Fairy tales have special value in times of trouble for both children and adults

Jackie Evancho, discovered and became a sensation on Americas Got Talent

Fairy tales aren't just for children. Adults need them too. That's why folks responded with great joy when they heard Paul Potts, Jackie Evancho or Susan Boyle sing on Britains Got Talent and Americas Got Talent. It's also why people fixate on bad things that have drama.  Here are some of the ways they help us in ways that alleviate our problems.

Rags to riches stories make us feel that we can conquer our fears, work hard and achieve. When an unattractive person finds success with talent we applaud that. When a disabled person rises above the disability to achieve in life and business, we are pleased. These are the human fairy tales that are good, that teach us about the higher qualities of ourselves and others and give us hope for the future.

We look for, and long for, fairy tale folk in our lives for many reasons, much of which has to do with getting out of our problems and our small universes into a bigger world where there is hope and goodness.

During the depression movies were successful, again because people could escape into the fairy tales of existence. They could see Lana Turner making it big from soda fountain to major movie star. They found hope, love and drama out of watching movies where people lived out loud and demonstrated that there could be a happy ending in spite of hard times. It was a way to escape the real hard times and find joy in watching people glamorously enjoy life in ways that people then could not.

It isn't just good stories, however, that are part of the fairy tales we seek or use. Evil in the world is also part of the fairy tales we learn. There is also a beast with beauty, or the evil troll under the bridge that can catch the hero and cause trouble. There are wolves that can enter a home, eat grandma and wait for Little Red Riding Hood to come in to get her too. Movies and stories like that make our own lives look less hard. We tend to demonize real-life characters, like mothers who allegedly kill their children in real-life stories like Casey Anthony who is thought by the State of Florida to have killed her child Caylee. A woman like Michelle Huckaby, accused of raping and killing Sandra Cantu, fascinated us and revolted us because that too is an escape from the problems we have.  It is also why crime stories are popular. And when victims escape and are able to build new lives, as the young women have done in Cleveland, we are able to see the happy ending and recognize that there can be a happy ending in the worst kind of situation, the kind we pay personally face ourselves.  Amanda Berry, Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, and Michelle Knight moved beyond the terrible event of their kidnapping and 10-year horror in captivity to work well on rebuilding their lives.  In some ways they are the real life Sleeping Beauty who was rescued by the trolls and returns to a beautiful life.

There are always people in worse shape, we can see; and so our own lives don't appear to be as difficult. We can project our anger and frustration on figures that are unlikeable for that reason.

Our personal lives are like fairy tales. We use the descriptions found in them to describe the events in our lives. We talk about going down long roads, about the twists and turns and dramas in our journeys in fairy-tale terms because we are able to see our lives apart from ourselves in order to interpret their meanings. We refer to the man we seek for love as a "Prince Charming" and women we think are ugly or mean as witches. Again this allows us to label so others can understand and we have a way to discharge our feelings.

Therapists sometimes use fairy tales in therapy. People learn to act out certain archetypes in learning why they do certain things and how those things either advance them or get them into trouble. They also help us see that we can realize our dreams and get past our fears to move ahead, just as a Susan Boyle or Paul Potts have done with unattractive images yet with resounding success. The ugly duckling becomes a swan before our very eyes, telling us that we can be one too. In fact Potts life has been is the stuff of real movies because of his life story that involves physical and emotional rags to riches details.

We find in fairy tales what is missing in our own lives. That enhances our sense of creativity, one of the principal areas we need to work on to alleviate depression. So fairy tales have a way of lifting sadness and moving our thinking to positive ideas rather than negative ones.

Fairy tales that become real make us remember our childhood, the surprises and joy we felt when we learned that a character lived happily ever after. It is why with just a few notes from a song someone like Susan Boyle, the wonderful woman who sang with such beauty and intensity, thrilled so many people. This was our Sleeping Beauty, our Cinderella our Horatio Alger story in female form. Out of something that looked like defeat, success and happily ever after came through. That tells us that no matter who or where we are perhaps our lives can turn a corner and be better too. That's why we all need fairy tales.
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Little Dreamers brings prosperity through magic of believing

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Carol Forsloff - Is there hope for young families in a bad economy?   One family answers with a resounding yes, as we learn how the man and wife found a solution to underemployment while fulfilling childhood dreams.

It’s a warm and wonderful day at the Portland Saturday Market, and Little Dreamers, tucked under a colorful tent, reaches out to passersby with a colorful array of goods bound to please every little girl.  In fact those goods are the type that can often fulfill the dreams a child’s heart makes when thinking about fairy tales and pretty princesses.

Colorful fluff and stuff dangle on hangers that spread around a booth that  literally light up a little girl’s eyes.  With all the things to buy the Portland Saturday Market affords, this booth offers the magic of believing for happy children and the enterprising family that serves up the goods.

Ballet skirts, or tutus,  that can be attached to tee shirts, blouses, leotards and other pretty things, attract little girls who pass by and exclaim to mom and dad that when they wish upon a star, they dream of pretty dresses.  And nothing makes a pretty dress more magical than a tutu of frothy fun.

The business card from Little Dreamers offered to passersby at the Portland Saturday Market has a Facebook and Web address where the skirts and mobiles can be ordered.  What isn’t on that card is how this business became one that supports an entire family during difficult economic times.  “My husband worked at a pizza place, and I was employed in a factory, despite the fact we are both college graduates," Whitney explains.   She is the designer and owner of Little Dreamers Inc.  She then explained how her company has brought her prosperity through fulfilling the dreams of many little girls.  "One day I saw a  pretty ballet skirt in a window and watched my daughter’s face light up with a hope I might buy it for her.  I went inside the shop , and after looking at the garment, decided I could create a similar one and maybe even better.  That was three years ago, and now we get orders from all around the world through our email.  It takes 7 days a week of work for my husband and I to meet the growing demand.

“We believed in ourselves and our dream,” the designer, Whitney Crimefighter maintains.  “I think our pretty dresses and mobiles offer something special that folks find they can’t resist.”

One young family finds a way to prosper in a bad economy, at a time when people are trying to find traditional jobs that continue to dry up in the wake of a prolonged business downturn or who remain underemployed because good jobs for young people are scarce.  But there are always places where folks can find a niche and a way to get through hard times, in spite of the struggle it takes, as this narrative about a young family's economic survival tells us.

A Russian émigré explained one day to a journalist in conversation at a cafe in New Orleans that during the terrible times in Russia following World War II, the people who survived economically were those who sold shoes, those who made bread and those who told fortunes. “  The fortunes, he said, meant offering a form of magic to people who believe the magic has gone from their lives, the kind that Little Dreamers rekindles in the eyes of happy children, offering hope to a young family and the magic of believing for the rest of us.