Monsters and Other Fairy Tales

Children believe in monsters. To reassure them we hold up the covers and shine a light to show them there is nothing under the bed. We tell them fairy tales about creatures who adore them: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. These are harmless fictions, we think, because we understand that soon enough our children will outgrow them and enter the real world of no magic, no illusions about what is real and what is not.

That passage into adulthood is bittersweet. One cannot live as a child, with a child’s fantasies; still, once lost, the innocence and credulity of that time are gone forever.

Or are they?

Sometimes when we grow up we find new fantasies to hang onto. We have a powerful, instinctive urge to believe in something magical, something that will bring us gifts not because of anything we have done, just because of who we are.

This is why we are credulous both as children and as adults. This is why when we grow up we bet on the lottery. Why we accept things people tell us that may seem fantastical but that we want to believe, things that hold out the promise of presents under the tree and coins under our pillows.

We know our children must grow up. We have all suffered through it ourselves. We think that an adult who still believes in Santa Claus is not playing with a full deck. But is he really that unusual? How many of us still cling to fairy tales? 

There is the one about how everything will be all right if we can just get the monsters out from under the bed, or at least keep them on the other side of the border.

And the one about how if we give our tax dollars to the rich man selling magic beans we will get a beanstalk that we can climb to a basket of golden eggs.

Don’t build your house of straw, the wolf will blow it down. Put a wall around it.

Hop up on the fox’s back and let him carry you across the stream. 

What could go wrong? After all, it’s only a fairy tale.