It wasn't until I read "Beauty and the Beast" By Madame Le Prince de Beaumont, that I ever thought that my life, in any way, mirrored a fairy tail.
After reading this rendition of Beauty and the Beast, along with Bruno Bettelheim's "Resolution and Restoration in Beauty and the Beast" I began to realize that I was, in effect, Beauty. My mother always taught me, not so much through her words, but through her actions, that we as women needed to take care of the men in our lives. No matter what we wanted or needed in life, it was always their needs that came first.
At an early age, not unlike Beauty in the 1745 Beaumont story, I was taking care of my father. I didn't so much take on the mothering role, but more like in a Freudian way since I wanted to be his "wife." I wanted to meet his needs by cooking meals, cleaning and doing his laundry. I was taught that to make the "man" in your life happy, that you needed to be there for his every wish. .
It got to the point though, that I was starting to resent myself for wanting to be my own person. At about that time (whereas Beauty has two sisters, I had two brothers), my older brothers became teenagers and went through the troubled times that teenage boys have. I then became more determined to not be the bad one. I strived for my father's attention and praise. His alcohol addiction made that very difficult, for no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't seem to do enough to please him. My brothers though, became angry at me and resentful, thinking that I was the "princess" and I got all the attention. So in turn, to make them feel better, I began to, in a way, cater to them also, baking them cookies, cleaning their rooms, doing their chores for them. .
The point in Beaumont's story where Beauty's father returns home saying, "Beauty, take these roses; it is dearly that I must pay for them," reminded me also of my father manipulating ways.
