Different Types of Fathers in Fairy Tales

It is common sense that no children can grow well without parenting. Generally speaking, parenting is supposed to come from both mothers and fathers. When people think about the parenting role of fathers and mothers, it is unavoidable to ask the following questions: between fathers and mothers, who are more important for children? Are mothers or fathers more critical for parenting? Based on a long term study in this field, it might be surprising to many people that it is father that is the primary person for parenting (Wipfler,  “Fathers Are Primary Parents!”). In other words, fathers play key role in parenting their children.

There are many different types of fathers in fairy tales.  It is very regretful to note that many fathers do not care or parent their children at all in these stories (Mantel,  “Wicked Parents in Fairytales.”). From Cinderella to Snow White, their fathers are almost absent in their lives (Tatar 119&246). For example, when abused and mistreated by their cruel and jealous stepmothers, both Cinderella and Snow White suffer miserable lives in silence in the absence of their fathers. Where is her father when Snow White is taken to the forest by a hunter who is instructed to kill her? Where is her father when Cinderella is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters? As readers, we really do not know the answers. However, we do know that we do not like this type of careless father who leaves his own daughter to her cruel stepmother.

Compared with Cinderella and Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Briar Rose, is relatively lucky because her father, the King, very much cares about her safety (Tatar 238). After being cursed by the thirteen woman, Sleeping Beauty’s life will be threatened if her finger is pricked on a spindle when she turns fifteen. To protect her safety, her father sends out an order that every spindle in the entire kingdom is to be burned to ashes. Although Sleeping Beauty eventually gets her finger pricked due to her own curiosity, the willingness of her father to protect her is worth our praising. Therefore we have no reason to criticize this type of protective father.

To passively protect the safety of their children, just like the father of Sleeping Beauty, is not the core of parenting. Ideally, fathers should provide life advice and wisdom to their children for strong personal growth. Unfortunately, few fathers in the fairy tales provide such wise information to their children. After looking through The Annotated Brothers Grimm, it seems that the father in “The Frog King” is an exception because he indeed provides some life wisdom to his daughter, who breaks her promise to the frog (Tatar 3). “Once you make a promise to someone, you have to keep it” (Tatar 9), is the moral lesson given to the princess by her wise father, and it is still full of life wisdom even for modern parenting today. This type of wise father could serve as a good role model for present parents.

Regretfully, the exceptional father in “Frog King” as mentioned above is very rare in the fairy tales. Among all the fathers in the fairy tales, the most repulsive father should be the king who wants to marry his own daughter named Allerleirauh in “Furrypelts” of The Brothers Grimm (Tatar 297). After his wife is dead, the king in this story spends years and years to find a woman as beautiful as his dead wife for his second wife. When he fails to find a lady with a beautiful golden hair, he suddenly realizes that his own daughter is a perfect candidate for his second marriage because she has as beautiful hair as her dead mother. As modern readers, it is very difficult for us to understand how disgusting this father is. Compared with the careless fathers of “Snow White” and “Cinderella,” this lecherous father is even worse because his thoughts and action break social and moral rules for a healthy marriage.

Regardless of different types of fathers as discussed above, it seems that there is a stereotype for the majority of fathers in fairy tales. These fathers are very obedient to their second wicked wives and they do not care about their own children from the first marriage at all.  In my opinion, the worst stereotyped father in fairy tales should be the father of Hansel and Gretel (Tatar 72), who cruelly abandons his own children with his second wife. Although this father feels upset or guilty after he abandons his own children, he does not stop the wicked plan proposed by his second wife. Therefore, he is an irresponsible, cowardly father.

            Fairy tales belong to one category of children literature (Lukens 104), which should provide pleasure and understanding about life (Lukens 2). In fact, we indeed get pleasure when we read these fairy tales. However, what do we learn from these different types of fathers in fairy tales? How do we understand life better after we connect the fathers in fairy tales to the modern fathers? If we do a matching game, we could easily find that fathers in fairy tales almost truly reflect fathers in our current modern society. Based on the above analysis, there are five types of fathers in fairy tales: careless, protective, wise, lecherous, and cowardly fathers. If we look around in our life, we can easily locate each type of fairy tales fathers in our daily life.

The careless fathers are not uncommon in these days. For example, a Georgia father left his 22-month-old son in a hot car last September and he was indicted for many charges for the death of his baby son (Wolfe, “Ga. Father Indicted for Murder in Son’s Hot-Car Death.”). Of course, the careless fathers are not always responsible for the death of their children. Instead, the majority of careless fathers ignore their children in a passive way. In many families around the world, lots of busy fathers often work very hard for their career success. Although they could make money to raise their families, they spend less and less time with their children and become careless fathers under the pressure of their jobs. Particularly when the work stress or pressure is a worrisome issue for today’s fathers, it is very likely that fathers under work pressure becomecareless fathers of their children. One well known example is Jackie Chan and his son (Ross,  “Jackie Chan ‘Ashamed’ of Son Jaycee Chan After Drug Bust.” ). We all know that the world-famous movie star Jackie Chen is very successful in his own career by being a key actor in many movies. Although he is successful at his own career, he is almost totally detached from his son’s education. One day, when he went to school to pick up his son, he did not even know which grade his son was in. This is not a joke, but is well known news in Chinese media. Due to the absence of Jackie Chan in his son’s education, the shocking news about his son Jaycee Chan seems predictable. When Jaycee Chan went to jail for doing illegal drugs this year, it is understandable that Jackie Chan feels disappointed and ashamed. Although Jackie Chan is a careless father, it is apparent that he is not as bad as the fathers of “Snow White” and “Cinderella” because he loves his son. His mistakes are due to his absence in his son’s life, thus, this makes him a careless or irresponsible father. Even Jackie Chan is blaming himself after his son was arrested in China for drug possession last August. He reportedly posted online that Jaycee’s arrest is his own fault because he “failed to educate” his son (Ross,  “Jackie Chan ‘Ashamed’ of Son Jaycee Chan After Drug Bust.”).

Compared with Jackie Chan, President Obama is a wise and caring father similar to the father in ‘Frog King’ (Tatar 3). For example, he often spends lots of time with his two daughters and teaches them life lessons by different approaches. The most recent example of President Obama and his children just happened yesterday. During the Thanksgiving holiday of this year, Present Obama took his two teenage daughters Sasha and Malia to an independent bookstore in Washington to buy books as a way to promote small business (Marcias,  “Obama And His Daughters Bought Books From a Local Store For Small Business Saturday.”). As the leader of America, President Obama must have a demanding schedule. Therefore, he is worth our praise because he cares about the education of his daughters, even though he is busy. Furthermore, he bought many good books for his daughters, which should be good resources for their moral and spiritual growth.

In fairy tales, lecherous father might be rare but he is indeed present (Tatar 297). The same type of fathers seems to be not uncommon in the real life, as well. Many horrific news are not fairy tales but are occasionally reported worldwide. For example, a father raped his daughter and even had baby with her (Macaskill,  “Woman Was Raped by Her Father Hundreds of Times and Had His Baby.”); a father made impregnated his daughter and then forced her to have an abortion (Ertelt,  “Dad Impregnates Daughter After Raping Her and Forces Her to Have Abortion.”), and a father killed his own children (Associated Press. “Dad Charged with Murdering 5 Kids Thought They Would Kill Him  & ‘Feed Him to the Dogs.’”). In my opinion, these fathers are much worse than the lecherous father in fairy tales. For example, the lecherous father in “Furrypelts” of The Brothers Grimm wants to marry his own daughter because he thinks no lady is as beautiful as his dead wife and only his daughter can replace her. In other words, this lecherous father has no intention to abuse or kill his daughter. In contrast, the fathers who raped and killed their daughters in current events had either hatred in mind or abnormal social behavior in daily life.

            Based on the analysis in this study, it seems that the wise and protective fathers are rare to find in fairy tales and careless or irresponsible fathers are relatively common. As for the lecherous father, it is the most disgusting parent in the fairy tales. Regardless of good or bad role models, different types of fathers in fairy tales still reflect the parenting styles of modern fathers. Studying and understanding the different types of fathers in fairy tales could help the modern fathers to improve their parenting skills because father is the primary person for parenting.

References

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