Reading nursery rhymes to Lia, I've recently come to realize how truly screwed up some of them are. And I'm not just talking about Little Miss Muffet's arachnophobia or Old Mother Hubbard's poor starving dog. I'm talking about Jack and Jill, where Jack got some serious cranial damage, the farmer's wife cutting off mouse tails with a carving knife, and Humpty Dumpty who was killed in a horrific fall.
Consider these nursery Rhymes.
My Grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf
So it stood ninety years on the floor
It was taller by half than the old man himself
Yet it weighed not a pennyweight more
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born
It was always his treasure and pride
But it stopped, short, never to chime again
When the old man died
Go tell Aunt Rhodie
Go tell Aunt Rhodie
Go tell Aunt Rhodie the old grey goose is dead
The one she's been saving
The one she's been saving
The one she's been saving to make a feather bed
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 all broth without any bread
Then whipped them al soundly and put them to bed
Yep. Pretty dark stuff. And I've saved the worst for last. Rockabye baby. That song is downright criminal. Who the hell would ever put an infant's crib up in a tree? And then sing comforting songs about the infant plummeting? That is just wrong.