Are the fairy tales we grew up with (not to mention our parents and grandparents) too scary and politically incorrect for our children? According to a nationwide survey in Great Britain, The Baby Website found that one in four moms forgo classics such as Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood over The Very Hungry Caterpillar or The Gruffalo.
Traditional fairy tales were first popularized in the early 1800s with the publishing of The Brothers Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812 and Hans Christian Andersen's Complete Fairy Tales and Stories in 1835. The stories have been told to generations of children through various waves of social reforms, but today's parents deem the classics to be too scary (Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in a forest) or not PC (the dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). The survey revealed that parents feared that this text would give their tots nightmares, with 65 percent saying they purposely choose happy stories for bedtime reading.
Tell us, have you abandoned traditional fairy tales for more modern storytelling? To see the survey's top 10 bedtime storybooks, as well as the classics we are neglecting, read more
