What messages are some nursery rhymes sending kids

[Deleted]

I thought this was an interesting point that I thought about just a moment ago. It seems that some nursery rhymes condone things that are unthinkable/illegal today. For example:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do
She gave them some broth without any bread
She whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed.

YYYYeah, I really think that one needs to be rewritten because what it tells children is that "Mommy's going to hit me for no reason" - which is basically child abuse. And it's illegal.

I prefer this rewrite I saw in a book of bunny rhymes:

Old Mother Rabbit lived in a shoe
She had so many children, she knew what to do
She gave them some broth, carrots and bread
She kissed them all gently and sent them to bed.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather be raised by the rabbit any day.

Now, I'm not talking about ALL the old rhymes, there are some like "Patty-Cake" that are obviously completely safe. I'm only talking about the ones that seem to condone hitting children:

Tom, Tom, the butcher's son
Stole a pig and away he run
The pig was eat
And Tom was beat
And Tom went howling down the street.

;_; Poor Tom.

Little Polly Finders
Sat among the cinders
Warming up her pretty little toes
Her mother came and caught her
And smacked her little daughter
For spoiling her nice new clothes.

Seriously?! Seriously?! >

And there are other ones that are just plain eyebrow-raising:

Tickly, tickly, on your knee
If you laugh, you don't love me

In the child's mind: "I better not laugh. Ever."

Goosey goosey gander
Whither do you wander?
Upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber
"There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers
I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs"

And he probably died or was severely injured. Who knows? Maybe he was happy with his life and therefore had no reason to pray - all prayers had been granted. Way to go, goose!

Thoughts?

[Dju]

I don't get your point. XD

[Deleted]

"Ring Around the Rosy" is about the Black Plague. :3

[/trivia]

Aaanyway. Seconding Dju. ^__^;

[Killix]

When I was a child, I didn't even notice the darker undertones of some of the older nursery rhymes and children's books.

[Deleted]

My point is that these things are kind of sending subliminal messages that, at best, when you are a parent you have every right to beat your children. I'm wondering if they should be rewritten for the sake of what we know today.

[Dju]

Yeah I mean, they are just rhymes... ; No kids take rhymes seriously, at least not now a days. Rhymes are usually old and don't apply to our now days lives. Most kids never really seen a pig before. >_> Honestly, they are harmless and shouldn't be changed in the name of the classics.


Boi, boi, boi...boi da cara preta, pega essa menina que tem medo de careta! ^-^ That's an old rhyme almost every brazilian kid nows, it's talking about a bull with black face that's gonna get you at night because you're scared of ugly faces. Harmless and noone takes it seriously, and quite catchy!

[Char]

Oh yeah! The Black Plague one!

Ring around the rosy - a referring to buboes, which were red or black.
A pocket full of posy - rosemary (posy) was thought to ward off the disease.
Ashes, Ashes - Heheheh, self explanatory.
We all fall down! - Also self explanatory.

Seriously though, what are we discussing? The sadistic nature of old lore?

EDIT: Ninja'd while writing. ^^

[Deleted]

Most little kids don't pick up on those messages. Heck, the most violent nursery rhymes I heard when I was little were made up on the playground. There was one where you started off nice and sweet and then added, "...and they threw it out the window, the window, the nth story window~". Everything received this treatment, be it a sheep, a little girl, or a pumpkin. It wasn't condoning violence, but silliness.

A parent has the right to read their child different nursery rhymes if they find these worrying. Someone could compile a book of "kinder" nursery rhymes if they wanted--I mean, a couple nurseries have changed Bah Bah Black Sheep to Bah Bah Rainbow Sheep. But...I'unno. I don't think this is such a big deal.

[Dju]

Jul 20, 2011 12:59:04 GMT -5 Char said:

Oh yeah! The Black Plague one!

Ring around the rosy - a referring to buboes, which were red or black.
A pocket full of posy - rosemary (posy) was thought to ward off the disease.
Ashes, Ashes - Heheheh, self explanatory.
We all fall down! - Also self explanatory.

Seriously though, what are we discussing? The sadistic nature of old lore?

EDIT: Ninja'd while writing. ^^

Lol, yeah! XD Most old things are a bit sadistic, but that is just something that kids don't really mind or even understand! XD

[selmette]

i'm playing devil's advocate here, but perhaps the fact that the nursery rhymes don't apply to modern life is the reason they should actually be kept the way they are. it can teach kids to be appreciate of the present and how much opportunity the world presents them with nowadays, and also to learn from the past.

though in all seriousness i agree with dju in that i don't know anyone who takes nursery rhymes seriously or actually focuses on the meaning behind it. no parent uses them to teach their child morals; to the kids who hear it most often, it's pretty much just a random string of words that sound nice.

[Gelquie]

Just offering something quick, but Ring Around the Rosie wasn't actually written about the Black Death. It was just most attributed to it. The rhyme itself is just a silly rhyme.

Some of the rhymes there make me think of more physical punishments a parent would give a kid, like how a parent nowaday would spank their kid for bad behavior or for being unruly. Like in the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe one, it seemed to imply that there was no other way to control their kid. It doesn't necessarily mean that she would hit that hard. Though then one would start arguing on that type of punishment.

Most of the rhymes though just seem to be silly things; as a kid, I paid more attention to the rhymes and the songs than the actual lyrics. I forgot most of them, actually. I think they go over most kids' heads.

[M is for Morphine]

Jul 20, 2011 12:54:51 GMT -5 @saeryena said:

My point is that these things are kind of sending subliminal messages that, at best, when you are a parent you have every right to beat your children. I'm wondering if they should be rewritten for the sake of what we know today.

I don't think they should be rewritten. They reflect the time they were written in, and I think it would be a shame to destroy their connection to history. If you don't think it's a good thing for your kids to read, don't read it to them and don't keep the book in your house. Or you could explain before you read it that they are from long, long ago when the world was very different. I mean, a lot of them are going to need some sort of explanation anyway. (ie Little Miss Muffet's tuffet)

[Luna]

I think most of these rhymes where made up a long time ago, when people where poor and kids didn't have the freedom we have today.

"Little Polly Finders
Sat among the cinders
Warming up her pretty little toes
Her mother came and caught her
And smacked her little daughter
For spoiling her nice new clothes"

That one was about if they ruined there clothes, they would get in trouble. The rhymes aren't meant to be taken that seriously, but to tell kids to not do things.

"Goosey goosey gander
Whither do you wander?
Upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber
"There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers
I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs"

Probably written in a time when everyone was expected to be Christian, and if you weren't you would get hurt.

[Herdy]

Frankly I think there's a darker meaning to goosey gander - what's the old man with non-christian values doing in a lady's chamber?
'Throw rapists down the stairs' is a perfectly valid moral to be teaching kids

[Cow-winkle]

I wouldn't be surprised if at least a few of the classic rhymes actually evolved from children coming up with the rhymes to entertain themselves. Kids can be creative, and they love dark or bizarre humour.

If you want a modern example, at my elementary school, kids always sang "Jingle bells, Batman smells/Robin laid an egg, etc." or "I hate you/You hate me/Let's all go and kill Barney" to the tune of the Barney theme song. Then there's all the variations of "Suffocation", sung to the tune of Alouette:

"Suffocation, early execution,
Suffocation, a game we like to play,
First you take a garden hose,
Then you shove it up your nose,
Turn it on,
Then you're gone
Oh-oh-oh-oh,

Suffocation, early execution,
Suffocation, a game we like to play,
First you take a pillow case,
Then you glue it to your face,
Go to bed,
Wake up dead,
Oh-oh-oh-oh, etc."

I only recently found out about the glory of "Found a Peanut", in which the singer tells about how they find a rotten peanut, eat it, die, and go to heaven where they find another rotten peanut.

By the time I was in elementary school, I started hearing these songs a lot more often then I heard the nursery rhymes you're talking about, and I never met any kid who came away thinking it would be a good idea to murder a TV dinosaur, suffocate themselves or eat rotten peanuts.