by Platos Girl

Created on: June 08, 2008   Last Updated: June 09, 2008

As a black woman who spent the first decade of her life living in poverty in the south, there were a myriad of old wives tales that were a part of our day to day lives. So assessing the truthfulness of old wives tales should come easily for me.

The history of old wives tales has its origins in cultural and economic backgrounds and fear of the unknown. Old wives tales crosses all racial and socio-economic divides and were passed down from generations to generations. It wasn't until those who initially didn't have the access to modern medicine were finally convinced that their way of remedying ailments and such just didn't work anymore, if in fact they ever did.

As a child I can recall hundreds of old wives tales that addressed everything from the soft spot on a newborn baby's head to what a newlywed wife was expected to do on her wedding night. That may be why today I have a soft spot in my heart for the helpless newborn who during those early periods were the ones who fell prey to these sometimes ridiculous cures for some of the most common ailments.

Take for instance the harmless hiccups, which the medical field has agreed is caused by one swallowing too much air during eating, or eating too much food too quickly. So what was the new mother told to do to rid her poor baby of the hiccups? Well she could try breaking off a small length of bristle from a corn broom and stick in the hairs of the baby. This was guaranteed to work.

However if this remedy did not alleviate the problem in a considerable time, the hapless infant was subjected to someone sneaking up on them and yelling the word BOO at the top of their lungs. This often worked right away, because it generally scared the living daylights out of the poor baby and the hiccups took a backseat to the baby's terrifying crying.

As a child on the row where I lived, if you were seen walking or playing about with a string of keys around your neck everyone knew that at some point earlier you obviously had suffered a nosebleed. If a toddler was a late bloomer in taking its first step, then someone was sent to fetch a cricket after which, said cricket was placed upon the child's legs so as to jumpstart his tardy walking ability. This poor child, who I'm sure had never seen a cricket before, may have taken one look at this bug crawling up its leg and probably reacted the way any of us would if we suddenly found a creepy crawly bug making its way up one of our legs. We'll stand up and run like hell as far as we could from

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