by Wendy Rodley

Created on: May 16, 2009   Last Updated: June 01, 2009

Nobody has appealed more perfectly to the child within all of us than Walt Disney. Parents are by nature, there to mould and civilise and therefore to limit our freedom to a certain extent, our safety depends on it. Disney gives us the chance to be our own parent, to make decisions about right and wrong and to discover what makes us laugh and cry; in other words to discover who we really are deep down inside.

Disney has created magic kingdoms where music and vision entice our imagination and help us to believe in goodness and beauty. He shows us that the little mouse can outwit the big cat and that rabbits beat the gardener every time. In the Dance of the Hours, from Disney's Fantasia, the three hippopotamuses show us that size does not matter when it comes to grace, and that the fairies representing Mother Nature, wave their magic wands and make our world a place of unsurpassed perfection and beauty. Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Goofy go off camping and we are shown that silliness and making mistakes are all part of life and can be very funny. The music teaches our young ears to appreciate classical and modern, harmonious and discordant sounds that can create images and feelings that inspire us to greater heights. Popeye, the muscle man who has to eat spinach otherwise he becomes weak and can't save Olive Oil from danger is the most wonderful way to help us eat those vegetables and be introduced to health promoting Olive Oil! The classic fairy tales retold by Disney are the foundation of learning about human behaviour; the good and the bad. Beauty and The Beast teaches us that love doesn't see ugliness, and Cinderella about surviving abuse, Snow White shows us the conflict so often present between mothers and daughters and Sleeping Beauty about waiting for love. Every little girl is a princess and all boys are princes; this is how we begin to learn about our specialness and how we deserve the best and often must fight for it and in the midst of the battle what better than a bit of magic.

Magic, where does that fit in? Well, perhaps that is where faith belongs and dreaming of a life with sparkle and with right winning over wrong. When we are young we are often confronted by impossible odds and need to believe in a fairy godmother; we have to grow into life before we realise that those fairies represent real magic such as mother nature and those special people we meet who come into our lives at just the right moment and change us forever. Disney transports us out of the ordinary and into our creative selves where we can build dreams of our own, be extraordinary and stay safe while flying on magic carpets towards our future life where we will be happier and richer because of Walt Disney's 'parenting'

So much of this parenting is about feelings; those emotions that can feel overwhelming such as pain of loss, the bogeyman under the bed and the irrational, unfair or even cruel behaviour of our own parents; we can cry when Bambi loses her mother and be terrified at the wicked witches, the storms, being lost, but the endings are always safe, all is well with the world, pain is overcome. Laughter is a happy thing, it can take us out of our constraints instantly and release our hold on the mundane, worrisome world. The pure magic of this man's creations is that the lessons are ageless, we can go on learning and being reminded of what life is all about and how to overcome, it encourages and rewards the free child.

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