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Violent Nursery Rhymes

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Sean McCormack

Posts: 504
Nickname: adapdev
Registered: Jan, 2005

Sean McCormack is the Lead .NET Architect for Miller Brewing Co. and founder of Adapdev Technologies
Violent Nursery Rhymes Posted: Jul 29, 2005 12:43 PM
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This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Sean McCormack.
Original Post: Violent Nursery Rhymes
Feed Title: Vini Vidi Vici - Sean McCormack's Blog
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I want to teach my daughter Arabic so I recently ordered a copy of Tales from Kalila wa Dimna which is the Middle Eastern equivalent to the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales.  I thought it would be fun for us to read together.  I was shocked when I read the first story...it's about an elephant that purposely steps on a lark's egg and kills the chick inside.  When questioned why he did it, he said because he was bigger than the lark and powerful - and he did it because he could.  The lark gets mad and rounds up a bunch of other animals.  An eagle pecks the elephants eyes out, some other animals lure him into a ditch and trap him, etc.  Moral of the story is that the weaker can defeat the stronger...but it's delivered in a pretty violent narrative.

It got me to thinking about Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales in general.  Rock-a-Bye Baby is about a baby falling out of a tree.  Hansel and Gretel is about a witch that wants to eat the kids.  Red Riding Hood is about a wolf that ate Grandma and is still hungry.  It's Raining It's Pouring is about an old man who cracks his head on his head board and dies.  And the list goes on...

Why are all these stories so violent?  We protect our kids from violent movies and video games, but then tell them these stories right before they go to bed??  Or sing this songs for fun?  And, after getting the Arabic book, it's obvious it's not just Western culture...it's spread across all cultures.  I'm sure almost every culture out there has tales of the Boogey Man.  I read The Bridge on the Drina (really good by the way) and Serbian children's stories focused on scary Arabs that hid under the bridge and would steal children.  Interesting.

I think my daughter and I will stick with Dr. Suess and Dora...

Read: Violent Nursery Rhymes

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