I think we loved them because they were slightly forbidden, and also kids are just.bloodthirsty. The teachers much preferred us to jump to Teddy Bear, or “Lemonade” or something NICE, but we LOVED “Cinderella”, “5 Little Monkeys” and “Lizzie Borden” and would start those up as soon as the teacher was out of earshot. A kid just knew them and taught them to the rest of us. The funny thing is, with the exception of Five Little Monkeys which was in a children's book, none of these were taught to us by adults as far as I can remember. (Note, the teddy bear still hits his head at one point-kids are still a little bit bloodthirsty.) There were less macabre rhymes too-”Teddy bear, teddy bear turn around, teddy bear ,teddy bear touch the ground, teddy bear, teddy bear tie your shoes, teddy bear, teddy bear read the news, teddy bear, teddy bear hit your head, teddy bear, teddy bear go to bed.” where you mimicked the motions of the teddy bear while jumping. Oh, and who could forget Lizzie Borden? “Lizzie Bordon took an ax, and gave her father 40 whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her mother 41!” If you couldn’t jump to 40 or 41 the cops caught you. So, we have poisoning and head injuries already here, in elementary school. “Five little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and hit his head, momma called the doctor and the doctor said, NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED!” We also had Five Little Monkeys-you would start out with 5 people on the rope, and as the song went one one by one you jumped out. “Cinderella dressed in yella went upstairs to kiss a fella, by mistake, she kissed a snake how many doctors did it take? One, two, three”, and then you jumped as many times as you could as the rope went faster and faster-however many times you could jump determined how many doctors it took to save her from death. Some of the rhymes are probably familiar to you, but a favorite for us was “Cinderella”. We jumped rope with the big jump ropes held by two people. In elementary school, all us girls jumped rope while the boys played basketball and ran around. I’m breaking them up into jump rope rhymes, scary stories, superstitions, and games. Kids are also somewhat bloodthirsty, judging by some of the skipping rhymes and other bits of mythology that I picked up over the years, told to me by other kids, and later, teenagers. I suspect that they arise because school is a separate culture formed of children, and all cultures need and create myths. The one’s I’m writing about today are the ones I heard personally. But we all learned them, and I’m sure that there are region specific ones, and more universal ones. I’m not sure where they came from, or when they started. They are told by peers, and older kids, whispered at sleepovers and recess. There is a separate mythos and culture among school aged kids, passed down from kid to kid, that evolves as you grow up. #Kids say the darndest things crackA version of it also held that a BEAR would come out of the crack and follow you home. So did most of us, and we spent a good long time avoiding cracks in the sidewalk. “Step on a crack, break your mommas’ back.” I learned that phrase in kindergarten, and like many kids, sort of believed it!. How many of you heard scary stories and superstitions as soon as you went to school that confused your parents?įor me, it started innocuously.
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