Damn You, Brothers Grimm
Huh. So you all remember how Max was so cool about the great green ghost? Telling me ‘it’s not real’ and ‘it can’t get in to the house’ and ‘can’t hurt us’? Well, yeah. It seems that this rule does not apply to the witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel’.
Yesterday, Max watched an animated version of the fairy tale on You Tube. And I’m not talking about the sugary-sweet, watered-down, PC version of the story – oh, no. I am talking about the full-on, Brothers Grimm original. With the evil step-mother – is there any other kind in fairy tales, though? – telling Hansel and Gretel’s wimpy boob of a father to abandon those damn kids deep in the forest, since they are just too expensive to feed in these hard times. And the dolt does, of course, since that is the power of evil women who are stuck with kids who are not their own, I suppose. Anyway, y’all know what happens next: the children come across the house made of candy and go inside and a witch lives there and she throws Hansel in a cage and Gretel has to cook her tiny heart out, cooking for him so he can fatten up and the witch will bake him in the fire and eat him. Yeah. Great stuff, right? I had forgotten quite how horrifying the whole thing actually is – I vaguely remembered something about the house and a witch and the kids escaping – and I have now sworn to be much more selective about Max’s fairy tale viewing habits.
But. The damage was done: he was terrified. Not of the kids being abandoned, though, or of their mother dying. Not of that idiot man, their father, just leaving them to die, nor of the dark woods. Not of the kid being fattened up as food, and not of Gretel shoving the witch into the fire and burning her alive.
No. He is scared to death of the witch. Red eyes, green skin, long nose, cackly voice, the whole bit. He is so scared of her, he woke up at 2:30 this morning, crying that she was going to get him. Max NEVER has nightmares, and he NEVER sleeps with me – that is one of my cardinal rules – but last night I made an exception. And he was so freaked out, he clung to my hand for over an hour, all the while he was settling and falling asleep. And I got about an hour’s rest before he woke up again at 5:00, crying about that damn witch and her eyes.
What can I say that I haven’t already? She’s not real? It’s just a moving picture on a screen? Mommy is here, so that witch can’t hurt you? I love you, and I will take care of you? How do I calm the terrors in the sleeping mind of a 3.5-year-old?
I know very well the power of seeing something scary, something which just hits you a certain way and has an effect on you, making you afraid of this certain thing, when millions of other things just bounce right off. I mean, I can barely watch that trailer for ‘Paranormal Activity 2′ since there is a baby in the preview. If I close my eyes, I can SEE the bedroom, the crib, the demon-thing in the doorway and the baby gone. I know it’s not real, it isn’t happening in my house, it can’t hurt me. But it scares the hell out of me all the same.
And let’s face it: the world is full of people who would hurt Max given half a chance… how can I tell him there are no monsters? That bad people aren’t real?
But I’ll get up in the night for as many nights as it takes, and go to him when he’s crying, and I’ll hold him until he sleeps. And I’ll be an exhausted wreck the next day – you do NOT want to know how much concealer I put under my eyes this morning, and how worried I am about a very major meeting at 1:30 this afternoon, since I am having trouble focusing right now at 11:30 – but I’ll do it. He’s my little boy. I will make him feel safe.
Damn you, Brothers Grimm.
Tell me about it! Hansel & Gretel, I never remembered how they got lost in the forest in the first place until I bought a ‘kids book’ from the op shop. I started reading it to Muffin and was thinking “what hell? this is horrible, a father sends his kids out to the forest to die?” and not only once, but twice after they found they’re way back the first time. You SICK bastards!
I hate any movie where bad things happen to children or babies. I don’t want to see that stuff. There was a really bad movie that had a baby in it with some really REALLY disturbing. I almost through up, and I feel sick just thinking about it. It was supposed to be a scary movie (I think?) but it wasn’t scary at all, just really sick and twisted.
When I was a kid I used to get scared watching Ursula die on The Little Mermaid LOL Did not like it at all.
DP often wonders why I tell him that certain movies like Harry Potter or even Spiderman are just not ok to watch with little children.
Muffin sometimes has nightmares just from some of the disney movies she watches..
I am scared after hearing you recount the story again…
Just goes to show how careful we must be with the stuff they watch!
Poor little guy….
I agree: give him all the attention until he feels safe again.
Duly noted. Avoid Brothers Grimm stuff, Hansel and Gretel, and You Tube. My boy hasn’t started with fears or nightmares, and I don’t want him to. Poor Max! I remember when I was little being afraid of Hansel and Gretel because of the fire in the oven that they stick the witch in (I was afraid of fire).
You know now I’m going to have to check out the trailer for PA2 don’t you? I will blame you if I freak out…
Seriously though, I remember that happening with Zack last summer. I thought I was being nice, letting him watch The Chronicles of, er… I can’t remember that name. It isn’t Narnia, something that was out on Sky last year and had a pg rating.
Anyhoo, he woke up that night absolutely terrified and I had to take him into bed with me (I’m another who never normally lets him sleep in my bed, ever). He was scared the goblins were going to get him or something! Poor wee sod…
Mind you, last night he insisted he wanted to watch The Terminator with us before bed and giggled the whole way through it, slept v soundly that night and has been saying “I’ll be back” Arnie style today, so I guess now he’s that bit older he doesn’t mind!
I used to be terrified of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Yup.
Amy has nightmares about a purple snapping box that tries to snap people up. Eventually, after all my consoling wouldn’t help, I told her that the dog would protect her. The dog at the time was asleep next to the fire, but it was enough to calm Amy down, knowing that Seven was inside and would bite the box if it came near Amy.
Oh poor Max. Nightmares just aren’t fun. I still remember being terrified by ET. I know, not the most obvious source of nightmares, but when I was sent to lie in my little bed all by myself at night, all I could think of was a pudgy little alien screaming down the side of my house.
I don’t know if I actually ended up writing about it somewhere, but fairy tales are not for kids, no way!
We have read/watched multiple versions of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and one of the last ones had the princes who failed to find out where the princesses were going having their heads chopped off. Princess didn’t bat an eyelid (I suspect she wasn’t really listening) but after Dadda read it he came out and asked me if it was appropriate to be reading it. Well, read some of the original pre-Grimm Brothers versions of fairy tales and tell me whether they should be told to children at all.
Oh, and fairies are not nice. I’ve just finished reading The Southern Vampire mysteries, and I think fairies are the scariest creatures of the lot!