The Seven Biggest Lies Cartoons and Fairy Tales Tell Kids

7. You can be a brat and your parents will be cool with it.

Have you ever seen Peppa Pig? If you haven’t then I have a spoiler for you- Peppa is exactly what you don’t want your child to be. She’s a total brat.

When she isn’t telling her father how fat he is or how her classmate is being bossy for telling people not to argue, she regularly misbehaves and gets away with it every time. I know that if my parents asked me to wash the car and I instead chose to spray them with the hose, I’d be done for. Not so with Peppa. Any kid that follow her example is in for a rude awakening.

6. Just study hard and do your best and your future will be bright

It’s natural to want your kid to study hard and do their best. Who wouldn’t? Those are important and admirable traits that help you succeed. However, they don’t guaranteeyou will succeed.

Now and then, everybody could use a little luck. You’ll never see a fairy tale about the boy whose father dies of cancer so he has to leave school and do hard labor in a coal mine in order to support his family. The sad reality is that such things, even rather extreme examples like that, do happen. Cartoons don’t tell kids that for some people, the American Dream remains only a dream. Speaking of which…

5. Your dreams won’t always come true

What did you dream of when you were a kid? First I wanted to be a doctor, then I wanted to be Indiana Jones, then I wanted to make the NHL, etc. Cartoons and fairy tales are always telling kids to wish upon a star. If you just wish hard enough, your wish will come true, your dreams will be realized!

Yeah okay. Not so for many kids. Once you realize your dream of becoming an astronaut requires incredible intellect and physical conditioning, that you’re unlikely to make a living as a Pokemon master, and that no one is hiring people with degrees in feminist dance theory, harsh reality sets in. They’re called dreams because you need to be asleep to believe them.

4. Santa, The Easter Bunny, Etc

Do I really need to go into detail on why all those Santa stories are bullshit or did your parents never tell you the cold, hard truth?

3. You and your love will live happily ever after

Have you looked at the divorce in this country? Sometimes, love just isn’t enough. Relationships and marriages fail all the time for many different reasons. Cartoons and fairy tales have been giving kids unrealistic expectations for years.

For some, your prince charming or your princess may very well be out there. You might meet someone and live happily together for the rest of your days. You also might end up alone your whole life with no one that loves you because you’re socially awkward. Hello darkness my old friend…

2. You don’t die, you chill out in paradise!

How often do characters in kids cartoons die? Almost never. Wile E. Coyote gets blown to bits or falls off a cliff all the time. What happens when a kid thinks they can fly by flapping their arms real fast? Splat!

Since there are hardly ever any repercussions for the actions of characters, because they never get old and die, kids don’t learn about death or how to deal with it. When they do, it’s just the characters flying around with harps amongst the clouds, doing magical heavenly activities until they return to life next episode. Honestly, if the Joker died, do you really think he’d go to heaven?

1.The good guys always win

No. The good guys don’t always win. That may appeal to our sense of fairness and justice in order to make sense of the world, but sometimes the bad guys do win. Just look at how many World Series the Yankees have won.

Sometimes, there are no good guys at all. Sometimes all you can hope for is the lesser evil. If two terrorist groups are fighting each other and one wipes out the other, it doesn’t make the other good. Pick your poison.

Usually, the good guys do win, though good just might depend on whose side you’re on.