Please Do Not Shake It All About: Hokey Pokey For These Litigious Times

Dear Fantastic Families,

We’ve heard your concerns about the Hokey Pokey and have come up with a harmonious solution to address all your objections.

As you know, some of our Fantastic Families expressed that the Hokey Pokey song and dance is demeaning. Your comments ranged from calling it “a gateway to sexual depravity disguised as a nursery rhyme” to “a misogynistic tool of the patriarchy used to strip our children of control over their physical bodies.”

Our original plan was to stop using the Hokey Pokey in our classes. But some of you felt that we were “letting the hippies win” and “turning our babies into lame little wuss burgers.”

Think of the new Hokey Pokey as a happy little compromise. Let’s not have this turn into another debacle, like when we changed our class name from Mommy and Me to Fantastic Families. Remember, we had to cancel classes for a week to remove the “It’s Mommy and Me Not Mommy and WE” graffiti.

And a certain parent is still on probation for stealing diaper bags and using them to spell out “fascists” in the parking lot during her one-woman protest against the “catastrophic clothing industry and diaper industrial complex.” Remember, we require your children to wear clothing and diapers for sanitary reasons. We do not mean to “hide your baby’s aura behind swathes of brightly colored slave labor.”

Our improved Hokey Pokey starts with a super fun permission process. We line the kiddos up and have them give consent. It’s more like FUNsent (though we ask that you refrain from calling it that, for legal reasons). Older kids write their own name on the Hokey Pokey consent form, while the little ones press a finger into an ink pad and place it on the document. If you believe that using ink is “a malicious attempt to steal precious bodily fluids from innocent sea creatures,” we assure you that ink is not made that way. But you’re welcome to use your own homemade beetroot ink, if you prefer.

When a child signs or stamps the form, it gives consent to put the particular body part in, out, in, and then shake it about. Please keep in mind that your child is welcome to shake it at whatever level feels right, whether that is all about, moderately about, or even barely about.

As the verse ends, the child is invited to do the Hokey Pokey and turn themselves around. Some of you feel that this lyric “sounds downright dirty” and “against your religious beliefs.” Others accused it of “symbolizing how the government controls us like puppets on a string.” But when we tried to remove this part of the song, some families felt that we were “lamer than Tiny Tim” and “spineless buckets of suck.”

So your child has the authority to do or not do the Hokey Pokey and turn or not turn themselves around. As an alternative, your child can kneel, sit, stand, salute, or any other form of motion that supports your endless belief systems.

We just want your kids to have fun without anyone getting sued. That’s what it’s all about.

Thanks,

Your Tremendous Teachers

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