Cut off their hair and sell it to a wizard or something
Designate a single door in your house Forbidden. If they open it, lock them in the attic for seven years.
Turn some, but not all, of your children into swans. Make whichever one isn’t a swan go live in the forest, maybe cut out her tongue.
Build them a tree house, only instead of a tree it’s a hundred-foot high nest of thorns, and also they have to live in there, and also they’re never allowed out and no one else is allowed in.
Enchant their shoes so they can never dance, or they can never stop dancing, one of the two.
Take the time to build something with your children, like seven-league boots or a linen shirt that confers bravery to its wearer.
Turn them into deer and hunt them for sport.
Betroth one of them to a demon-bridgeroom, or a prince who’s been turned into a bear.
Turn everything into a game! Refuse to tell them your true name; if they manage to guess it, scream “The devil told you that! the devil told you that!” and in your anger stamp with your right foot so hard that it sinks into the ground above your knee, then seize your left foot with both hands in such a fury that you split in two, and that is the end of you.
Show your kids that work can be fun by apprenticing them to an ogress as a weaver for seven years. Surprise! Seven ogre years are like three hundred human years!
Instead of a regular, boring backyard birthday party, take your children into the forest one by one as they turn nine and abandon them there.
Can’t afford presents? Hide something they love on a glass mountain.
Disappear after taking the Eucharist, then reappear as a single singing bone on your child’s wedding night.
Stuck inside on a rainy day? Give your favorite child the entire house as his inheritance, then send the others out into the world to fend for themselves with a spindle, a potted pink, and an old traveling cloak. Send a witch after them.
If your daughter gets prettier than you, cut off her hands.
Turn yourself into a woodpecker, and follow your daughter as she is forced to change places with her wicked serving-woman and cry out to her deceived bridegroom night after night:
Seven long years I served for thee,
The glassy hill I clamb for thee,
Thy bloody clothes I wrang for thee;
And wilt thou not waken and turn to me?
Breast milk is best, but try feeding your children absolutely nothing until they run away.
Kidnap the Moon.
Hide all your jewelry in an enchanted apple, then fling it into the sea. Turn yourself into a castle; never speak again.
Every night, try to kill them in a different way. This will develop their problem-solving skills!
Tags: advice, childhood, fairy tales, magic, parenting, rumplestiltskin, seven-league boots, snow-white and rose-red, the seven brothers, whimsy
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When is your parenting book coming out?
Probably not until they’re ready to launch the mommy blog.
Instead of a regular, boring backyard birthday party, take your children into the forest one by one as they turn nine and abandon them there.
Wait. Is this not how you are supposed to deal with the tween to teenage years? I mean, they’re feral at that point anyway…
Yes. Yes they are.
That is seriously and legitimately one of the reasons I didn’t have children. I honestly couldn’t tell myself that I would never abandon them in a fit of pique.
Same.
Or is the real reason I have no kids because I’ve abandoned them in forests when they start hitting puberty? Dun dun DUUUUUUN!
Bahahaha, I just started howling at “Breast milk is best, but try feeding your children absolutely nothing until they run away.”
This seems like the perfect spot to say that Pancho Villa’s horse was named Siete Leguas (Seven Leagues – referring to 7 League Boots) . Perhaps his parents used these strategies?
Did Chris Kimball write these tips?
Just like…how? How, Mallory?? What kind of sorcery is happening in your brain to spin this gold?
She must have been raised right.
Yesss. Pillowman-style parenting.
Even getting to school can be fun! Stuff your child, naked, into a nail-spiked cask and roll them down the street!
So good.
The ogre years one is clearly a metaphor for student loans.
Oh shit, I just realized my mom must have enchanted my shoes so that I can never dance…
And then one day your children will get a ballet made about their story, so this is really win-win.
J/k only truly win-win if it’s a ballez
Can we have a footnoted version of this with the origins of each tip? I just gave notice at my job and thus feel like reading the different colored Fairy Books online all afternoon.
Can we have a footnoted version of this with the origins of each tip? I just gave notice at my job and thus feel like reading the different colored Fairy Books online all afternoon.
When you go to pick up your children from school, conjure a group of identical-looking strangers to come with you. Force your children to guess which one is their real parent. If they guess wrong, abandon them forever.
When you go to pick up your children from school, conjure a group of identical-looking strangers to come with you. Force your children to guess which one is their real parent. If they guess wrong, abandon them forever.
I’m pretty sure these are all Adventure Time episodes.
I'm pretty sure these are all Adventure Time episodes.
"Disappear after taking the Eucharist, then reappear as a single singing bone on your child’s wedding night."
!!!!!!!!!
I like how Despicable Me is already on this list…
Designate a single door in your house Forbidden. If they open it, lock them in the attic for seven years.
I just discovered this fairy tale, which has a variant of that. I find it absolutely terrifying (the Virgin Mary steals children!).
PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA