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.

Oh! The other really interesting one is pop goes the weasel.

It's about having a debt that needs to be paid and pawning stuff to pay it and spending the money in the pub instead!

You can still go to the pub in the rhyme in London. I said to DD it would be educational to go up town and see the pub. She rolled her eyes (she's 14).

I agree with you OP. Such nursery rhymes are only for non progressive schools in not-sought-after neighbourhoods. Property prices in your area might plummet if people find out this is what your local schools are teaching 4 year olds.

@ManifestDestinee

BTW, if you're going to complain about nursery rhymes I wouldn't start there! Lucy Locket is about hookers, Goosey Gander is about religious persecution, baa baa black sheep is about the medieval wool tax and rock a by baby is about the Glorious Revolution......

Here we go round the mulberry bush was made up by female inmates in Wakefield prison walking around a bush in their exercise yard 🤷🏻‍♀️

Georgy Porgey Puddeny Pie, who kissed the girls and made them cry, was the philandering Prince Regent.

@NiceGerbil

Oh! The other really interesting one is pop goes the weasel.

It's about having a debt that needs to be paid and pawning stuff to pay it and spending the money in the pub instead!

You can still go to the pub in the rhyme in London. I said to DD it would be educational to go up town and see the pub. She rolled her eyes (she's 14).

Ive always wondered about pop goes the weasel and its odd lyrics!

Ah I think I'd just put it under 'nursery rhymes'. I mean a lot of them are non-PC these days arent they. I mean baa baa black sheep...???!

I used to do it at dd's parties when she was little; they all loved it. Especially being the dog, and being patted at the end. I dn't think anyone was scarred by it :)

@2bazookas

"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 actually just laughed out loud reading this! 😂😂

I think "One little, two little, three little Indians" has died a death (although there's a Christmas version - one little, two little, three little elves"). "Brown girl in the ring" likewise.

Pop goes the weasel - "Up and down the City Road, in and out the Eagle, that's the way the money goes..." and "Every night when I go out, the monkey's on the table. Take a stick and knock it off,..." Suggests heavy drinking and domestic violence to me.

Pop goes the weasel. 1800s.
DD and I burrowed into the web :D
Wiki many different interpretations meaning obscure.
Little doubt the eagle is a pub that's still there (although rebuilt 1901).

This stuff is so interesting! Well imo anyway!

'Half a pound of tuppenny rice,
Half a pound of treacle.
That's the way the money goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.[1]

Every night when I go out,
The monkey's on the table,
Take a stick and knock it off,
Pop! goes the weasel.[1]

Up and down the City road,
In and out the Eagle,
That's the way the money goes,
Pop goes the weasel.'

@WaltzingTilda

I agree with you OP. Such nursery rhymes are only for non progressive schools in not-sought-after neighbourhoods. Property prices in your area might plummet if people find out this is what your local schools are teaching 4 year olds.

Ha! Oh dear...

Historic UK some stuff about a handful of nursery rhymes

www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/More-Nursery-Rhymes/

The handy thing about it is that a) it encourages the children to enunciate Eee-Ohh-Eee-Addeee-Ohhh and b) it teaches them a progression, which helps with pattern recognition.

Can't wait until they start teaching them There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly (offensive to Vegans and traumatic because she ends up dead at the end?) and Fox Went Out One Chilly Night (offensive to religions because he prays to the moon to give him light, offensive to feminists because it's the Dad Fox who goes out for the Saturday night takeaway whilst Mum Fox is home with the kids and the middle aged woman is referred to as Old Mother Flipper-Flapper, offensive to egalitarians because the little ones only get to chew on the bones-o and offensive to anybody who has ever lost a grey goose to a bloody fox).

Why shouldn't the male farmer want a female wife? Your observation is so so sexist and doesn't come from a good place. There is nothing wrong with a man being heterosexual! Most songs you hear on the radio are about men lusting after women or vice versa - I suspect you'll be complaining to the radio stations and record companies next? I suppose you won't let your children hear any musics with lyrics either. Good grief.

@lanthanum

I think "One little, two little, three little Indians" has died a death (although there's a Christmas version - one little, two little, three little elves"). "Brown girl in the ring" likewise.

Pop goes the weasel - "Up and down the City Road, in and out the Eagle, that's the way the money goes..." and "Every night when I go out, the monkey's on the table. Take a stick and knock it off,..." Suggests heavy drinking and domestic violence to me.

I think there's no clue really and loads of thoughts. It's so old and lyrics change.

The one me and DD read that fit was

Pop is rhyming slang (or was) for pawning something
Monkey is like monkey on your back (although Google says that's more us but when and did it come here etc dunno) IE a burden or worry

So money goes on food
Pawns stuff and ignores money issues
Goes pub

No idea if that's what it's actually about obv but me and DD love a good rabbit hole and that seemed a good fit to us.

Wasn't brown girl in the ring a boney m song?

I didn't know it was a nursery rhyme. Never heard it sung as one. Don't know about anyone else?

@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.

Can you point me in the direction of evidence of when and where farmers bought underage wives please? In the context of the UK, not Mali for example.

Fox went out on a chilly night?

Never heard that one!

There is probably a generational thing in this I suspect as well?

Anyone remember i found a peanut? 🤣🤣🤣

this is probably hundreds of years old, you realise that? It may be oldfashioned but it's part of our traditions.

If we take the case of a tailor's shop, there would be one tailor, and his assistants, who also tailed, but weren't the proprietor.

Similarly, the "Farmer" is the owner, lessee or tenant whose name is on the deeds. Other members of his family would also farm, but there was only one "Farmer."

Zeal Google?

A quick one gave me this which may be related esp with the cattle market style used which would be better known in farming areas-

'
English Men Once Sold Their Wives Instead of Getting Divorced
Between the 17th and 19th centuries, wife-selling was a weird custom with a practical purpose.'

www.history.com/news/england-divorce-18th-century-wife-auction

@FangsForTheMemory

this is probably hundreds of years old, you realise that? It may be oldfashioned but it's part of our traditions.

Well that's what makes them so interesting.

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

That might be the case but there’s no suggestion of it in the rhyme, so that doesn’t make it unsuitable. Its a simple rhythmic tune that involves some acting as well. Useful learning tool.

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

TBF every second thread on AIBU is about a farmer (man) wanting (sex with) a wife (woman), and the wife (woman) wanting a child.

At least in the poem the woman has the good sense to be married before having the child, unlike AIBU where the ‘D’P turns out to be financially controlling and the woman can’t afford to leave.

@Georgyporky

I don't know whether it's still sung in schools, but "All things bright & beautiful" is outrageous.

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

So God is an aristocratic Tory bastard ?

No, he's a Fascist.