Listen to your mother...

This is the basic moral of the Perrault/Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood. Whether you agree with Fromm's sexual interpretation or prefer a more benign version that simply emphasizes the need to take the advice of one's elders the focus is the same: listen to your mother. When I was three, shortly after my sister was born, we were living in married student housing on the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus and there were lots of other kids around. My mom was taking care of Cait , and I wandered off with some other kids to visit another one of the apartment buildings. When I came home my mom was going CRAZY. She was yelling, too scared to cry, and made me promise never to do ANYTHING like this ever again. I was frightened and promised I never would. Which is why I ALWAYS told mom where I was going, right up until I moved out. Even now, when I visit, I leave a note and a number for her to reach me at. My sister never got that angry/scared/insane talk and so she has a tendency to wander off occaisonally, despite many bouts of grounding in later years. She didn't get it into her bones young enough. Little Red Riding Hood was no doubt intended to deeply ingrain how dangerous wandering ( or even not listening to your monther) was. I imagine it works ALMOST as well as my mom's diatribe.