by Change Maker, Foo Jun Kit
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but couldn’t keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well
A couple of questions must have crossed your mind after reading that poem. Firstly, what on Earth is the poet trying to say; that women are meant to be domesticated and cannot roam around freely? Secondly, doesn’t this poem sound familiar?
In fact, this is a nursery rhyme, “Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater”, which was played on my radio at home countless times when I was younger. It is short and very easy to remember, yet paints such a clearly horrifying picture of a woman being controlled by another man. Young, impressionable children should not be exposed to such nursery rhymes, for they may internalise these problematic ideas as they grow.
I do admire the ability of the poet to depict scenes and I had no trouble with imagination. Yet, I feel that the poet’s ability is so disappointingly misused; of the thousand and one things he could write about, he chose to portray women as weak creatures and puppets of men. What makes it worse is that this poem is meant to be for children.
After digesting this nursery rhyme, I had no difficulty identifying the problem with it, but obviously, young children would. In fact, I recited this nursery rhyme happily when I was young and only realised the implications when revisiting it recently. This clearly demonstrates the impressionability of a child’s mind. To us, the problematic stereotypes portrayed in the nursery rhyme seem obvious, but to the kids, they may be too subtle for them to detect.
Shockingly, it is relatively easy to identify another nursery rhyme with problematic gender stereotypes. The following stanzas are excerpts from a nursery rhyme entitled “Old Mother Hubbard”.
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone;
But when she came there
The cupboard was bare ,
And so the poor dog had none.
She went to the baker’s
To buy him some bread;
But when she came back
The poor dog was dead
She went to the joiner’s
To buy him a coffin;
But when she came back
The poor dog was laughing.
She went to the cobbler’s
To buy him some shoes;
But when she came back
He was reading the news.
The dame made a curtsey,
The dog made a bow;
The dame said, “Your servant,”
The dog said, “Bow-wow.”
The above nursery rhyme portrays men as masters of women with the power to order them around or demean them. The last stanza I cited portrays women as servants of men, and it doesn’t even make the slightest attempt to hide it. In fact, it uses the exact word “servant” to describe the dame. It is outrageous that kids are exposed to these nursery rhymes tainted with such problematic gender stereotypes and discrimination.
What’s worse is that I can still clearly remember the tune of this nursery rhyme. This shows how deep an impression this nursery rhyme has made on me since I was young. I wasn’t aware of the gender stereotypes portrayed in the song until I chanced upon a short critique of it. Even then, I could not believe it until I looked up the lyrics and saw how discriminatory they were.
I must reiterate that while these kinds of nursery rhymes introducing gender stereotypes to children may seem trivial, young children are often unable to decipher the hidden messages littered in nursery rhymes and unfortunately, these hidden messages all play a huge role in shaping their understanding and perceptions. We must be mindful of what material we are sharing with our children and watch out for dangerous content like these. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a nice nursery rhyme, but there’s a whole lot wrong if a child is exposed to problematic material at such a young age.
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
That’s more like it.
About the Author: Jun Kit is a Year 4 student at Raffles Institution, although often mistaken to be primary school student due to his massive height. He is an avid fan of football but enjoys playing badminton too. Maybe one day, he’ll represent Singapore at the World Cup and lead the country to glory. Besides playing sports, he is also a fan of writing and has his own blog page, albeit filled with football content. But at the moment, he’s focused on his studies and is all pumped up for the upcoming O Level Higher Chinese Examinations. Right.