the frog, and poof, after kissing him, he turns into her handsome prince. Yep, that's reality.

This had to be the beginnings of "The Bold and the Beautiful".

And finally, Little Red Riding Hood - A little girl meets a talking wolf who wants to eat her. The wolf pretends to be the little girl, then pretends to be the grandmother. The wolf did not actually eat the grandmother in this version, but still.....

Forget soap operas, I'm going with "New Moon".

Frankly it's amazing we all grew up unscathed.

It's a good thing they all end in "Happily Ever After".

....."After" years of therapy.