Should we let children read fairy tales?

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That one’s actually mild compared to “the ban” . . . a deacon candidate came to our meeting once straight from his class which covered this . . . thoroughly pale . . .
 
Oh yeah I’m sure. There’s still plenty of stuff in the Bible I wouldn’t want to have to explain to children though. I’m pretty sure I’d never have been allowed to read anything else involving several plot points that are in the Bible anywhere near as young as I read the entire Bible. The bit with Lot and his daughters is my favorite.
 
Every Jewish child knows the story of Passover, now remembered during Seder, given there is no Temple with which to sacrifice, so no sacrifice,

I am struggling a little to understand your comparison of an evil mythical act of a cannibilistic child eating witch that kidnaps two children,
And the story of Exodus, the Israelites release from slavery and led to the promised land by God.
Perhaps you could elucidate.
 
The Bible is filled with stories that easily as distressing to children as Hansel and Gretel —
the Passover story is disturbing if you relate to an Egyptian child, the ‘ban,’ as @dochawk mentioned, Jael hammering a tent stake through a sleeping Sisera’s head, Simeon and Levi tricking Hamor and Schechem et al. to get circumcisions and then slaughtering them while they were weakened from the procedure—the list goes on.
 
Taking aim at Humpty-Dumpty? It teaches a lesson… don’t be stupid from heights 🙂

Witch boiling up kids. Don’t talk to strangers who give you candy.

Let’s not forget the acts of violence, incest, and brutality found in the Bible as a bed-time story. Samson’s wife got burned alive; David committed murder to get Bathsheba; Abraham was going to kill Isaac; the really nasty stuff in Maccabees; just all sorts of really unpleasant topics that exceed fairy tale levels of violence.
 
Yes the list does go on.
If we are Christian, living and practicing the Christian life, and attempting to raise our children in the footsteps of Jesus, to emulate His morality and ethics, is it better, with the limited time we all have in our busy lives, with that precious little time we have with our children , to read them fairytales, which all seem to be violent and gory, or to read them Bible stories. Youngsters love Noah, the Nativity, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, the Parables.

Lets face it, society has desensitized us to violence, childrens’ cartoons attest to that, as do Hollywood movies and TV series. Lives of characters bolstering the heroes are expendable in the plot.
We teach our children about the dangers of strangers and why these dangers exist. And rightly so. We teach them that the gun in their home can kill if not used correctly.
Do we teach them a story of catching live birds and baking them in a hot oven in a pie, to eat, or we teach them of the presentation of Jesus along with the required sacrifice of turtle doves.

I have met too many people who grow up not knowing what Easter is about, nor Christmas for that matter.
Its time to take back Christianity in my book.

seeksadvice, there are many ways to teach these lessons. Why not present the reality of them.
Maccabees is all about the resistance to worship the false gods of Rome. And the martyrs that sprung out of that time. It is also so much more as far as the Ist Jewish Revolt is concerned. Why not teach that.

Fairy tale levels of violence are right up there with the best gore , just packaged sweetly. There is a lullaby. Rockaby baby in the tree top, baby gets rocked and soothed, then the tree branch comes crashing down and the baby with it. How is that non violent?
 
I am also talking about fairy tales, and I don’t see the reference to these used as “a religious instruction tool” in the OP. Rather, the implication is that Catholics should not read those that contain “non-[C]atholic belief.” I’m adding that the argument includes those that are part of some Catholics’ culture.
 
ralfyman said:
Rather, the implication is that Catholics should not read those that contain “non-[C]atholic belief.”
Click to expand...

You seem to be missing my point that the stories are all fictional. You seem to think they are going to give kids literal ideas about believing in something other than Catholicism.

Almost every fairy tale from every culture contains elements that are not part of Catholic belief: genies that grant wishes, fairy godmothers that turn mice into ponies, elves/ gnomes/ fairies/ leprechauns etc that live in the woods or underground, spirits of various nature forces like snow, ice or wind, magic spells, witches that cast spells (including evil ones) etc.

They are fantasy stories about good and evil. They do not reflect true belief. They are not meant to reflect true belief. At some point a kid has got to learn that some stories are made up and read/ told for entertainment and to teach a lesson, not because we literally believe there is a witch who lives in the woods and can cast a spell. If a kid is too young to understand what “it’s only a story” means, then the particular tale should be told when he’s older.

Once he understands that “it’s only a story” or maybe even understands that there are people in the world who are not Catholic/ Christian and believe differently than we do and the story reflects their culture (so he’s learning about other people in the world) then it’s fine for the kid to read the story. Learning about other people’s cultures and beliefs is part of living in the world. It doesn’t mean we’re going to all of a sudden decide to believe like they do.

I remember in elementary school reading a whole book of tales about the Norse gods that I got from my Catholic school library. It was quite an interesting book. It didn’t make me think that Norse gods actually existed or that we should worship them instead of God. I understood it was mythology.
 
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I guess it depends whether you want them to be culturally literate. Many elements of fairy tales and mythology appear in the works of great literature. You could use this argument for not teaching or reading Shakespeare, but I don’t think it’s particularly compelling.

It’s up to each parent how to teach, but there certainly is nothing in Catholic moral teaching to suggest children shouldn’t be exposed to fiction, literature, or other cultures.
 
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If I’m not mistaken, that’s the argument of the thread starter. Mine implies the opposite, i.e., Catholicism continues to thrive in various countries where not just fairy tales but many other cultural beliefs are non-Catholic.
 
Sorry, but what is ‘the ban’? Everyone else seems to know what it is. Is it a Hebrew term?
 
Darwin Award recipients have to come from somewhere…
 
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Ah yes… the cry of “red shirts” everywhere. The hero lives, but we die in droves. Simple truth of the matter is that for every “Pershing” their were hundreds of BBQ’ed Sherman crews. That’s actually “art” imitating reality. See also: Fisher’s “Combustibles,” Stalin and the “Red Army” in WWII, the list goes on and on.

By the way… a gun in the home can be used to kill if it is used correctly. I live in a smaller city out on the vast Northern Plains. You’d be surprised that sometimes kids wind up having to shoot intruders. Kids need to learn to respect firearms, not fear them. There may very well come a time when the correct use of the firearm is to kill somebody who is trying to kill/rape/ you or a family member.

I think elements of culture desensitize things. Pretty sure fairy tales far out-date the modern bunch of B.S. that gets spewed as “acceptable.”
 
Catholic parents may require their children not to listen to or read about fairy tales from their own culture that go against Catholic beliefs, but that will be difficult if these tales are prevalent in the same communities. This is the case in various Third World countries.

What is usually done is that children are exposed to these tales, and then are taught to see them as precisely that: fairy tales. This might even apply to tales that don’t go against Catholicism.
 
They aren’t missing out on much if they don’t know. School is the only place where they get mentioned and maybe some movie or show based on one.
 
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My children loved to read. Some of them read everything they could get their hands on. I cannnot see them being satisfied if age appropriate Bible story books were all tha were available. At some point they would have become bored.
They knew that I would read everything they did and we would discuss it. I cannot stand Steven King or vampires but when my daughter read those books I did too. We talked about Catholic teaching and the theme plot and characters in the books they were reading.
 
Those themes recur as subtexts in all kinds of literature. Like themes from the Bible, which also are threaded throughout many English classics. It’s an important building block to understanding some of the great works written in our language.
 
I’m a Catholic homeschooling parent and we use a Catholic curriculum. They require Asope Fables, The Hobbit, A Wrinkle in Time and various others. You will find Black Ships before Troy and they study Greek as well as Latin. Yes, they have elementary level learning Greek Gods along with their catechism activities and lessons because you can’t know History unless you KNOW your History (Greeks and mythology).
My 2nd grader did a small report on the “fake” God Jupiter — Japith at the time. And his job was to link it with Christian theology – guess who named his son Japith – Noah named one of his sons Japith since at the time, it was one of the cool names since most of the people around then believed in worshiping Jupiter and not God, but Noah and his family did. My 2nd grader knows Jupiter is not a God but a planet. He isn’t turning pagan 🙂 Again, it helps make their history and timeline studies stronger!
Also you can’t control what they are exposed to. My kids saw stickers of Tinkerbelle and the movies, they didn’t assume fairies are real because we teach them what is Truth and we attend mass and are involved in a Catholic homeschool community and etc.
 
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