Fairy Godmothers

"The center of the universe is everywhere," writes Rebecca Solnit in her retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, Waking Beauty (or Eleven Times Upon a Time), "and of course it always seems to be right where you are, so there are more centers than there are drops of rain in a rainstorm or stars in the sky when the rainclouds blow away . . ."

When we're on our knees, wiping the nose of a child who probably should have stayed home sick today, we are with them at the center of the universe. When we take a small hand to support a nervous child through their uncertainty, when we sooth their hurt bodies and feelings, when we wiggle their shoes onto their feet, their coats over their shoulders, their mittens onto their hands, we are the real life fairy godmothers.

No one needs a prince, but everyone needs a fairy godmother.

Fairy godmothers are kind and wise. Fairy godmothers are patient, compassionate, and clever. But most importantly, we are subversive. That is the ultimate power of fairy godmothers.

In her book length essay, The Far Away Nearby, Solnit writes, "Fairy tales are almost always the stories of the powerless, of youngest sons, abandoned children, orphans, of humans transformed into birds and beasts or otherwise enchanted aways from their own selves and lives. Even the princesses are chattel to be disowned or sold by fathers, punished by stepmothers, or claimed by princes, though they often assert themselves in between and are rarely as passive as the cartoon versions. Fairy tales are children's stories not in who they were made for but for their focus on the early stages of life, when others have power over you and you have power over no one."

As real life fairy godmothers we are here to help children become their own selves and live their own lives. We are down there on our knees, wiping noses, in the center of the universe, tenderly, lovingly subversive. Our role is not to liberate them, but to do whatever we can to give them the chance to liberate themselves. And that is subversive.

From where we kneel, we let them know that they have an ally and, as Solnit puts it, "Kindness sown among the meek is harvested in crisis, in fairy tales and sometimes in actuality."

People often ask me, why I work so hard to set young children free when they will be soon enough subjected to a world of controlling fathers, wicked stepmothers, and entitled princes. When I step outside the center of the universe to contemplate the world, I can see their point, but from the center of their story, from the center of our story, I know we're planting seeds, together, in our subversive alliance, that will bear fruit when they need it.

We fairy godmothers are often made to feel small and powerless ourselves, marginalized in our pink collar ghettos, forgotten until there is some sort of crisis, like the pandemic. They see us on our knees and assume we are almost as powerless as the children themselves, harmless, sweet, patient. They say, "You're a saint," which always feels to me like a pat on the head.

But secretly, subversively, we're at the center of the universe, where we cast our fortifying spells of fairy godmother magic with every dab at their nose, protecting them against being enchanted away from their own selves and their own lives. 

And what is our subversive message? What is it that the powerful don't want the meek to know? It's that secret about the center of the universe, the one about there being as many centers as there are "grains of sand under the sea." It's the secret about social awareness and empathy, about sharing, collaborating, and kindness.

"And they all lived

happily,

sadly,

busily,

quietly,

noisily,

dreamily,

sleepily,

wakefully

ever after,

or at least for a good long while,

tangled up in everyone else’s story,

like all of us."

That's our subversive secret, between the children and we fairy godmothers. That's what the powerful don't want us to know.

******

 

I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 15 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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