Ever noticed that most of the nursery rhymes have destructive endings?
Lot of them talk about falling, beating, breaking, and I wonder why!
How might the mind of an innocent kid be interpreting them?
Humpty Dumpty falls and breaks!
Jack and Jill go up the hill, and both fall down.
London Bridge falls down.
Hush-a-bye-baby/ rock-a-bye-baby: the cradle and the baby fall down from the tree.
Doctor Foster falls into the muddy puddle.
In Oranges and Lemons, you chop off the man's head!
Three blind mice: the farmer's wife cuts their tails with a carving knife??
A spider comes and frightens Miss Muffet away!
And the worst... Mary Mary quite contrary!
This rhyme actually talks about the ways of torture Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VIII) used to punish the Protestants. It’s too evil for my fingers to type, so refer to this link. http://www.rhymes.org.uk/mary_mary_quite_contrary.htm
These rhymes are made for the kids to sing, but they sound like they have been created by older people to let their own worries out, having hardly anything to do with kids!
They don't fit into the kid's world!
"Rain rain go away, come again another day": It’s always the older people who crib about rain, not kids! I always begged my mom to let me play in the rain.
"Rain, rain, go to Spain, Never show your face again!” What does a kid have to do with the rivalry between England and Spain? Why are they even being taught such things?
As a kid I always liked the stories with happy endings. In fact, if the story did not have a happy ending, I never felt that it was a story!
I always felt that grandma didn’t know the remaining half of the story, so she shouldn't have picked that story in the first place. It always left me with so many questions!.. What might have happened next?, why did they do that?, why are they like that?, who'll punish them?....
And nobody would give me answers! They would say "will tell you later, go and do your homework for now."
I hated to be in that kind of situation!
You don’t know what these rhymes might be molding the way kids think!
Or how they've molded our thoughts and perspectives to contribute to what we are today!
Lot of them talk about falling, beating, breaking, and I wonder why!
How might the mind of an innocent kid be interpreting them?
Humpty Dumpty falls and breaks!
Jack and Jill go up the hill, and both fall down.
London Bridge falls down.
Hush-a-bye-baby/ rock-a-bye-baby: the cradle and the baby fall down from the tree.
Doctor Foster falls into the muddy puddle.
In Oranges and Lemons, you chop off the man's head!
Three blind mice: the farmer's wife cuts their tails with a carving knife??
A spider comes and frightens Miss Muffet away!
And the worst... Mary Mary quite contrary!
This rhyme actually talks about the ways of torture Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VIII) used to punish the Protestants. It’s too evil for my fingers to type, so refer to this link. http://www.rhymes.org.uk/mary_mary_quite_contrary.htm
These rhymes are made for the kids to sing, but they sound like they have been created by older people to let their own worries out, having hardly anything to do with kids!
They don't fit into the kid's world!
"Rain rain go away, come again another day": It’s always the older people who crib about rain, not kids! I always begged my mom to let me play in the rain.
"Rain, rain, go to Spain, Never show your face again!” What does a kid have to do with the rivalry between England and Spain? Why are they even being taught such things?
As a kid I always liked the stories with happy endings. In fact, if the story did not have a happy ending, I never felt that it was a story!
I always felt that grandma didn’t know the remaining half of the story, so she shouldn't have picked that story in the first place. It always left me with so many questions!.. What might have happened next?, why did they do that?, why are they like that?, who'll punish them?....
And nobody would give me answers! They would say "will tell you later, go and do your homework for now."
I hated to be in that kind of situation!
You don’t know what these rhymes might be molding the way kids think!
Or how they've molded our thoughts and perspectives to contribute to what we are today!
1 comment:
hmm.. very deep observation.. I think all of us have ability to enjoy triumphs in first person, and tragedies in second or third person. If sufferer is human, some circuitry in brain forces us to put ourselves in his shoes, leading to misery. Probably thats why many 'cruel' rhymes target animals than humans :-) Some brand new research in Neuroscience happening in SanDiego supports this! http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/01.html
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