The plague, murder, tax and treason. Little did we know, we've been singing our children to sleep with these terrible topics for centuries.
One American performer's going viral on Tik Tok under #ChildhoodRuined, after digging into the origins of some of our best-loved nursery rhymes.
And it turns out they're pretty grim reading.
If the theories are true, then Ring a Ring o Rosie's is really about the plague and The Muffin Man tells the tale of Britain's first serial killer the Drury Lane Dicer.
Jack and Jill? They'd be King Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette. Just as Louis lost his head, Jack lost his crown.
Te Karere Scarborough from The Parenting Place says despite the possibly sinister undertones, nursery rhymes can be valuable to kids.
"It actually helps them to learn language," he told Seven Sharp tonight.
"It helps them with language structure and how to use sentences properly and that's really important."
Historically he says nursery rhymes have helped to keep old tales and traditions alive.
"I think it's a great strategy to attach learning to things we know," Scarborough said.
However, he warned against teaching children tunes with racist and sexist undertones which have been passed down.
Scarborough says families can also create their own nursery rhymes for kids to pass down their own history.
SHARE ME