Now I Lay Me down to Sleep

To say nothing of saying each night before you go alone into the big darkness ruled by the monster in the closet:

"If I should die before I wake..."

Teaching your otherwise healthy young self that you might die every night doesn't do much for a positive outlook. And then it's off to Catholic school in the morning.

Judging from all the cruelty and violence in the old nursery rhymes and fairy tales that kids used to be sent off into dreamland by, and the subliminal cruelty that attended childrearing of old ("Spare the rod and spoil the child," "Children should be seen and not heard " etc.) adults of yore didn't really like children very much, considered them merely undeveloped adults. Good thing in a way, Mick, you and I were given the relative freedom we had.

Though I do remember vividly that time we got caught playing hooky in our tree house...