Deathly Rhymes

Those of us who read nursery rhymes to kids get surprised with the amount of violence in these rhymes, clearly inappropriate for the kids to whom we read them to, especially in this day and age. But we get accustomed to it fairly quickly – most of it just comic/cartoonish violence – such as the rats getting their tails cut off (Three Blind Mice), a man being thrown down the stairs (Goosey Goosey Gander) or the pig breaking his bones (Piggy on the Railway) . This is similar in vein to Jerry dropping a hot iron on Tom’s tail, which of course we enjoyed as kids. Sometimes the violence is not so cartoonish – as in the case of lullaby Rock-a-bye Baby. My daughter always asks why the baby’s parents left her on the tree to fall in the first place.

So I expected not to be surprised when I encounter such themes while reading my daughter her new Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes book. Since the book contained a lot of rhymes, I was just choosing a few at random to read to her. And then I spied a rhyme that I had liked as a kid. The lyrics of the rhyme as I remember from when I was young went as follows:

Miss Lucy had a baby. His name was Tiny Tim
She put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water. He ate up all the soap.
He tried to eat the bathtub but it couldn’t go down his throat.

Miss Lucy called the doctor. Miss Lucy called the nurse.
Miss Lucy called the lady with the alligator purse.

Measles said the doctor. Mumps said the nurse.
Chicken pox said the lady with the alligator purse.

Bye said the doctor. Bye said the nurse.
Bye bye said the lady with the alligator purse.

As I started reading the poem, I saw the last line of the verse and then immediately stopped – there was no way I could read that to my 3 year old. Here is how the variation in the book went:

I had a baby brother. His name was Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water. He ate up all the soap.
He died the next morning with a soap bubble in his throat.

That ending just completely shocked me. And I would venture to say, forget about kids, this variation of the verse should be disturbing for adults. Just the thought of drowning your own sibling and then writing a rhyme about it (to a catchy tune, mind you) seems a bit too morbid.

Advertisement