Fairy tales: No room for Mommies.

Ever notice how there are no Mommies in Fairy Tales?

It wasn't too long ago that we bought our daughter her first Disney Princess movie. When I was growing up, there were no Disney Princess cult following, it was just your average Disney flick. The movie of Elle-Girl's choice was Sleeping Beauty. I had never seen this movie so I decided it would be worth a try. I soon decided that not only was this "Classic" a real snoozer but that Sleeping Beauty, aka, Brier Rose, aka, Princess Aurea, aka, Seeping B (to Elle-Girl) was the biggest flake of all the Princesses! But Elle-Girl just loves to sing "Once upon a dream" over and over while each of her stuffed animals waltzes across the room.

Through not so subtle placement on everything that little girls wear, down to the box the diaper wipes come in, Elle-Girl has learned all the name of the Disney Princesses even though she has only seen two of their movies. One day while explaining to her who each of the young disproportion girls were I realized that none of these ladies have mothers! All of their mothers must have been part of some collective evil massacre by Disney along the way because all of them are orphans who are raised by their fathers. Perhaps it makes their situation more desperate and sad?

But where is the female influence?! Who teaches all these beauties how to walk gracefully down a flight of stairs, or how to win the attention of all these handsome princes? Who shows them how to be the "perfect ideal woman" that they are, and just who teaches them to fix their hair so perfectly? I sure would like to know because I still can't seem to get the part straight for Elle-Girl's "Dawg Ears" as she calls them.

The mothers that do play a role in these films are either not a strong figure like Sleeping Beauty's mother who hands her child over to three mindless fairies to be raised, or they get killed off in the first 10 min. of the film, i.e, Bambi, and Finding Nemo.

Conspirators like to say its because Walt Disney's felt guilty for the death of his mother who lost her life to a poorly installed furnace in the house that he bought for her. However, Walt was only putting on film stories that had been read to sleepy eyed children at bedtime for generations.

So why is it that mother's are left out of the picture and children are handed over to foster parents or step parents who have no regard for their well being and they are most of the time taken in by a friendly fairy or godmother who has pity on them? It surely doesn't give a positive reflection for children who in real life have to be left with the above mentioned care takers.

Join me for a moment in imagining what a fairy tale would be should a mother be left in the story. I'm not down playing fathers. I know some single dads that are wonderful parents and get a really bad rep. and have very little support. My own husband David has done a wonderful job of taking care of the house and our daughter while I have been recovering from the c-section. and he does get the "Dawg ears" straight.

But should the mothers be left in, would their be room for an evil vileness. Wouldn't a mother step up and say "If you want to pick on my daughter, you're going to have to go through me!"? Wouldn't a mother be there to teach her daughter how to defend herself against the evils of other women? Would she give her daughter a stronger voice? Would there be need for a Prince? Would the Princess take on the Women's Lib' role and go get a job and earn her own living? Would she go on to eventually be the Queen like Queen Elizabeth, and the Prince would then have to take on a secondary role? Or would it be overshadowing to a young girl to have a strong female role in a movie and not allow her to rise up and be the lead role as THE PRINCESS? Oh, I'd hope not.

Perhaps there really is no rhyme or reason behind this at all and it all just happens to be one big coincidence. Yes, that must be it.