8 Ways We Traumatize Our Offspring

While it is no surprise to me that the lyrics to many kiddie songs are both insipid and inane, I had not given a great deal of thought to very much of the content. Some of the sentiments and concepts expressed are extremely odd, and some are just plain scary to contemplate.

As such, I present a kiddie hit parade of sorts – the songs I refer to will doubtless be known to you all.

1. Your father is bribing you to shut up by buying you all kinds of stuff. Much of it appears to be livestock.

2. Some lunatic decided to put your cradle in a tree and I am now trying to convince you to sleep in it, presumably with the idea that when high winds hit, you’ll get a surprise. And this is good. Really.

3. Field mice are evil, the resolution of which lies in cranial trauma administered by a rabbit.

4. Speaking of cranial trauma, the protagonist of our next ditty not only suffered the injury and indignity of falling down a hill, but also the painful cauterization of the resulting wound with whatever substance was convenient and acidic, in this case vinegar.

5. Living in footwear is apparently not conducive to birth control, nor to the ability to feed your kids, though it does give you quite the background for child abuse.

6. When your true love drowns in the sea and you are unable to save her, you still have her sister as a backup option once you have made it through the obligatory four verses of grieving.

7. Spiders have nothing better to do than climb up spouts, and are too stupid to find somewhere else to go in bad weather. And we are supposed to believe this of a species that also engages in the laudable practice of helping young women get off their tuffets and get some exercise.

8. Egg-shaped people should avoid sitting on masonry, for they are too fragile to survive loss of balance. They are also rather less subject to re-assembly than, say, an IKEA bookshelf.

I’m sure I could come up with many more, but that’s all I can think of for the moment. If you feel inclined to comment with others, I look forward to reading them.

Also – though of a less traumatic bent – does anyone know the escape velocity required to counteract the gravitational pull of mulberry bushes?