Actually, there ARE adults who suck their thumbs. Just ask King John of Britain.
As far as Snow White, let me remind you that in the Grimm fairy tale, she ALSO wasn’t killed, just put to sleep via the poisoned apple. Same deal with Sleeping Beauty. Heck, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty if anything ADDED the bit about Maleficent actually trying to kill Aurora initially, which was NEVER present in the original story (originally, the fairy cursed her to go to sleep, THAT’S IT, and unlike in the Disney version, the fairy made NO effort to ensure the curse went on unabated, including abducting the prince, trying to imprison him until he was a very old man, and even attempting to murder him via her various infernal powers. That was ALL Disney.).
And if you want a world where kids are too scared to even go outside, be shut ins, paranoid that everything’s bad and out to get them to the extent that they cannot even COMPREHEND that someone trying to help IS in fact trying to help, be my guest. Speaking as someone who HAS had to live through that constantly for most of my life, I can tell you it is extremely unpleasant, constantly being afraid that, regardless of percentages, EVERYTHING would go wrong, to the extent that you’re completely unwilling to even take any risks out of fear of failure. It’s actually one of the reasons I hate the route Disney’s taking with villains by making them plot twist villains. And for the record, I actually know a friend who’s more scared of Disney movies than scary movies, justifying it by saying “at least with horror flicks, you know what you’re getting.”
Not enough to get a folk tale, especially not a folk tale where Die Scherer is cutting off the thumbs of KIDS.
These tales didn’t make kids afraid to go outside, it made them aware that being outside had risks. Because that’s life, there are risks. Plenty of bad people pretend to be trying to help, “your mom sent me” is still one of the most popular lines kidnappers use. That’s why we STILL teach “stranger danger”, it’s just Disney that avoids it. We’re still teaching kids all the same lessons the fairy tales used to, we’re just not doing it with fairy tales anymore because Disney has taken those lessons out of them.