Children story(s), an insight into a cult

Children's stories in Bosnia come in one of two forms. The first is gentle and loving and meant to express the cultural importance of a particular faith, respect for parents and older relatives, respectable behavior, male/female interactions, and so on. The other is, basically, a horror story meant instill some moral through fear. There's still a lot of 'ownership' of children here. You're not really you're own person until you reach a certain age, generally 17 years old, so doing exactly what you're told - whether it's piano lessons, working on the farm, studying at Egypt's most expensive private school, or babysitting your 15 brothers and sisters in a mountain shack - if you're asked to do it, you do it. It's not uncommon at all for Bosnian children, and even young adults, to kneel before their parents and hold one of their hands when asking an important question or giving bad news - 'I've met the woman I want to marry', 'I'm pregnant and we're getting married', 'I want to study in Norway', etc. So I think this is the most common theme in Bosnia's children's stories - that your parents are infallible and you must listen to their every word or the old hag will sneak into your house at night and take you away to the mountains. Or you'll be sold to the gypsies, whose children get to behave exactly as 'you seem to want to'.

ahhhh yes the Gypsies. going and and stealing all of the bad, misbehaved children.