Nursery Rhymes

Singing some of those nursery rhymes to Spud, I realised that there certainly is something very wrong or sadistic about how these songs were penned for children.

I mean, just look at the lyrics of Rock-a-bye Baby:

Rock-a-bye, baby
On the treetop
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock
When the bough breaks
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all

First off, why would anyone, god forbid, place a baby on the tree-top? Not a very smart thing to do, me-thinks. I mean, come on, isn’t it just tragic that the cradle fall along with the baby too? WTF?

And then there is this one which seemed to have been written about drunk person:

This old man, he played one,
He played nick nack on my drum
With a nick nack paddy whack,
Give a dog a bone;
This old man came rolling home.

 And he apparently played till ten. Seriously. Why was he rolling home again?

And here’s one which makes absolutely no sense:

Hey fiddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
A little dog laughed to see such a sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon

I can see, how in a weird, abstract way on how the cow would want to moon the moon (I did say abstract), but somebody please tell me why would the dish want to run away with the spoon? It absolutely does not make any sense. I bet you the lyricist may have been a bit of a stoner on this one!

I am sure I am not the only parent who thought about such things though, and I am sure that there probably are dozen of other similar posts on this. Funny despite all the realisation on the "unhealthy' meaning of the songs, we parents are still singing these crazy, manic songs to our kids, generations after generations.

And get this, we sing them with such a happy sounding tune too! Big smiles, animated gestures, laughter an all...

You know what's the worst thing about this? Sometimes I caught myself humming to these songs while I’m working or walking or doing something else that has got nothing to do with baby stuff.

Ahh...the joy of parenthood. Talk about being brain-washed.

Bizarre.