Ignorance Is Not Bliss: The Sleeping Beauty* Metaphor
*Using Disney’s animated feature for reference here.
About a month ago, I posted this YouTube video about why diversity in media is not only a good thing, it’s not really a threat to the status quo. Due to my run for school board, I was thinking mostly about the attempts to ban books, but it applies to all the dude bros who are mad about there being more female-centered movies and diverse cast choices, too.
Today, because I’m too lazy to set up my camera, I’ve decided to write out my next thoughts, which are again mostly about parents who don’t want their children taught “certain things” at school. These are the parents who want to control the curriculum by stifling, or even entirely eliminating, certain parts of it. As with the pie metaphor in the YouTube video, they are worried about their kids getting a “taste” of things they don’t agree with or approve of. I can understand that to a degree; I grew up in a “non-denominational, charismatic Christian” household myself, and I remember my mother struggling with certain aspects of things I encountered like: He-Man, My Little Pony, Care Bears, Ghostbusters, etc. The advent of MTV was a concern for my parents. What was I seeing and hearing when they weren’t there to monitor me?
But here’s the thing: my parents knew they couldn’t stop me from seeing and hearing things they might not like. So we had semi-regular conversations about those things, what we did and didn’t believe or agree with, etc. It was that simple.
In fact, my parents understood that trying to shelter me from these things would only make it worse later. I had cousins raised much more strictly than I was, and once they left home, they went wild. Meanwhile, I didn’t really rebel because I’d never been given anything to rebel against. Sure, some of that is natural temperament, but I’d say it’s almost equally about having been nurtured a certain way.
Where is the Sleeping Beauty in this? Well, it occurred to me that trying to prevent your child from knowing things is a lot like King Stefan burning all the spinning wheels. He sees this as the ultimate solution to the potential problem of his daughter pricking her finger on one someday. But let’s just think about this for a minute. First off, what must it have done to his kingdom’s economy to lose all their spinning wheels? If they ever relied on spinning wool, if they made their own yarn and thread for clothes, they were going to have to outsource that now. If they had sheep, they would need to shear them, send the wool to some other country to be spun, and have that spun wool shipped back if they wanted to make their own clothing. Else, they’d just have to buy clothes from other countries? Whole livelihoods would have taken a hit here, and the cost of things just went up, too. Rich people like the king aren’t going to be hurting—it makes little difference to them where their wool, thread, yarn, clothes come from—but the average person and the poor?
And those are just the unintentional consequences. Let’s look at the efficacy of burning the spinning wheels in relation to Stefan’s chief concern: his daughter’s wellbeing. Did it work? Of course not. In fact, if anything, it made matters worse. Stefan had all the spinning wheels burned (except for a handful of outlaws who surely hid theirs) and he sent his daughter to live in the woods away from society. It’s unclear what kind of education she was getting, given she was raised by three fairies who couldn’t cook or sew, so I doubted they were able to teacher her math either. Instead, Aurora is just out wandering the woods and singing to herself and dancing around, which makes her a prime target for any random stranger. Has she seen hunting parties? We’re not entirely clear about Aurora’s socialization; we can probably assume her parents at least visit her, but do they bring their entourage? Or are they hiding her from everyone because they perceive the risk is too great for anyone else to know where she is?
Talk about sheltered.
So what happens when Aurora meets a cute, strange boy? More importantly, though, what happens when she encounters a spinning wheel for the first time? Ignore the curse for a moment, and just imagine any kid coming across something new and different that they have ZERO context for. Here is an interesting new thing, and I don’t know what it is or what it does, and I don’t have the socialization to know whether to trust this random person telling me to touch it, but she seems nice, and I’ve been taught to do as I’m told, especially by my elders.
But if Aurora had been educated about spinning wheels? If she’d been told: This is a spinning wheel, and some people use it, but you should not because it’s dangerous [to you in particular], then when she encountered that spinning wheel and that woman, there is definitely more of a chance that Aurora would not have touched it. Not a 100% chance, but a much higher chance than her encountering this spinning wheel with no idea of what it is or does or how it could be a danger to her. And if she’d been taught critical thinking skills and a sense of self rather than being told to listen to her elders and not question them, she’d also have been less likely to touch the spindle.
What does this mean when broadly applied? That parents should not be this worried about their children learning and knowing. If anything, parents should want their kids to learn and know, and then parents should give their children additional context for that information. Instead of not teaching, teach more. Don’t leave your kids vulnerable to those who will take advantage of their naivete. One day, your kids will leave home and be faced with the big, wide world. Prepare them for it.