For those of you who are younger than 50, you may not have learned this, or other nursery rhymes as a child. For those of us who often or occasionally feel as if we are younger than 50, I am sure you are familiar with many old nursery rhymes.
Today I would like to evaluate one, “so called” nursery rhyme.
The first line states;
“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe”.
The first thing we need to examine, was it a shoe or was it a boot? Personally, if the foot wear comes above the ankle, I consider it as a boot. As our artist’s rendering depicts, it was more of a boot than a shoe.
It is not stated in this so called nursery rhyme, why did she live in the shoe? I believe it was her choice.
Please do not be sidetracked by the artist’s rendering, the woman and her children did not live, “inside a shoe”. They would have been the size of mice, if they were to live in a shoe. What the rhyme states is, and I am quoting now, “there was an old woman who lived in a shoe”. The term woman is singular meaning one female person.
The rhyme does not state as a fact whether she had one or two shoes. After careful research on this subject, we at, “The Ford Institute for Debunking Nursery Rhymes”, found that the old woman had only one shoe. (If you what to review the complete study go to our web site and click on the button “Shoe Study”.)
The reason she lived in her shoe, is the same reason that she only had one shoe and that is, “she had removed her shoes one night and during her sleep, someone stole the one shoe”. To keep any one from steeling her other and only shoe she wore it all the time, thus, “she lived in her shoe”.
If I were her, I would not want to take the shoe off, imagine how it must have smelled now that she lived in it, (kept it on all the time).
Second line states;
“She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do”.
In the above line, we see that your government was involved, and that she, in fact, knew how to get money. She had all these children and your government was paying her a lot of money each month as long as she did not try to get a job.
Another point to consider; the first line indicated that she was, “an old woman”. If she was old why did she have so many kids?
I know that one person has a question and I will answer it now before you ask.
Question: If she was receiving all that money each month, why didn’t she purchase a pair of shoes? The rhyme states and I am quoting now, “she didn’t know what to do”.
Question: Why didn’t she know what to do? Think about it, she smoked dope and that kept her mind messed up, thus she didn’t know what to do.
Let’s move on and not get bogged down by these questions.
Third line states:
She gave them some broth without any bred;
As we see in the statement above, it was getting toward the end of the month and she was out of money (bread). She did have a couple cans of soup (chicken noodle) that she warmed up and fed to the children. There were no clean spoons in the house so the kids actually drink the soup.
Last line states;
And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.
We see in this last line of the rhyme that this woman was influenced by the NFL. Don’t even ask how, it is simple, even to the untrained eye.
Although it is not stated, it is implied, she had a switch from a willow tree. How hard did she whip the children, “soundly”, meaning she left marks on their posteriors?
Why would Mother Goose make up a so called nursery rhyme about someone who uses dope, lives off government welfare and abuses her children?
Below is the Mother Goose nursery rhyme in its entirety.
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bred;
And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.
Use your bread wisely!
Don Ford
