Once upon a time, a beautiful girl lived in a not-so-faraway land. She was dreadfully abused by her mother, who was wicked as well as mentally ill. She was abandoned by her father, who was also wicked and mentally ill, and who had no job and nine cats. She had a wicked brother, but that part of the story turned out to be too terrible for even this fairy tale.
The girl was dreamy, impulsive, and traumatized, a good singer, and obsessed with dancing and dress-up clothes. Let’s call her Cindy.
Cindy is related to me through her mother, but her mother had cut off contact with our family when I was young, before Cindy was born. Through the magic of Google-stalking, I discovered that Cindy’s mother and I had coincidentally moved to the same part of the country. I could tell from various clues online that she had had children, and that they were very poor and had occasionally been homeless. I tried for years to contact her.
A few years ago, during a period of relative calm and lucidity, Cindy’s mother finally responded to one of my messages and agreed to see me. Cindy’s mother and I reconciled, and I bonded with her children. I made sure they wouldn’t go hungry anymore or be kicked out of their home, and we ate Chinese food together, and we all lived happily ever after.
Hahahahahaha. Ha ha. Ha.
That’s the thing about fairy tales. They promise a happy ending, they promise the last word on everything. And as readers of this blog know, science—and real life—says the last word on nothing.
Fairy tales spin plenty of other dangerously misleading ideas, of course. The myth of your One True Love is something you have to unlearn after your first tragic, overwrought breakup. The related bit about the possibility of falling in love after a few dances at a fancy dance party is just bad life advice, as is the message that love is meant for girls with clear-skin smiles and petite feet.
But the fairy tale myth that I bought into completely, unthinkingly, with a head full of hope and pixie dust, is the myth of the Fairy Godmother. I didn’t want to have one, I wanted to be one, and so I was.
My magic wand is very powerful. Its magic rests in the facts that I make more money than I spend, am quite sane, and drive a reliable car. I bought Cindy’s family shoes and shampoo and toothbrushes and all the necessities that you can’t buy with food stamps. I took them to the mall and the movies and museums. Cindy’s mother had no trouble getting low-paying jobs but always quit after getting mad at somebody, so I loaned her large amounts of money so she could pay her rent.
Also, “loaned.” Hahahahahaha.
Cindy really loves clothes, so I bought her lots of nice school clothes so she would start the year at her new high school with confidence. She loves poetry and art, so I helped send her to art camp. She was often happy when we went on our outings, and that part was magical.
As happens with mentally ill people who believe they are not mentally ill (“I’m the sanest person in this county!”), Cindy’s mother became increasingly paranoid, self-absorbed, and spitting mean. She cut off contact with me, although I kept seeing the kids. Cindy’s brother took a turn for the worse and left home. Cindy left home, too, living with friends and seemingly secure. I should have known something was wrong when Cindy kept finding excuses not to see me. I found out—too late to stop her—that she had dropped out of high school at the beginning of her junior year. Then her various friends kicked her out because they are all teenagers and drawn to drama, and then she begged to move in with me.
Because I am generally not wicked, and because my partner is a prince, we took her in, and I became a full-time fairy godmother to a malnourished, post-traumatic, depressed, anxious, poorly educated teenager.
If you have an opportunity to be a full-time fairy godmother, these are some of the rewards:
If your godchild grew up without reliable or nutritious food, if she comes to you scrawny and with stunted growth, and if you then feed her reliably with nutritious food, she will become much more healthy and put on weight and think you are the best cook ever. This is good and powerful magic.
If your godchild hasn’t been able to sleep through the night because of anxiety and real fear of attack, and if you provide a safe, quiet, stable home with a clean bed and with heat and water that have not been shut off for failure to pay the bills, the child will learn to sleep at night, eventually without a light on.
It is the role of fairy godmothers to fix things, and if your godchild was raised by wolves, many things are broken. But so, so many of them are unfixable.
Cindy had other protectors, too, including a friend’s mother who pulled a lot of strings and got Cindy a good-paying job in her office. We went shopping for work clothes. Cindy loved the clothes but was bored at work, so she quit, without telling me first.
We had a conversation about trust and communication and long-term planning, but it didn’t really take.
I suggested she concentrate on taking community college classes instead of working, and I helped with homework, because fairy godmothers are very good at homework, but she wasn’t really ready for college-level classes. I learned to accept that a C or D is a passing grade and learned to be happy if she didn’t fail and let it go when she did.
She took some new jobs and made some friends, mostly frogs rather than princes or princesses. She got humongous tattoos despite my warnings that life is long and her taste will change. At first she spent every bit of her money, which she had never had before, on shoes and silly things, but she did learn to set goals and start saving.
When Cindy moved in with me, she was insecure and eager to please. As sleep and food and stability and experience worked their magic, she became increasingly self-confident. She transformed into the most magical creature: a grouchy, willful, typical teenager. She didn’t want some adult pestering her about her grades and plans and why she was never home before midnight.
Cindy moved out of my house and in with another family, where she is contributing to the rent. I hung up my magic wand and sleep much better without having to worry so much about her. She is working hard to save money to travel. We see each other occasionally, and not just when she needs something. She hasn’t made any bad decisions that I know of lately. There are plenty of disasters to come, but at least for now, and I hope for ever after, she doesn’t need a fairy godmother anymore.
*Some of the characters in this fairy tale are on social media, so please don’t tag the fairy godmother if you figure out who she is. Thanks!
Photo by Loren Javier via Flickr.