Children's songs are scary

[sabrinamari]

This morning was one long session of laughing intermixed with horror. Michael woke up with the "Three Little Ducks" song [No, it was the "Good Morning" song. "Three Little Ducks" came later] in his head from the "Songs for Wiggleworms" kid's album, so he began singing it. This turned into a full-fledged ear worm, so he began playing the music as he got dressed.

The duck song was about a mother duck with three ducklings, and every time she went out, she came home with one less duckling.

Michael crooned along happily while I slowly grew more and more horrified as the tale of duckling separation and abandonment unfolded.

So I asked if it was really a good idea to play this song for little kids. I mean, wouldn't they question what this meant for them, personally?

Michael laughed and said, "Well, she's not digging a hole out in the back and burying them," he told me.

"How do you know?" I asked. He just laughed and said that I was very, very weird, and he loved me.

"Look," he said, "I'll cheer you up." Then he put on another song from the same album, sung in the Mexican corrido style.

"You tenia seis perritos, de los seis que yo tenia, uno se fue brinco y brinco, nadamas me quedan cinco..."

[I had six little puppies, and one bounced and bounced away, and only five were left to me..."]

Me, flinging the covers over my head sadly: "What are you trying to do to me? This is awful!"

Michael: "What, it's in Spanish!"

Me: "It's the same song, only with six puppies!"

[We are both laughing hysterically now, he in perplexity, me in anguish...]

He turns it off, snuggles me, comforts me, and then begins singing softly in my ear, "The mother duck says, 'quack, quack, quack' and goes to dig a hole in the back..."

Comments

[arielmn.livejournal.com]

Maybe the little ducks and dogs are well adjusted kids going off to college? yeah...not so much

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Maybe. I'm telling myself something that.

Actually, they do come back in the end.

So I guess it's really OK.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Bu there's like, THREE songs on this album that count down evaporating small beings who are left behind. WHY IS THIS A GOOD IDEA?

[arielmn.livejournal.com]

Other than learning to count---it ISN'T. But ring around the rosie is about the plague, it isn't new

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

It's OK if everybody dies of the plague. I mean, that's no one's fault. Also, the plague is a very cool epidemic. I have it in a small black plush:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=safari&rls=en&q=black+plague+plush&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=2016133585462674287&sa=X&ei=cNHgTs7GD46L0QGapIyLBw&ved=0CFAQ8wIwAw#ps-sellers

[evaelisabeth.livejournal.com]

They do all come back in the end :-)

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

True. Well, the ducklings do.

[evaelisabeth.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I have not knowledge of the lost puppies ;-)

Decompositions for Children

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Let's not think about 'Ring-a-ring-arosie' (Black Death), 'Oranges & Lemons' (London cathedral bells mnemonic topped off with a reminder that you can hear them all from the Bloody Tower, where you get your head chopped off), or my favourite childhood explainer of the process of decomposition in the grave:

"Have you ever seen a hearse go by and wondered what it's like to die?
Woooooooooo! Woooooooooo! - How happy we shall be!

They dress you in a long white shirt and cover you up with muck and dirt
Woooooooooo! Woooooooooo! - How happy we shall be!

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out - they crawl in thin and they crawl out stout
Woooooooooo! Woooooooooo! - How happy we shall be!

Your eyes fall in, your teeth fall out, your brain comes tumbling down your snout
Woooooooooo! Woooooooooo! - How happy we shall be!

So if you ever see a hearse go by, and wonder what it's like to die
Woooooooooo! Woooooooooo! - How happy we shall be!"

Re: Decompositions for Children

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Well, I think that's cool.

I guess I'm good with horrific death, just not with being left behind.

Probably psychological...

Re: Decompositions for Children

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Ah, so it has to be the right kind of horrifying and morbid. Got you. ;)

Re: Decompositions for Children

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Remind me to tell you Michael's latest maggot story.

[akrissy.livejournal.com]

THAT line alone is worth the story!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

My life is an unceasing adventure.

Re: Decompositions for Children

[citabria]

Re: being left behind ... what's your take on the film AI, if any? I'm not exaggerating when I say that I was sobbing uncontrollably for hours after watching it.

Re: Decompositions for Children

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I cried so hard I was incoherent, and swore I would never watch it again. One of the most painful films I have ever had to watch.

Re: Decompositions for Children

[citabria]

Yeah, I had a feeling that might have been the case.

And, in sort-of related news, I miss you. {{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Children are morbid. Children's songs, sometimes doubly so. Most counting songs involve somebody getting kicked out of bed, somebody falling off the kite when the string breaks and not getting to go to heaven, etc.

I doubt it's really that traumatic for them. But nevertheless, you have a point. :-)

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Now Michael will torment me endlessly with songs of abandoned ducks, slaughtered ducks, buried ducks, and all kinds of ducks who have been dumped and met terrible ends.

I have to start composing counter-songs about ducks who escape and find better caretakers, ducks who learn to take care of themselves and ducks who become superheroes.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's too much to ask that these all be recorded? (On both sides.) That would be hysterical. >:-)

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I will see what I can do. It's spur-of-the-moment thing.

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Oh gods, pleasepleaseplease!

[tigira.livejournal.com]

Hmmm (pondering what kind of sick mom I am - since I thought it would be fun to serve some kind of duck dish for dinner in the very near future after these songs).

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Tigira, I do love you. Michael is sick in that very same way, and I love him, too.

[justusgirlz.livejournal.com]

I was reading this walking through Port Authority. Got to the end and laughed so loudly at Michael's last part of the song that I got stares. :D

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

It's a purely Michael-style response.

[jasminewind.livejournal.com]

That ducks song used to make Duncan cry. I don't like it very much either!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

See? I used to cry at all kinds of mean children's songs, too.

Poor Duncan. I feel bad for that bunny.

[wgseligman.livejournal.com]

Remind me never to sing "Rock-a-bye Baby" in front of you.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Never!

[tigira.livejournal.com]

Kiddo is horrified at that song, too. The Three Little Ducks song I learned was a bit different - not nearly so horrifying.

Then again, he's the kid who moved itty bitty tiny snails off of a sidewalk so nobody would step on them and crush them. And he and two other kids had a small funeral for the snail, placing him under a bush in Grandma's garden.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Finn must be another member of the "too much water" clan. If you have too much water, you're really sensitive to suffering or the possibility of suffering, and it weighs on you weirdly.

There are a lot of gifts that come with too much water. It can motivate you to change things that are cruel or unfair. It can give you a lot of compassion. It can be a great motivator for pursuing justice. Maybe he will experience this.

At some point, he may have to make a choice. With too much water, you either have to get good at rolling up in a ball, being defensive and avoiding pain, or you can get good at crying hysterically and then getting up again and pushing back.

I think Option 2 is more useful.

Maybe you can help teach him that horrific emotional pain will not kill him, and that he can get past it and even use it productively.

[welshbard.livejournal.com]

You have a very sadistic and evil husband. My kind of people!

It's a cautionary tale about running away from the pack and getting left behind. Teaches the kids to stay in the group.

Now I'm humming, "Six Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed!"

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I did not get that lesson.

Hmmmmm...

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Yes, he has a big stripe of that.

[showingup.livejournal.com]

This whole thing just reminded me of 'Women Who Run With The Wolves', and the theory that these songs and stories are a good way for kids to work through primal fears and make their own allies.

Being lost, abandoned, having to face monsters alone - they're the everyday stuff of kids' lives, even when their adult allies are in close attendance.

Both my nieces have specific dolls which have their own lives, beliefs, and remedies for all sorts of difficulties. The girls each tell their special dolls when things worry them, and the dolls reassure them that they're loved and not alone. Just like Vasselisa in Baba Yaga.

The song about the ducklings is about them mysteriously getting lost. It's also about the reassurance that their mother never gives up looking for them, and that they're reunited again.

It reminds me of one of the girls' obsession with me telling her the Rapunzel story, in which it is imperative that I repeat over again that the King and Queen NEVER stopped looking for their little girl, and that when she was found, she lived with them in the castle and married the Prince, and everything was good forever.

[sligoe.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.....good thing we're having something OTHER than duck for Yule....

LOL

I love Michael's sense of humor. We definitely need to record his songs so we can send them around to all the adults!