While the high school kids are seeing "educational" stage plays with graphic sexual content, their baby brothers and sisters are getting a very gentle, protective view of the world.

The songs you were made to sing as a little kid have been sanitized these days. All references to death, unpleasantness or even the controversy of religion have been removed and anything with a potentially racial tone has been rewritten.

Not that that's a bad thing. It is just so different from what teenagers are exposed to, particularly in light of the sex ed play that recently caused such a stir in two O'ahu high schools.

These days, little ones are not made to consider that the old lady who swallowed a fly might perhaps die. Instead, "I don't know why she swallowed the fly, perhaps she'll cry" is how the modern version goes.

That old campfire favorite "Kumbaya" does not include any references to "Lord" in the secular version. Instead, it goes:

Kumbaya, ya, kumbaya. Kumbaya, ya, kumbaya.

Kumbaya, ya, kumbaya. Oh, oh, kumbaya.

"Ring Around the Rosie," which is often believed to refer to the plague, now doesn't go "ashes, ashes" because of the belief that it refers to cleansing disease-ridden houses by fire. Instead, the lyrics are:

Ring around the rosie

A pocket full of poseys

Husha husha we all fall down.

The most familiar counting song no longer has a reference to racial background. Here in Hawai'i, it's "one little, two little, three little keiki" referring to keiki in general and not a specific race of keiki, though it is OK to finish the song with a specific gender: "Ten little keiki kane."

"Alouette" seems to have slipped past the censors though the kids are sweetly singing to a bird about how they're going to pluck the poor creature's body part by body part, starting with la tete.

Yet with all this rewriting, that ditty about the monkeys jumping on the bed and bumping their heads is ubiquitous.

Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,

"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

Perhaps its OK because they're monkeys suffering head trauma, not children.

Of course, the same little children being taught revamped, PC nursery rhymes are exposed to all the trash, gore, lewdness and violence of our insidious X-rated culture in big and small ways every day. But at least they know not to jump on the bed lest their heads get bumped.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.