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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • Fun fact: the monikers used for these children in the book are used in coloquial speech to describe children that misbehave or exhibit behavioral discrepencies:

    • shock headed Peter: an unkempt, filthy child
    • fidgety Philip: ADHS or hyperactive child
    • Johnny-Head-in-the-Air: daydreaming, absent mindedness
    • wicked Frederick: cruelty to animals (sociopathy, lack of empathy often reveal themselves this way early on)
    • Soup Caspar: eating disorder, perhaps
    • etc

    The original book was written by a medical doctor dealing with children, go figure!








  • That but it was also just a depiction closer to reality: for instance famine and starvation were a common theme in Grimm’s collection of tales (Hänsel & Gretel, the star money, etc). But in the modern world [industrialized west] we know longer have a direct cultural experience of it.

    Similarly gone down have:

    • corporal punishment, mutilation (the girl without hands, Cinderella)
    • indentured servitude, slavery (Rumpelstilzchen)
    • cannibalism (Hänsel & Gretel); note that this in the context of a famine
    • austerity at old age (the Bremen town musicians)
    • despots abusing their power (Snow White)
    • maternal death, parental absence (Cinderella, Snow White)
    • child labor (Cinderella, Mother Hulda)