Parents Should Know Better Poem by Stanley Cooper

Do moms and dads know what they’re doing
Reading to kids about witches a-brewing
Relating Red Riding Hood’s visit to grandma
Finding big bad wolf in her grandma’s pajama?

Like the cunning old spider who wooed the poor fly
Into his web where the fly would soon die
And poor Humpty Dumpty sitting on his wall
His egg shell all cracked from his now famous fall

There was this old witch who had no kind of lovin’
For Hansel and Gretel who she threw in the oven
It was Hickory Dickory Dock’s little mouse
Who was scared by the clock and ran out of the house

Goldilocks most unwisely used her head
Falling asleep in that big brown bears bed
Jack climbed his beanstalk way up to the sky
Scared by this giant who stood a mile high

Now, well meaning parents may think that stuff’s cute
But nightmares their kids have, that theory refutes
Those stories just scare babes clean out of their wits
No wonder kids grow into adult misfits