When the grim reality of fairytales is too dark to contemplate

WHEN I’m reading my daughters bedtime stories, I don’t always stick to the text on the pages. The major reason for this is that even though they have shiny new colourful books that still have their spines intact, their favourite ones are actually my old Ladybird fairytales, which my mother unearthed from our attic when I had my first daughter.

So you can see my dilemma, as they were written in a time when perhaps not a huge amount of thought went into the psychological effects these folklore tales might have on children, especially before bed.

Rapunzel is locked in a tower, which is bad enough, but then her prince’s eyes are pricked out by thorns. In the Golden Goose, the main character, who is not very bright, is called Simpleton. Hansel and Gretel i s about cannibalism. Women are damned in life unless they can find themselves a prince. Children are beaten and whipped and animals are boiled alive. It’s all quite dark.

Fairytales are driven by f ear or torment of some sort – they are not for the faint-hearted.

I pick my way through them, toning down the violence and heartbreak where I see fit. The mythical creatures and enchanted settings tend to stay. As does the idea that, no matter what seemingly impossible set of circumstances the hero character has to overcome, they’ll all live happily ever after. That’s the part they are waiting for, and the girls can drift happily to sleep.

It struck me this week that no such thoughtful editing existed for Cora Desmond, a 21-year-old woman from Cork who experienced her very own fairytale as a child. That is, she lived all the darkness of one, with little of the magic.

She was five when her father began a relationship with Bridget Kenneally, who had three children from a previous relationship. In an 11-year reign of abuse inspired by the classic fable, Cora, or Cora-Ella as her stepmother referred to her, was enslaved in their home, and forced to clean up after Kenneally’s biological children.

Her sister Chelsea was treated in this way also, both being made to scrub the floors and bathrooms of the house before they even started school in the mornings. Kenneally’s cruelty was the stuff of horror movies. She laced her stepdaughter’s food with vinegar and chilli powder and mustard, subjected her to beatings causing multiple injuries with pokers, hoover handles and belts, and continually reminded her of how she was just like Cinderella, because she was the one ‘who was not wanted or loved’.

Cora revealed in her heartbreaking victim impact statement following the sentencing of her stepmother this week that she led a double life – full of fear at home and as a ‘happy, bubbly child’ at school, a place which, as incomprehensible as it seems, was her equivalent of going to the ball. A fleeting opportunity to laugh, dance and play. To be free.

‘You [Kenneally] robbed me of my carefree childhood that every child is entitled to. I now understand that none of it was my fault,’ Cora said this week, as her stepmother was jailed for two years.

As tempting as it is to describe Cora’s tormentor as evil or wicked, this is too basic. It doesn’t begin to scratch the surface. Here was a woman who afforded her biological children the freedom of socialising, or being ‘carefree’; of simply being kids. They were not subjected to the same sadistic treatment.

There may be some sort of Darwinian explanation, and it’s a pretty horrifying one. Named the Cinderella Effect, it’s a school of thought that was founded by evolutionary psychologists Daly and Wilson in the 1980s, following research into the deaths of 700 Canadian children. This much-argued theory suggests step-parents are more likely to cause abuse and violence to children who are not theirs biologically. Stepping in to parent someone else’s child due to a new relationship is referred to as biological altruism, which may cause a deep resentment.

Could this primordial response be what triggered Kenneally’s despicable cruelty? To disempower her stepchildren while supporting and helping her own offspring thrive?

I’ve no doubt step-parenting is a big ask. But make no mistake. This woman was a real-life villain. She stole childhoods. She showed not one ounce of love – maternal or otherwise – to these young girls. She didn’t offer anything that resembled care, humanity or respect to these children who looked to her for mothering. And thank God Cora has escaped that particular fairytale.