Once Upon A Time, I Learned Something

Every night, before we tuck the children into bed, we treat them to a story. My son is just coming up on his third birthday, and prefers the board books we pick up at the library. His current favourite is Blankie by Leslie Patricelli. My daughter, who just turned four, loves books about monsters and dragons.
For a while, I tried to steer them toward the classic stories, fairy tales and fables. My daughter enjoyed Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit. After three readings, she could recite most of the story along with us. However, the bright colours and cartoon faces, on the cover of Disney Books, soon caught her eye. (My husband still shudders when he sees anything "Nemo", after six months of nightly readings.)
I was a little disappointed about her lack of interest in the old stories. I have fond memories of many of them, and the life lessons I learned from them. It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized how valuable some of those fairy tales were, in helping me cope with the world. Some of the lessons might be fairly obvious, but I thought I'd share a few of my perceptions with you.
Red Riding Hood - Bad people can, and will, fool you if you aren't perceptive.
The Pied Piper - If you don't pay your bills, you may lose things more precious to you than money.
The Three Little Pigs - Lock your door, Silly! And don't use substandard building materials. ;)

The Valiant Little Tailor - Bragging will always get you in trouble. Quick thinking can save your hide.
Cindrella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel etc. - Only beautiful girls get the world given to them by handsome princes. If you aren't beautiful, you'd better be clever, or hardworking, to get anywhere in life.
The Frog Prince & Beauty and the Beast - If you're willing to overlook his flaws, and love him enough, he'll turn into a handsome prince.
Alice in Wonderland - The world can be a messed up place... adapt. (And never eat or drink anything if you don't know what it is.)
Heidi - Deprivation doesn't have to mean depression.

Little Women (Especially Jo) - If you work hard enough, you can achieve your goals. Bitterness can be overcome by kindness. Be yourself. Find someone who loves you just the way you are. (Thank goodness for Jo! All of those beautiful girls were beginning to get on my nerves!)
So tell me, what life lessons do you remember from your childhood stories?

Before I run away, since we're discussing fairy tales, I have a little trivia for you.

Did you know:

1. The original Grimm's Faerie Tales was not a book intended for children. It was an effort by the Grimm brothers to record the folklore of the German people, kind of a cultural preservation project, if you will. It was only after they realized their stories were being told to children, that they rewrote many of them to make them more appropriate reading material.
2. In the original story of The Little Mermaid, the prince married a different princess. Ariel was given a knife, and the option of murdering the prince to change back to a mermaid. She commited suicide.
3. In the original Red Riding Hood, there was no grandmother, and no hunter. Red Riding Hood is eaten by the wolf.
4. In the original Hansel and Gretel, the witch is a devil. He doesn't bake the children, but butchers them on a sawhorse. The children pretend they don't know how to get on the sawhorse, so the devil's wife shows them. The children slit her throat, and escape.
5. In the original Three Little Pigs, the first two pigs are eaten. The wolf tries to get into the third pig's house Santa-style, via chimney, and falls into a pot of boiling water. He becomes dinner for the third pig, (presumably still stuffed with the piggy's brothers).
6. The original Sleeping Beauty isn't awakened by a prince, at all. Instead, she's... um... "handled" by a married king, who stumbles across her while she's in her comatose sleep. She gives birth to twins, (still unconscious), and one of the babies removes the poisoned bit of flax, from her pricked finger, while attempting to nurse. Then the King takes them all home to his wife, who makes plans to cook the babies, and feed them to their father. I don't know who to pity most in this one.
It doesn't seem so ironic, anymore, that the brothers' surname was Grimm.
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