How Do I Love Thee... ???

My daughter is two and a half. Can you guess what she's into? Yep... princesses. Which I don't mind as much as I thought I would. I guess I am girlier than I let myself believe. ;)

I went to look for her one day and found her here, reading "Ariel", aka, The Little Mermaid. :)

So we've been reading a *lot* of fairytales. Cinderella, Snow White, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast... and watching some movies, as well (can anyone say Frozen?). But these stories have really got me thinking about my own taste in stories and the books I read. Specifically the love/romance part of stories.

Who doesn't like a good romance in a story? But how many times have we (in general) complained about the lack of buildup, the insta-love? As long as it feels real, is well done, I'm typically okay with it. But so many times, it's not. It's just there and it doesn't make sense. BUT... what do these fairytales have in common?



INSTA-LOVE! Seriously. Snow White's prince saw her at a well and fell in love, and when he kissed her to wake her up - wala! - she's in love with him. Princess Aurora/Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty met Prince Philip in the woods and danced with him, falling in love without even knowing his name. Cinderella danced with the prince at the ball and they fell in love... apparently they never even spoke while dancing, since he didn't know her name, where she lived, or anything about her other than she wore glass slippers. And Jasmine? She falls REALLY quickly for a guy on a magic carpet. I gotta hand it to Belle, though... she, at least, took some time to fall for the Beast.

For real, though. These love-at-first-sight stories have been around for longer than any of us. It's just all about how well (or not) they're done. Apparently, given the time test, some of these can last forever. I just hope that my daughter grows up to understand that that's not typically how love works (not saying it can't happen, just that it's rarer than stories let on...)... and that it's not ALWAYS happily ever after, that it takes work, which equals LOTS of frustration along the way to happily ever after. It's a little more like this ~