Since I have had a child, I have sung a lot more nursery rhymes than I usually do. Some I am able to remember quite easily, others I end up resorting to humming to finish out. Through all my baby musings, I have vehemently refrained from singing the ever-famous "Rock a bye baby in the tree tops". You know the rest. After my own baby was born, the first time I recited all the lyrics of this oft-sung tune to my baby girl I was appalled at it's content! How could I sing about a small child falling ignorantly to its most-assured death as a tune to rock my child to sleep? Who could think up such lyrics and words? What was wrong with the world?
Then yesterday, in a moment of reverie, I said the lyrics to myself.
Rock a bye baby
In the treetops.
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all.
I thought, "There has to be a reason for these grotesque lyrics." And then it came to me.
A baby in the treetops is just foolish. Who would carelessly put something of such value in a highly dangerous place? And the song answers that question, someone who does not want to work at keeping the baby; someone who wants the wind to do the work to rock the baby. But in the tune is the warning--eventually the bough will break and then that precious gift this person didn't want to work to tend to will also come down. And herein lies the lesson, if we want to keep that which is dear and of great worth, work for it. We will continue to possess it by no other means.
I think I'm okay with this lullaby now.
I like that insight lady.
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