Do your kids know the little mermaid committed suicide?

[OnlyParentsAreReal]

I had I discussion with another mother about a new book I had got my son that had the little mermaid in. It says she "chose to ascend" which I thought was a lovely age appropriate way of putting across the original story. She was horrified and said she would never let her son know any of the true non Disney endings to stories. I think that's awful as the Disney endings send bad messages. What are peoples views on this?

Once they get to a certain age kids love gory stuff. My DD had 2 different versions of Little Red Riding Hood when she was little and only ever wanted to read the one where granny was eaten and then the wolf was chopped open. Also, life isn't always happy endings...

Snow white in original grimm tale invited her stepmother to her wedding, presented her with ted hot burning (iron?) shoes that forced her to dance to death. Dcs love it.... was it philip oulman who did book modernising original grimm tales?

They do say that reading them stories with death etc from a young age is a good way to introduce kids to the concept of death and help them deal with it when they are faced with it

Yes, Philip Pullman has a book which retells the original Grimms tales.

The original versions are fine once kids get to a certain age. I'm not sure they are suitable for very young children, although some will be fine with them.

My 5yo ds prefers the three pigs version where big bad Wolfie gets boiled alive 😳

In the original version of Sleeping Beauty she gets raped in her sleep and wakes up to find herself giving birth to twins. Don't want my children anywhere near that plot line to be honest...but they're generally much happier than I am with a bit of brutality in fairy tales. Five-year-old DD loves Hansel and Gretl, which makes me feel slightly ill.

To be fair even the Disney version of sleeping beauty is super rapey anyway. But the baby thing is legitimate. Being pregnant helps the mother repair and giving birth causes most to wake from a coma

Wishing I thought the wolf got burnt alive and eaten? Not boiled?

No the wolf is boiled, they set a cauldron over the fire which he falls into.
My kids have a selection of tales which have awful endings. The rocks sewn into wolf's belly version of red riding hood very popular

We've got the proper version of sleeping beauty on audio book and the kids loved it even though I found it a bit full on myself!

I mean the little mermaid not sleeping beauty

Not little mermaid related (I wasn't allowed to watch that as my mum never let me watch Disney movies) but I went to see pochahontas at the cinema for a friend's birthday when I was about 8 and when I got home my mum told me that IRL it wasn't a happy ending and that she caught small pox from the white people and died. She added we could go and see her grave if I wanted. I remember feeling sad about it but it wasn't emotionally scarring or anything like that.

Not a gory one but I am being driven mad by the fact that all the versions of the Princess and the Pea that my daughter has present it as fact that the princess is a real princess who can really feel the pea. Which not only validates ludicrous snobbery but is dull. Whereas the version I read as a child was that it was a peasant girl pulling a fast one on the stupid royals.

I read the original when I was about 9 or 10, and just thought it was incredibly sad.

Read 6 year old ds the pied piper of hamlet once, and it terrified him. He cried at the end, when the children disappear forever, and couldn't sleep at night. Yet he loves jurassic park, marvel movies and DC movies etc, and has never been scares by any of them (even the creepy penguin from batman).

Very little children can't conceptualise suffering of others in the way we do which is why it sounds comical to them, almost cartoonish.

It's an adult reaction to imagine how the wolf must feel to have every part of its skin burned, to feel the fear, to feel the helplessness, to be unable to escape.

To children it's just a funny way to dispose of a villain, who was after all much more scary than the thought of whatever happened to him!

I thought I remembered from the original Little Mermaid that she found it incredibly painful to walk on land and that it was like knives going into her feet with every step.

I read the little pigs story to my 3.5 yo tonight , the version with the wolf landing in boiling water and she said "is the pig going to add pasta to that pot now? " not sure whether to be concerned at that!

I didn't know about the little mermaid...

We have a version of the princess and the pea where it just says"and she was a real princess and they got married" it really annoys me as I'm sure that isn't how it really goes!

It IS annoying, isn't it?

My version of the Little Mermaid had her walking as if on knives too. I've refused ever to watch the Disney film in protest!

Does anyone know the story of the princess who goes to the castle but the lady-in-waiting bullies her and takes her place to marry the prince or something... something about the princess’s horse being killed and hair washing?

I remember the ending of the story because it’s bloody gruesome, but I can’t remember what it was called!

Oh and yes, Rumpelstiltskin dies - he tears himself in two in a rage.

Yes in the original the mermaid doesn't marry the princes the wicked mermaid does (the one who stole her voice)

Same as the ltttle match girl freezes to death

Keep the originals I say!

I had a really ancient copy of Grimms Tales as a child that was falling apart even then, it had all the gory endings. I loved it.