I Just Don't Know...

I just don't know which movies near and dear to my childhood will I let Tracey Ann watch during her childhood years...

Sometimes we listen to the Disney radio channel on Pandora while Tracey Ann is in the bathtub... so last night, with Disney songs in my head, I decided to watch The Little Mermaid after  Tracey Ann was in bed.  I dusted off my old VHS tape from the basement to enjoy, what I thought would be, a sweet love story and a walk down memory lane.

What I didn't expect was that now I was watching The Little Mermaid from the perspective of a mother, and I'm not sure its a movie I want my little girl to see in her childhood.  Now, this is a movie I saw at age five, I earned the VHS movie by passing my advanced swimming test, and had memorized by age five-and-a-half.  I sang every song and acted out every line so many times, that much of the movie is still committed to my memory, whether I want it there or not.  How can I be considering withholding that story from my daughter?

But... this movie, innocent though it might be, teaches some principals that I don't want her to believe:

• The entire movie surrounds a daughter's disobedience to her father
• The father has a problem with outbursts of anger
• The movie involves a lot of magic
• The heroine makes a deal with the devil... for lack of a better way to describe it
• The heroine then pursues a man (instead of waiting on his pursuit of her)
• The heroine is desperately seeking a kiss from that man -- something I don't want my children to take lightly

Now, yes, the story is sweet, and funny, and has great music, and a good lesson about how great a father's love is for his daughter... but do those outweigh the strong themes that I don't want her to learn?

Do I keep her from the Wizard of Oz because it involves disobedience and magic?

Do I not tell her the story of Cinderella because the Fairy Godmother uses magic?

I just don't know.

I want her to have lovely, sweet, creative imagination, but I want her to know the difference between stories and the Lord God. 
Cinderella is a story... the Nativity is Truth.
Psychics and Fortune Tellers and not to be trusted, and are sinful... the Biblical prophets are Godly.

How do I draw a line in the sand and make the differences clear to my very naive, childish daughter, whom I want to learn Biblical truths, and learn the difference between right and wrong, truth, and pretend?

Do I have to put an end to all television and movies in our home?  Do I have to have a serious talk about every one that we watch?
I just don't know...