Child Abandonment and Neglect

Child abandonment is the act of a parent or caregiver in which they desert a child in order to avoid responsibilities. There are a mix of factors as to why this can happen, however, the consequences are irreversible. Adults are supposed to be guidance and teachers in a child’s life. Without this, children can often stray off the right path and face consequences. In Italo Calvino’s “Uncle Wolf” and Hans Christian Anderson’s extraordinary “The Little Match Seller” a universal truth is illustrated showcasing that nurture and care are necessary for children to develop moral judgement and resilience. 

Parental warmth is a strong factor in developing strong moral judgment and in Calvino’s “Uncle Wolf”, an absence of warmth and guidance is demonstrated through the girl’s mother. The mother sends her daughter to “Uncle Wolf” alone and unprotected without knowing if it would be safe or not. As a result, the girl makes an impulsive decision as she starts thinking “Oh, what a wonderful smell!” (Calvino 153). She eats all the pancakes to the last crumb and then tries to cover this up by using donkey manure. This failure to judge the situation accordingly ultimately leads her to getting eaten as “Uncle Wolf always eats greedy little girls” (Calvino 154). This reflects the psychological vulnerability that Khaleque identifies in children who experience parental rejection. Abdul Khaleque is a senior research scientist in the Ronald and Nancy Rohner Center. He conducted a meta-analysis in which he revealed that “both maternal and paternal warmth/affection correlate significantly with children’s psychological adjustment” (Khaleque 304).  This is clearly shown in Calvino’s “Uncle Wolf”. Furthermore, in Anderson’s tragic “The Little Match Seller”, readers see that emotional and physical neglect crush resilience and makes a child more psychologically vulnerable as seen in “Uncle Wolf”. This is because “Children have a phylogenetically acquired need for parental warmth, affection, care, comfort, support, and nurturance” (Khaleque 298). The girl in this story never received help from anyone, not even her own father, and spent her days on the street trying to just survive as such “She crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery” (Anderson 551).  She even experiences fantasy visions of her grandmother which only further emphasize her psychological need for nurture and care from someone. Which also leads her to her sorrowful ending when she freezes to death.

When parents fail to nurture or guide, children can become morally and physically vulnerable. In Calvino’s “Uncle Wolf” child endangerment and disobedience occur because of a lack of guidance. The girl in the story is unable to interpret danger signals as she did not understand Uncle Wolf was a real and dangerous wolf. Uncle Wolf tells her “Just a minute, let me put on my pants…Just a minute, let me put on my overcoat” (Calvino 153) as she tries to give him his skillet. As a result of not being able to notice the grave danger she was in, the girl becomes vulnerable as it becomes too late to fix her mistake. This is why Lepri Chiara argues that many fairy tales reveal that “the horror is planned within the domestic walls, and by those who are supposed to provide protection and the most loving care” (Lepri 164). Lepri is an alumna of the PhD program in Civilizations of Asia and Africa. She was awarded many awards for her essential work. In this quote Lepri was emphasizing how children are not flawed on their own, but by their parent’s negligence. This “horror” originates from inside the home which ironically is supposed to be the very place that offers warmth and guidance. To add to this, Anderson’s “The Little Match Seller” illustrates that children also need to grow emotionally. The poor little girl was thinking, “and she dared not to go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money. Her father would certainly beat her” (Anderson 552). This quote highlights the lack of guidance and protection along with the fear this girl feels instead of warmth. So much so that she starts seeing her dead grandmother in a flame lit by one of her matches. This further demonstrates that without this necessary warmth and protection, a child cannot survive hardship. Instead, they might just shut down, confirming the universal truth that children depend heavily on parental care. 

Both Calvino’s “Uncle Wolf” and Anderson’s “The Little Match Seller” showcase that without parental warmth, coping with pain and uncertainty becomes a problem. This is a pattern that modern psychology also puts together with childhood neglect. In “Uncle Wolf”, the little girl is sent out alone unsupervised where she then fails to recognize the wolf’s warning signs leading her to becoming an easy target. She runs back home telling her mother that, “Tonight Uncle Wolf is coming to eat me!” (Calvino 153) further emphasizing how instead of apologizing or having a simple conversation with the wolf, the girl struggles to deal with uncertainty and runs away. Similarly, in “The Little Match Seller”, the little girl does not want to go back home in fear of her father beating her because she had made no money. Instead she has fantasies where she sees her grandmother comforting her instead of seeking actual help from an adult. This also highlights how deeply neglect has weakened her ability to face hardship. Anderson describes her as “the very picture of misery” (Anderson 551) highlighting how abandoned she is in the story. What has occurred in both of these fairytales reflects what Xie et al. found in their study on parental neglect showing how childhood parental neglect “positively correlated with depression” (Xie et al 4) and other emotional issues that limit a child’s ability to cope with stress. Researchers also noticed that neglected children were more vulnerable​​ to harmful outcomes and showed “maladjustment” (Xie et al 6). In both fairy tales, the children collapse emotionally because of the neglect they faced which does not let them build resilience. Children depend on love and support to develop the emotional strength that is essential to endure life’s challenges. 

Jack Zipes helps showcase that the neglect in “Uncle Wolf” and “The Little Match Seller” reflects a bigger picture in which child abandonment becomes normalized. Jack Zipes is a professor of German and comparative literature whose work focuses on how fairy tales reflect social values toward children. He is especially known for analyzing classic tales normalizing abuse and abandonment. Zipes also argues that classic tales often sugar coat or excuse the harm done to children, noting that their popularity relies on the “rationalization of abandonment and the domestication of the imagination” (Zipes 56). Essentially this means that readers are encouraged to overlook emotional damage caused by neglect. This mirrors the danger the little girl in “Uncle Wolf” faces when she is sent out alone at night as stated before. It also mirrors the little girl in “The Little Match Seller” who is beaten at home leading her to wander the streets freezing and hungry. Both of these fairytales have the adults responsible for these girls “invisible” in the narrative which minimizes abuse because parents are made to appear “not the problem” (Zipes 60). This only teaches children that they need to be able to endure life’s challenges and hardships without question. Both fairytales reflect and demonstrate this because the girl’s suffering is “normal”. Zipes’ analysis ultimately reaffirms the universal truth that neglect cannot be normalized and children depend on guidance to grow into secure, resilient persons. 

Overall, across both “Uncle Wolf” and “The Little Match Seller”, the children’s fear and confusion reveal the same universal truth: nurture and care are necessary for children to develop moral judgement and resilience. Without this, children may stray off the right path and face consequences or tragic endings such as the two girls in these fairytales. 

Works Cited:

Andersen, H. C. Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen. The Floating Press, 2010. EBSCOhost,   search-ebscohost-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=346015&site=ehost-live.

Grunig, Brett. “Uncle Wolf.” Patreon, 22 May 2024, www.patreon.com/posts/uncle-wolf-101430923. Accessed 2 Dec. 2025.

Khaleque, Abdul. “Perceived Parental Warmth, and Children’s Psychological Adjustment, and Personality Dispositions: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Child and Family Studies, vol. 22, no. 2, 2013, pp. 297–306, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-012-9579-z.

Lepri, Chiara. “Fairy Tales and Abandonment between Symbolism and Reality: 

Persistence and Rewritings.” Studi Sulla Formazione, vol. 25, no. 2, 2022, pp. 161–72, 

Xie, Xiaochun, et al. “Childhood Parental Neglect and Adolescent Internet Gaming Disorder: From the Perspective of a Distal—Proximal—Process—Outcome Model.” Children and Youth Services Review, vol. 120, 105564, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105564.

Zipes, Jack. “The Rationalization of Abandonment and Abuse in Fairy Tales.” Happily Ever After, Taylor & Francis Group, 1997, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203949153-3.