It is a common sentiment where I work to be irritated at a patient who has a long list that she thinks her social worker should fix for her. (It is somewhat diagnostic, but that's another story.) A co-worker today said "I'm her social worker, not her fairy godmother." It suddenly occurred to me that the fairy godmother didn't come and ask Cinderella what she thought she wanted, either. She came in and gave orders, knowing what she really needed: "Here's the dress and the shoes. Get in the carriage and be back by midnight."
Even a Fairy Godmother can be a hard-ass when the situation calls for it. She just says it all real nice.
"Remember, however, that to be breakable is not the same as to be perishable. Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant; simply do not strike it, and it will endure a thousand years. Such, it seemed, was the joy of man, either in elfland or on earth; the happiness depended on NOT DOING SOMETHING which you could at any moment do and which, very often, it was not obvious why you should not do. Now, the point here is that to ME this did not seem unjust. If the miller's third son said to the fairy, 'Explain why I must not stand on my head in the fairy palace,' the other might fairly reply, 'Well, if it comes to that, explain the fairy palace.' If Cinderella says, 'How is it that I must leave the ball at twelve?' her godmother might answer, 'How is it that you are going there till twelve?' If I leave a man in my will ten talking elephants and a hundred winged horses, he cannot complain if the conditions partake of the slight eccentricity of the gift." -- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
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