Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Creepy Nursery Rhymes
Am I the only one who thinks nursery rhymes are creepy? I know I'm not because I've heard some discussion on this before (in my pre-mom days). I thought the comments were interesting then, but now I actually feel guilty singing this stuff to LO. What's supposed to be comforting about "baby, cradle and all" falling from a broken bough or all the children with their "pockets full of posey" turning to ashes? If London Bridge is falling down, is the one by our house safe mama? I'd also like to vote that we shelter our children from our personal emotional drama, so no need to mention to "my sunshine" that I cried myself to sleep because he wasn't in my arms. Our newest rhyme courtesy of Lah-oo is "Wake-up Jacob" whereby Daddy shoots a bear in LO's belly button. In all seriousness, I love these sing-song rhymes and games as much as anyone. It has been fun to dust off my childhood favorites and learn some new ones. They are a big part of how we interact with LO now and will be even more so as he gets older. I know that I'm pretty concrete when it comes to such things. Still, I can't help but to feel a little weird when I sing them. Anyone else? Any favorites that are as creepy as they are fun?
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No, agreed - some are sooo creepy. We actually have a copy of vintage/"original" Mother Goose stuff and some of it is downright disturbing. But a lot of the old nursery rhymes and children's stories have important lessons/morals (like in "The Boy who cried 'Wolf'") that more modern versions of the stories water down and wean out, not to anyone's benefit.
ReplyDeleteI always sing "All the Pretty Little Horses" to LL, and there's nothing strange about the words, but the tune has always seemed kind of sad and haunting to me, even when my mother sang it to me as a child...
The one that scared me as a child was the one about the trolls hiding under the bridge. It stills scares me. :)
ReplyDeleteCarson and I read Dumbo yesterday. I was schocked to notice several things. First, they named him Dubo because he looked so dumb. Second, Dumbo and his mouse friend end up drinking champaigne. Finally, Dumbo wakes up to the smell of some old crows smoking cigars. To think, I thought I was doing good to keep Carson away from Sponge Bob!
ReplyDeleteThe good news is that things that seem scary to moms (and possibly to dads) are not at all scary to our kids. That reality will get more troublesome to parents before it begins to subside decades later.
ReplyDeleteTo kids the words really don't matter. The rhymes and kids songs make for great memories...ya can't have too many of those.
So though I don't recall taking special note of any of the words to the nursery rhymes or kids songs, I do remember having the daylights scared out of me by one episode of the Walt Disney Hour (7 PM Sunday back in the day). The title was "Darby O'Gill & The Little People". There was the one scene when at night, out of the light of a full moon, the banshee's rode black horses out of the sky. I can't say for sure what those bad ol' banshees did, but they woke me up for many a night thereafter. Very creepy...somehow I have managed to avoid committing any crimes against humanity as a result!!! Will wonders never cease? :-)
Love,
DB