Happily Ever After...The End?

In this day and age, we parents can use all the help we can get, trying to pound morality and ethics into our children's heads. Fairy tales are particularly useful for that sort of thing.

"Goodness and virtue will prevail" we tell them. (They know nothing, after all, of lawyers and stockbrokers.) Daily concerns such as basic neatness and hygiene require a healthy level of parental coercion, which only a graphic illustration of an ogre can completely satisfy.

But fairy tales, such as they are, are full of rot. Sleep the day a way, and a Prince will be sure to snag you; nay, carry you away from your life of sloth to a more satisfying (?) existence; Strangers are dangerous, unless they're attractive; one woman living with 7 men is an acceptable living arrangement; burglary, larceny, and murder have no adverse consequences as long as magic beans are involved.

That's too much to cover in a pithy column like this one. Let me instead confine my argument to the traditional, if insipid, last three words of modern-day fairy tales: "happily ever after."

We'll join the story when some unnamed prince, who the princess has known for, say, 10 seconds (9 of which involved sucking face) and who has never met her parents, carries her off to a "happily ever after" on his white steed, which nobody got the plate number on. This constitutes your average popular and satisfying ending.

Snow White? What are you? Twelve? Riding off into the sunset with Prince Whatsizname, while admittedly better than languishing in a drug-induced coma, isn't the promise of smooth sailing you think it is. Don't let him talk you out of finishing your education!

Cinderella, honey? You thought scrubbing floors was hard work? Being the wife of a high-profile prince isn't exactly Club-Med. It involves lots of face-time at long boring affairs (which will seem NOTHING like a 'Ball') and interaction with various dignitaries, politicians, and the like who will make your Wicked Stepmother look like Aunt Bea. Also? Pet mice in the castle aren't going to be popular.

Happily ever after isn't the END. It's the beginning! We're short changing our kids by preparing them for life with those three words. Life is a series of choices, and each choice can be profoundly freeing while at the same time, inherently limiting. It is the nature of choice. Life's rewards have no meaning without struggle.

Happily ever after? Means noticing that your Prince, while a superb waltzer (for example) cannot sing his way out of a paper bag. It means running into other princes that can sing AND dance, and who have better kingdoms with waterfalls and unicorns, but recognizing that the shared history with Prince Number 1 has significant value. It means committing your life to a "big picture" instead of the details.

"Happily Ever After" is dismissive. It doesn't prepare our kids for the harsh reality that immediate gratification, in a matter of a few pages, isn't what life is all about. Immediate gratification isn't filling; it won't sustain a thinking person, it won't put meat on your bones, it won't make a person more interesting or compassionate or learned.

"Happily Ever After" is an implied promise that won't deliver.  Why do we want to feed that fare to our kids? They already eat enough sweets as it is.

I'm not suggesting we go the Grimm route: "And the princess pricked her finger on the spindle and died. No, really - dead as a door nail, just like the witch said. And everybody went home, having learned that one should be scrupulously careful with invitations. The end."

Because, you know, that wouldn't exactly help a kid get to sleep.

How about:
"…thus began the adventure of their life together…"

It's a nice wrap, don't you think?
And a pleasing setup for the sequel: "The Charmings, Prince and Cinderella: the First 50 Years." Which no doubt will beat out the original in terms of character development, plot twists, hope, despair, villains, and virtue. Because that's the way it is with life.

Our kids deserve to know that, and to look forward to it.