Censoring Fairytales and ‘the facts of life’ « Mark Sayers

Interesting post by Mark Sayers on death and societies reluctance to talk about it.

In his excellent book Tortured Angels Rodney Clapp quotes from a seventeenth century book for parents in which the author advices parents to take their children aside at the age of eight and to have ‘the talk’ about the facts of life. However the talk is not the facts of life as we know it, rather the parent is advised when giving their child ‘the talk’ to

“Make known to them that they must daily prepare themselves for their death and consider their mortality. After all, they know that they must die, but not when. Speak with them about the fragility of human life; how it is like a flower of the field, a vapour, a shadow; how swiftly life passes.”

Censoring Fairytales and ‘the facts of life’ « Mark Sayers