I had no idea I was singing the saddest song about motherhood of all time. It all started when I became curious about a lullaby my grandmother used to sing to me. It turns out that “Go to Sleepy Little Baby”, which I now sing to my babies, was from a radio show in the 1940s – The Judy Canova Show. Canova ended each episode with the lullaby, which she remembered hearing from her own mother. But the original song is much more disturbing. Although some connect Canova’s version to a Swedish lullaby, the most likely source is an African-American song, All the Pretty Little Horses, which dates to the time of slavery. Hidden in the sweet lyrics about cake and promises of horses and carriages is an often-omitted verse that is shockingly grim. As the enslaved nanny sings to the white baby … [Read more...]
Stop Blaming Parents for Our Society’s Failures
Yet another parenting article popped up in my Facebook feed this week. Not a How-To parenting article, which is annoying enough, but a You’re-Doing-Everything-Wrong parenting article. Generation X’s Parenting Problem, published in 2015 but making the rounds again now, is a diatribe about how today’s parents are doing everything wrong. Life was so great when we were kids. Parents today are stressed-out maniacs who need to relax. We turned out fine. Kids these days have it too easy. If only parents today followed their parents’ and grandparents’ choices, everything would be great. The problem is, we don’t live in our parents’ or grandparents’ world. Just like the insipid and ubiquitous memes about how "My childhood was awesome: I was beaten with a belt and I learned respect", these … [Read more...]
