[ SECRET POST #2527 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2527 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 042 secrets from Secret Submission Post #361.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehension

[nyxelestia]

Because I don't see where or how in this secret the OP implied that they don't believe abuse existed. OP is frustrated with their own step-daughter, and thus took it out on popular media's epitome step-daughter. I mean, let's be real, whenever people tell you to think of a fictional step-mom/step-family, Cinderalla is often the first one people think of.

Speaking as a college student who knows other college students who fall onto both ends of the spectrum - kids who do a ton at home and still get looked down upon or manipulated by their families, and kids who don't do jack shit at home and still complain about their families - I can sympathize with OP's frustration.

Now, if OP does start using their own personal experience to justify the belief that abuse doesn't exist and anyone who says they are overworked or emotionally abused is just making it up...that's a different issue.

But OP does not say they believe abuse in general doesn't exist. They just say they choose to believe that this one particular character wasn't abused and is an unreliable narrator, and it is specifically related to OP's own frustrations with a RL person and situation.

To the OP:

Sorry about your step-daughter. I would suggest trying to talk to her about why it is she thinks she shouldn't be doing the dishes*, but otherwise I do hope the situation gets resolved in some manner.

However, as many people have pointed out, her situation is abusive. As far as wee can see, her family makes her do all the work with little to no contributions of their own, they constantly degrade her and overwork her, and when she tries to do something for herself, the mere act of doing so is enough to enrage them. She completed all her chores and her dress was made up of her own materials or things they'd already thrown away - in other words, it had no negative impact on them, and yet they not only refused to let her go (something which, IIRC, the step mother promised she could if she was able to finish her chores by then), they also ripped her clothes off her body, something which is glossed over because it's a Disney movie but is in many places classified as assault.

So if you want to see Cinderella as the unreliable narrator and all the events as depicted in the movie as being extremely distorted or outright lies to glorify her, then go ahead - we all have our own ways of venting and coping with frustration.

But please, do not mistake this for seeing her situation as depicted as not being abusive. What we saw was an unhealthy homelife, era-appropriate** or not, and there is a big difference between wanting to see what was on screen as a lie to cover up a "non abusive" life, and taking it at face value/choosing to see it as all true and still saying it's not abuse.



* = I offer this advice because it may just be that you two are underestimating each other's workload purely because they don't see it, i.e. she may have a blue-collar type of job that is physically demanding and if you have a white-collar type of job that is more mentally demanding than physically, then she may see you as being overbearing because from her perspective, you sit all day and then come home and keep sitting while she's on her feet all day and expected to do more work on her feet at home. Obviously that's not necessarily how it goes in reality - I'm just offering another perspective, and perhaps just trading chores or rescheduling existing ones (i.e. she wants to wait an hour before doing the dishes because standing on her feet for more than five minutes as a time is painful, which just means you have to tolerate dirty dishes for half an hour instead of them being cleaned right away).

I'm not saying that she isn't a whiny and entitled brat, as I absolutely acknowledge that many kids are like that. I'm just saying it might be a misunderstanding that can actually get cleared up and make home life easier for the both of you, instead of needing to let it fester.

I do know that for at least one friend of my own, some of her family members assume she is lazy because they don't really see just how much time and effort she spends on studying and schoolwork, even though she has the grades to prove it - and for her, that is a contribution because good grades = lower driver's insurance rates, and down the road more scholarships for when she transfers from a local college to a university, both of which can be hundreds or even thousands of dollars in savings hinging on a few GPA points.

** = I just bring this up because I can't help but laugh at people who try to use historical accuracy in a movie that has talking, singing, and dancing mice and a fairy godmother. (I'm not saying history isn't important for context, but trying to use "this is how it was in history" to justify a certain perception on a Disney movie is...kind of ridiculous.)

Re: All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehen

[(Anonymous)]

I honestly don't see this as a case of reading comprehension failure on the part of the commenters. As you point out here, Cinderella's case is as clear-cut and unambiguous a case of a certain type of abuse as one could hope to imagine, and OP has decided that Cinderella is lying about that abuse on the basis of OP's own assessment of their own stepdaughter's behavior. That does not bode especially well for how OP would judge anyone else who claimed to have suffered abuse in real life, since OP so readily dismisses the abuse suffered by a fictional character (which is portrayed from an impartial, third-person perspective). If the OP wouldn't believe Cinderella, given all that, who would they believe? That seems to be the sentiment in many of the comments here.

Re: All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehen

[poisonarcana]

Exactly. Cinderella is a goddamned peach in the story. Seriously, she's a huge sweetheart and always tries to be kind. If OP is seriously not believing a Disney protagonist, then where does it end?

Re: All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehen

[(Anonymous)]

oh my goodness, really, don't you think there might have been a bit of hyperbole going on in the secret??? it definitely has that vibe to me.

Re: All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehen

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I'm not that optimistic.

Re: All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehen

[nyxelestia]

I guess it's because I'm focusing on the "made up the whole story" thing. To me, that sounds like the OP is electing to see Cinderalla as an unreliable narrator/point of view, and specifically to cope with their own frustrations.

Additionally, this implies to me that the OP does realize that the situation and behavior as presented in the story is abusive and unhealthy...which is why they choose to believe it is a lie, rather than "an exaggeration" or "not abusive". It sounds like, this particular instance of abuse did not happen, not this example of behavior is not abusive.

As such, if the OP saw/heard of this in real life, they would probably recognize it as abuse. But this isn't real life, this is fiction, and people often use fiction to cope with their real life, and they do so in different ways. OP is frustrated with a particular person in their life, and when they see a character who shares even the loosest of parallels to that person, those frustrations with the RL person got projected onto this particular character.

Re: All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehen

[(Anonymous)]

The thing that makes me uncomfortable about the "made up the whole story" element is that a lot of victims of abuse get accused of lying in very similar ways. They're exaggerating, trying to get sympathy/attention, or making up stories to attack the abuser. So if that's how OP responds to a clear-cut fictional case like Cinderella, I see little reason to hope that they will be more accepting of real-life victims whose entire life stories they haven't just watched play out in Technicolor on their TV screen.

Re: All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehen

[nyxelestia]

Ah. I guess that's the difference. To me, the secret sounds more like a headcanon than anything else, not a genuine belief that anyone who says they are being emotionally abused or overworked is lying about it. It sounds like a coping mechanism, in that OP is projecting their own RL frustrations onto this extremely popular piece of media that has certain parallels to their own life.

Re: All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehen

[(Anonymous)]

That stepmother mutilates her own daughters' feet with a knife (I think that's modified in the Disney version, but still). There is no element of unreliable narration when you start chopping body parts of your children (or making them do it) for social status.

Re: All of a sudden, I can see why educators everywhere are fretting so much about reading comprehen

[nyxelestia]

That never happens in the Disney movie, and most people don't know that it happens in the original stories. Presumably, OP is going off the movie alone.