The farmer wants a wife

[Anothermothernamegame]

DD 4yo has just started reception, and has been singing this song, which they have taught her.

'The farmer wants a wife... The wife wants a child etc'.

AIBU to think this is a really old fashioned, and fairly sexist song to be teaching kids?

Just for the record, it's a fairly "progressive" school in a fairly "progressive" and sought after neighbourhood.

...and no, I don't usually have a stick up my arse, so might well be overreacting.

God first of all baa baa rainbow sheep and now this.

@gardeninggirl68

on my!!! the attempts to be 'right on', on this forum, make me howl with laughter at times!

You couldn't make it up, could you? Unbelievable.

I fucking hate baa baa rainbow sheep

I used to live opposite a female farmer who married her farm hand. The kids were constantly describing her as the farmer’s wife when it was her farm and she was the boss. It was very annoying.

Dusty bluebells, surely, not roses. I'm not sure why the flowers had to be dusty in the first place?

I love all these old games and songs. It's a shame so much of children's culture is being lost or having to be taught by adults.

Ooh OP, watch out for oranges and lemons with the child being decapitated at the end.

"The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round"

polluting the air. That's not very climate friendly is it?

"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn't know what to do"

Silly tart should have used condoms. It's a wonder she didn't get an STD.

I wouldn’t say anything. But no, I don’t like it either. So many nursery rhymes are outdated, I don’t let it wind me up. But equally I don’t encourage them. They will have less and less time for stuff like that soon enough (my DD is nearly 5 and in P1 in Scotland) and we’ll probably miss it. Mine used to sing “blah blah shappit haboo any woooo” and I was actually sad when she learnt the real words. Now she’s not sung it at all in ages!!

Bit less scary than cribs falling out of trees.

Dear Ms Kill-joy
Please volunteer to go into school and teach them something that is 'woke' and therefore acceptable to you.
They would be thrilled to have someone musical to help.

@MauvePinkRose

I know where the OP is coming from with this.

Yes, people can eye roll and ‘oh, it’s a nursery rhyme’ but there are some traditional songs we don’t sing now because they are - unpalatable, referencing slavery and so on.

The farmer wants a wife comes from when farmers would actually BUY a wife (often underage) so I’m not sure it’s suitable. But to be fair I doubt the school have thought that much about it.

Do tell us when it is you think farmers bought wives? Are you confusing it with wife selling, which actually wasn't really wife selling anyway...

There was never a time when wife buying was a particular thing in the UK. There never needed to be, a farmer would have his pick of wives anyway.

It’s a nursery rhyme get over yourself. The way the worlds carrying on we won’t be able to do anything incase it offends people

Good lord

In fact the original words are "the farmer TAKES a wife"etc. So it sounds pretty right-on to me already.

Ffs it’s a nursery rhyme. Ring a ring a roses is about masking the smell of death, surely that’s more to complain about 🙄

Are you sure you have had a female?

What about a human?

Stop assuming gender and species.

Ta.

What makes you think the farmer was a man?

I don’t have a problem with it. If it was ‘the farmer goes t’ pub …. the wife cooks his tea’ I’d prob be pissed off.

Years ago I had to change the words of this rhyme to the farmer wants a partner and we all clap the bone.
I wasn't even being progressive at the time sometimes a boy was picked to be the wife which is fine but other children, mainly the ones who wanted to be in the circle but weren't picked, would then start with" he's a boy, boys can't be wives" Or a boy would be picked and would refuse to go into the circle.
We all clap the bone was because children are rough.
The farmer wants a partner saved my sanity.

However I still sing "there was a princess long ago" as children today don't seem to care as much as kids 10 years ago. They don't care who's the princess or the Prince. Although maybe I should change the line "ge woke the princess with a kiss line" even though we blow kisses.

@Bimblybomeyelash

I don’t have a problem with it. If it was ‘the farmer goes t’ pub …. the wife cooks his tea’ I’d prob be pissed off.

Or to illustrate the financial crisis in modern farming we could have ‘the wife wants a job’.

Gee whiz . Really ? Ring a ring of roses is about the plague . Better ban that .

The farmer TAKES a wife actually.

Is it really rainbow sheep? That’s stupid! It’s black sheep, why has the words changed to that? Is black not good enough anymore? It’s a colour, not a race. People are stupid.

I'm a farmer and I'd bloody love a wife.

They'd do all the wife work right?

Wasn't it dusty bluebells?

@AngeloMysterioso

This is how we ended up with baa baa rainbow sheep…

I think this was a myth because my LO learnt baa baa black sheep at nursery...

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

...and we all go round the bend.