At times I’m afraid I’m a bad influence on my daughter in
some ways. I keep wanting to buy her books, toys and movies about fairies. Even
as I work to empower her, to let her know she is strong and capable and that
she can be her own superhero, I find myself constantly tempted by all things
pink, magic, winged and girly. I try to resist and temper it. I have a feminist
code to live up to, after all! When I tell stories about princesses I make sure
that it is the princess who tames the dragon, no prince required. I like the
Disney Tinkerbell movies because the fairy Tinkerbell as a character is
curious, confident, and very capable as a problem solver in addition to being
kind and beautiful. I try to be very conscientious about letting my daughter
know I value her as a whole person, in all her aspects. Fortunately she’s a
fairly sturdy child who knows what she likes and has faith in her own
capabilities, even at the age of two and a half. She’s much more likely to roar
and tell me she’s a dinosaur and demand eggs (because she has an idea that
dinosaurs eat eggs) than she is to be a fairy princess.
The idea of fairies has always been fascinating to me. I
think I’ve been a fantasy lover for as long as I’ve been able to read. As a
child I loved the movies The Dark Crystal and The Labyrinth, both done by Jim
Henson and Frank Oz with Brian Froud as the artistic director. I loved fairy
tales and read my mother’s copies of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Anderson’s Fairy
Tales over and over. I remember in second grade there was a series of books on
world myths, full of magic, that I checked out of the library repeatedly. Some
of the oldest books on my bookshelves, the ones saved from childhood, are
stories about magic. I love a great many things about fantasy, including the
morality of fantasy stories, but I know that what I love most is the idea of
magic and fairies.
One of my favorite gifts from my husband is the book “Good
Faeries, Bad Faeries” by Brian Froud, edited by Terri Windling. In his
introduction to the book Mr. Froud talks about fairies as present day beings,
pulses of energy, emotion and light in the world around us. He features faeries
such as The Computer Glitch, The Bad Hair Day Faery as well as a Faery of
Focused Attention. All of the gorgeous faerie paintings are accompanied by text
describing the faeries and their roles and actions. Part of the fun of the book
is that the Good Faeries are printed on one half, the Bad faeries printed in
reverse on the other half, so wherever you start you turn the book upside down
(or right side up, depending on your perspective) halfway through. I like this idea of fairies invisibly surrounding us, helping or hindering as they bump up against our lives.
I don’t think I will give up introducing fairies to my
daughter, although I will also respect her own joys and will give her dinosaurs
too. And I will do my best to share with her not just girly, pretty fairies but
also fairies that are strong and true. I want her to see her world as full of
hidden beauty and wild possibility. I want her to see herself as someone with incredible
potential and creativity, and that’s what fairies represent for me. The hunger
for magic and beauty has been a gift for me throughout my life, and I hope I
can pass it along to my child.
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