Poor Parenting Skills

This is not a post about how Mommy doesn’t notice that I can’t breathe for months at a time, or how Daddy lets me run around the museum with my shoes on the wrong feet.

No, instead, let’s focus on poor examples of parenting in popular children’s verse.

Example #1: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

I can’t find a great version of this on youTube, but you know how it goes: Mommy Monkey has 5 baby monkeys who, one by one fall off the bed, probably leading to concussions and prompting phone calls to the doctor’s office.

First of all, who is this woman’s pediatrician? Has he never heard of mandated reporting? Because ONE monkey-bed mishap is an accident, but FIVE, back-to-back? That’s just negligence. Also, by the 3rd or 4th monkey, why is this woman even calling the doctor if she’s not going to heed his advice?

Example #2: Five Little Ducks

In this one, Mama Duck sends her kids off to play and loses one each day.

Seriously, apparently quintuplets are much more common in the fairy tale animal kingdom than in real life.

Anyway, Mama Duck sends five ducklings out and only four come back and her response is to… send those four out the next day?! What, Mama Duck, no frantic call to the police? No Amber Alert? Why is that duckling not on a milk carton? And then it happens again and again and AGAIN. Finally, there are no little ducks, but then Mama Duck calls one last time and all 5 return. I don’t know about those ducklings, but I would be *grounded.* Big trouble. I would not go “out to play, over the hills and far away” for a long, long time.

Example #3: Rock a Bye Baby

It is not ever mentioned whether the cradle in question adheres to current CPSC standards or not, but clearly it was not intended for use atop a TREE.

Mommy almost had a nervous breakdown in Babies R Us when she was registering and choosing nursery furniture: drop side vs. static, bassinet vs. crib, bumpers vs. breathable bumpers vs. none at all – and the debate amongst parents can get pretty fierce if you broach the topic of co-sleeping – but it never even occurred to her to simply place my infant bucket in the branches of the nearest evergreen.

So, if Mommy and I view more than the APA recommended amount of tv a day for a child under 2 (which is none, by the way), you’ll cut her a little slack, right?