Jul 29, 2010
Brutal warning to thumbsuckers
Like this post?
I can’t say whether this story works to frighten children out of thumbsucking (Because that’s the best way to parent, right?), but our friend Jennapants postulates that it was pretty effective for her as a kid.
It’s from the book Struwwelpeter, which is quite a delightful collection of stories, I understand.
Enjoy, and if any of my more barbaric readers decide to put this tale to practical use, let me know how it goes.
* * *
“I’ll go out, but you stay here,
Try how pretty you can be
Till I come again,” said she.
“Docile be, and good and mild,
Pray don’t suck your thumb, my child,
For if you do, the tailor’ll come
And bring his shears and snip your thumb
From off your hand as clear and clean
As if paper it had been.”
Before she’d turned the south,
He’d got his thumbkin in his mouth!
Bang! here goes the door ker-slam!
Whoop! the tailor lands ker-blam!
Waves his shears, the heartless grub,
and calls for Dawmen-lutscher-bub.
Claps his weapon to the thumb,
Snips it square as head of grum,
While that lad his tongue unfurled
And fired a yell heard ’round the world.
Who can tell mother’s sorrow
When she saw her boy the morrow!
There he stood all steeped in shame,
And not a thumbkin to his name.
* * * * *
As a child, it never really bothered me how brutal the Struwwelpeter stories were, and I quite liked them, but I didn’t like this one – especially since an old man I didn’t actually know very well (some distant relative, I think) once threatened to cut off my thumbs if I didn’t stop sucking them. Way to scare a three-year-old – my mom was pretty angry…!
My sister did cut off her doll’s thumbs, though. I guess we had different ways of relating to the story.
Doesn’t Dwight mention this collection of stories in an episode of The Office?
Yes he does! It was on the episode “Take Your Daughter to Work Day”.
YES! That was my first thought! The large scissors and weird running legs are unmistakable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Your_Daughter_to_Work_Day_%28The_Office%29
I was just going to comment on that very thing. All I remember him saying is “…he cut their thumbs clean off!”
You just like it because it uses the word “morrow.” It should also have had the phrase “or a son.” That’s target marketing.
:)
I don’t know if you know the Discworld series, written by Terry Pratchett? In Hogfather, Susan, a governess (and granddaughter to Death), curses her charges’ former governess because she used to scare her charges with these kind of tales. And Susan, because she’s part Death herself, can see, along with the kids, that those creatures are real, brought into existence by those grownups who have lost their imagination and thus can’t see them. One of my favorite parts of the book is where she talks about how she can’t make her charges not believe in the monsters (since they are real) but how she can make her charges believe just as firmly in an iron poker, which she uses to beat up the bogeyman and others until they learn to avoid the house.
I’m not really explaining it very well, I think. Maybe someone else knows it and can help :-) the series is really very well thought out and references so much (pop) culture and history and older stories.
Such a good book.
I loved the Discworld series! The Death of Rats and the whole Night Watch are all my fave characters!
My parents simply told be I’d get worms if it did not stop sucking my thumb. They tell me it worked almost instantaneously. No worms, and still have both thumbs.
I don’t know why I read “our friend Jennapants” as “our friend from Japan” but I did and spent about 5 minutes on her blog trying to reconcile the fact there is nothing about her or her blog that apparently connects her to Japan.
“She’s not Japanese…. She’s not in Japan. I’m confused…” Yep, those were my thoughts. Of course now I’m going to have to refer to her (at least in my inner monologue) as “Japanpants”.
I also don’t know why I seldom comment on-topic anymore… I guess I secretly wish you’d write about the things I’m thinking about.
If you would have read my WHOLE blog, Kevin, you would have DEFINITELY found a Japanese connection. I have two Japanese “daughters” who we hosted a few years ago.
I think it was no mistake you read it that way. It’s like your soul was reading it….doo-duh-loo…doo-duh-loo…(wayne’s world dream sequence sound effect…)
I knew I shouldn’t have read the abridged version of your blog, you miss so many details that way.
I’ll make sure I get the Criterion Collection special-edition extended-version director’s cut with alternate ending 2-pack bundle (with Wayne’s World… oooh, or maybe with Tommy Boy) when it comes out on DVD.
My parents read this to me and had me read it many times to motivate me to stop sucking my thumb. Unfortunately, it didn’t work quite as well as peer pressure at sleep-overs did!
I stopped sucking my thumbs very quickly. Not because some freaky dude with scissors threatened me, but because my parents dipped my fingers in Tabasco.
Of course, now I bite my nails and love hot sauce. Maybe the scissors would have worked better after all.