My Child's Disturbing Library

Do any of you remember the fairy tales of our youth? Have any of you read the new children's books available today? I remember early on after Emma's birth, Shana began to read her books from Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever. Here is a sample of its many tales:

1) When I was a bachelor I lived by myself, And all the bread and cheese I got I laid up on the shelf; The rats and the mice, they made such a strife, I had to go to London to buy me a wife. The streets were so bad and the lanes were so narrow, I was forced to bring my wife home in a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow broke and my wife had a fall; Down came wheelbarrow, little wife and all. (p.10 & 11) So a guy went and purchased a wife, then had the poor judgment to bring her home in an unsafe wheelbarrow?

2) There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread, And whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed. (p. 20 & 21) This lady, who is way overdue for tubal ligation, has the audacity to take out her poor state of affairs on her already deprived children by beating them until they go to sleep. Where is their father? Where is DHS? Another example of someone who refuses to take personal responsibility for her actions and is ever the victim?

3) There once were two cats of Kilkenny, Each thought there was one cat too many; So they fought and they fit, And they scratched and they bit, Till, except their nails And the tips of their tails, Instead of two cats, there weren't any. (p. 29) A story of violence and gore. What does this teach the child, if you don't like someone, it is okay to fight to the death?


4) Barber, barber, shave a pig, How many hairs to make a wig? Four and twenty, that's enough. Give the barber a pinch of snuff. (p. 50) Sure it rhymes, but is this really the message we want to send to little children, that snuff is good. Is this an early example of Philip Morris' scheme to market to children?

5) I had a little hen, The prettiest ever seen; She washed up the dishes, And kept the house clean; She went to the mill To fetch me some flour, And always got home In less than an hour; She baked me my bread, She brewed me my ale; She sat by the fire And told a fine tale. (p. 78 & 79) Isn't chauvinism refreshing? A cute little story about a dutiful wife who does all the chores and even brews her master's, I mean husband's beer. Clearly a story fit for children.

I could go on, but there are other examples in Emma's library to share. Who can forget the classic The Cat in the Hat? A wonderful tale of a trespassing feline and his two midget sidekicks who terrorize a house while two small children look on in awe and their babysitter, a goldfish, lacking opposable thumbs can only lamely tell the intruders to leave and is unable to come to the children's aid in their time of need.

Another nifty book is called The Greedy Python. It is a short story of a stomach-stuffing serpent who devours a mouse, frog, bat, fish, bird, porcupine, monkey, leopard, buffalo and elephant. All of the animals thrashing about inside the snake makes him sick and he subsequently vomits up the zoo of a lunch he just consumed. The tale ends with the snake showing his ultimate greed: "He closed his jaws on his own rear, Then swallowed hard . . . and disappeared." Talk about an eating disorder. Was there no one around who could see the snakes pain and steer him toward Weight Watchers or Overeater's Annonymous before he took his life?

And then we come to Emma's favorite as of late, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. For all of you who are not in the know, it is a tale of a group of monkey children who jump on the bed and each subsequently fall off and hurt their head. The mother called the doctor after each child fell off the bed and received the same advice, "no more monkeys jumping on the bed." The book ends with a picture of all five children passed out in bed with bandages wrapping their heads and the mother jumping on her bed. First of all, how about a little supervision? A little discipline? It seems to me that if all of her children have cranial injuries due to her lackluster parenting, she should be in their rooms making sure that they are not suffering from concussions rather than jumping on her own bed.

I know this was a bit long, but I felt obligated to educate all of you parents and parents-to-be to read the books that your children are exposed to and ask yourself, "does this send a good message to my child?" I'm sure there are countless other examples of these disturbing books sitting on nursery shelves all around the nation. I just hope I have made a small dent in this pervasive problem.