HOMEGROWN: Rhymes & Resilience
I am at an age where I might forget what I was looking for in the garage, but I can still recite the Pledge of Allegiance and countless nursery rhymes.
As a child, I read along, memorized and repeated over the years each of these “sweet” nursery rhymes without thinking about the horrors behind the words. I now believe this was conditioning for the worst possible outcomes.
Accidental (or intentional) death, injury, starvation, horrors — add a lilt, rhyme or tune and they are not just palatable, but standard children’s stories. I was entertained, lulled to sleep, expecting to sleep through the night. I wasn’t worried about Jill, Jack, mice, Little Red Riding Hood, little piggies.
Jack fell down, broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and couldn’t be put back together again.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
Three blind mice had their tails cut off with a carving knife.
London Bridge is falling down.
Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was bare.
Even the last little Piggy had none! And the blackbirds were baked in a pie?! Here’s an idyllic domestic scene:
The King was counting out his money.
The Queen was eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.
And poor Little Red Riding Hood was not able to figure out that her grandmother was a wolf!
Today, I reflect on the actual content of these seemingly innocent childlike verses. They might have been our preparation for what is currently unfolding in the world. With humor and rhyme, we learned to be tough and resilient, no matter what happened around us. Subversively, we were prepared for the plague, disease, starvation, war, and the tyranny of kings. We learned resilience, but not so much resistance.
I trusted my mother completely. She was a lovely woman and, in my mind, without faults. To help me sleep, she sang, “When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall and down will come baby, cradle and all.”
My mother did warn me when she heard me saying the Lord’s Prayer before bed. “Now I lay me down to sleep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” I had no idea what a soul was, but my mother was not happy with the concept of dying before I woke. I did not repeat it again, but it is still in my head decades later.
Julie Fulkerson sleeps in Eureka, not that soundly — it’s the news, not the nursery rhymes.
Email: juliefulkerson@mac.com.
