Taking Sexism, Violence Out Of Nursery Rhymes -- `Sanitizing' Brings Praise And Criticism
"Rock-a-bye baby,
On the tree top.
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks
The cradle will fall.
Down will come baby
Cradle and all."
- Mother Goose rhyme
CLEARLAKE, Skagit County - Jessica Maxwell was just 4 months old when her mother, Judith, began wondering about the nursery rhymes she was singing to her.
For Judith Maxwell, simple songs like "Rock-a-bye Baby" and "The Old Woman in the Shoe" were full of violence and images she did not want her daughter to grow up with.
"I would be reading these extremely violent images and I'd take out the parts that were very violent," says Maxwell. "I know a lot of mothers who have been doing that for years."
It's 12 years later, and now mother and daughter have put that practice into print. As co-owner of Northwest Graphics, Judith Maxwell just published "The Feminist Revised Mother Goose Rhymes: A 21st Century Children's First Edition." From the title, one can imagine any number of ways to change Mother Goose by "sanitizing" the familiar rhymes. And Maxwell has heard criticism from people who consider the rewriting of those verses sacrilege.
But a surprising number of people - traditionalists and revisionists - have praised her book, says Maxwell, who has also written two children's books and a book about battered women.
"The response has been really good, and that's surprising because of this," she says, pointing to the word "Feminist" in the title. "I've had very strict Christians to feminist pagans read them and really enjoy them."
In addition to trying to protect 3- and 4-year-olds from violence, Maxwell saw a lack in powerful images of girls in nursery rhymes.
So "Jack Be Nimble" becomes "Jess Be Nimble" in Maxwell's book. Instead of tumbling down after Jack helplessly, Jill binds his broken crown and sends him on his way. And the old woman in the shoe knows "just what to do" and kisses her children instead of beating them before bedtime.
"It's quite a different message," she concedes.
Jessica, now 12, helped rewrite the rhymes to eliminate any violence against children, women, old men and animals, any black humor or any other demeaning phrases.
"I thought it was bad for younger people," she says, "because I thought they might grow up thinking that violence was OK, to not treat children right and be cruel."
The two began rewriting the rhymes in earnest less than a year ago. The book went into print a few weeks ago, and Maxwell is trying to get local booksellers interested in it.
She says her revisions also serve to update the original rhymes' outdated meanings.
"Historically, they're real important. They were an underground way to gossip and relate information about the royal family. But children of 4 or 5 don't understand that."
Still, counters Skagit Valley College English instructor Lynn Dunlap, making these traditional rhymes meaningful for children today is no simple task. It can be a short road to making them so innocuous they're no longer entertaining, she says.
"I always appreciate the impulse to make sure we are not passing on images of passivity," says Dunlap, "but I don't want to go the Bowdler route and `sanitize' reality," she says, referring to Thomas Bowdler, the English editor who rewrote Shakespeare in 1818 to remove any passages he considered offensive.
Children also tend to like more dark humor or grimness than parents would prefer, Dunlap notes, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"Even as a child I adored the blackbird pecking off the maid's nose (in `Sing A Song of Sixpence')," Dunlap says. "As adults we may want them to live in a sanitary world, but that isn't the reality of what it is to be alive."
On the other hand, Maxwell says she wants to protect young children only until they're old enough to understand. She favors teaching them the original rhymes when they're older.
She plans to include the original rhymes in her second edition. If they are preserved, she reasons, the traditional version may inspire discussions between parents and their children as to why they may have been rewritten.
"There's a lot of responsibility that goes with rewriting these," she says.
"Rock-a-bye baby,
On the tree top.
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock.
Look at the stars
Way up in the sky
Imagine beyond them
Baby will fly."
- The Feminist Revised Mother Goose Rhymes.