Are Babies Found Under the Gooseberry Bush?

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PossessionNo93@reddit

We only have storks delivering because it came from USA... our babies in UK definitely come from gooseberry bushes...

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platypuss1871@reddit

Its based on European folklore. Hans Christian Andersen did most to popularise it for a more modern era.

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GrandGourmande@reddit

In France, instead being brought by storks, babies are found in cabbages in fields, hence the endearing expression “Ma Petite Chou” - “My Little Cabbage”.

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ADiestlTrain@reddit (OP)

Is that where Cabbage Patch Kids comes from??!! That’s adorable!!

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Wonderful-Medium7777@reddit

Actually it comes from this https://www.reddit.com/r/UrbanMyths/comments/1flcafm/cabbage_patch_kids_and_the_mystery_of/

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Markies_Myth@reddit

I am from North west England and I heard this more than "gooseberry bush".

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SparklyEarrings@reddit

I have heard this phrase so many times but I had no idea of the meaning! I thought it was just a cute sounding term of endearment. Thanks for this! I love this sort of thing.

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Separate-Fig-5661@reddit

I’m English but this is where my mother said I came from lol

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DameKumquat@reddit

It's a phrase, but very outdated, even more than the stork one. I associate it with my granny's generation (born 1908). And pronounced guzberry.

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Carlomahone@reddit

The pronunciation depends on the region of Britain you come from. Where I'm from (Yorkshire) it's 'goose-berry' just as it's spelled. Now we're getting into 'Scon' versus 'Scone' territory!

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sparklybeast@reddit

Also Yorkshire and it’s ‘guzberry’ to me too.

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Carlomahone@reddit

You must be from Harrogate. (Harragut in Leeds).😂

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ellieneagain@reddit

Scotland here- gooz-berry is how I say it which is why Roald Dahl's snozberry sounded ok.

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GnaphaliumUliginosum@reddit

And to my Leicestershire-born relatives.

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pebblesprite@reddit

my nana (born 1922) always pronounced it "guz-bree" so that's how I say it. I'm in Lancashire

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NighthawkUnicorn@reddit

A lot of people mistake snozzberry bushes for gooseberry bushes. The babies found under the snozzberry Bush are usually spoiled brats.

When finding a baby under a bush, make sure to do enough research to figure out what bush it actually is. If it is the snozzberry child, best leave it behind.

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I was born in 1964 - when I was little my mam said the stork left me under a goosberry bush. I still have the cards she was given when I was born and there is a stork on a number of them, so storks delivering babies must have been pretty common thing.

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Sxn747Strangers@reddit

Yeah, that’s quite a common saying, we had it to.

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SwordTaster@reddit

It is definitely a reasonably common british idiom. And the gooseberry bush was intended to imply a woman's bush

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JemimaHippo@reddit

Northern Irish, babies were found in the cabbage patch

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sweetdreamspootypie@reddit

Yep that's where I came from at least

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OK_LK@reddit

I'm in Scotland and I've never heard this expression

Maybe it's just an English thing

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Doily_Enjoyer@reddit

I’m Scottish as well, as far as I knew as a kid, babies were found in cabbage patches.

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wintonian1@reddit

They are made by the birds.and the bees, given to the stork who in turn leaves them under the gooseberry bush.

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Madwife2009@reddit

A lot of babies have a "stork mark" on the nape of their neck where they were carried, it usually disappears within a couple of years.

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chocolatefeckers@reddit

The stork apparently carried my daughter by the back of her neck, and between her eyes. The one between her eyes is V shaped, like a beak. Still visible at 3.

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HideousTits@reddit

I thought that was just the name people used for the common site of a birthmark. I’m in my 40s and never lost mine.

So that kind of birthmark usually disappears?

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wishuponareddwarf@reddit

One of my twins had a stork mark on her neck and forehead. The one on her neck is still there and my twins are 16 now.

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NecroVelcro@reddit

There are many different kinds of birthmarks. "Stork marks" are usually caused by the dilation of capillaries during foetal development but yours may have been caused by an overproduction of melanin and coincidentally appeared on your neck.

My sister thought that she had a "Made in China" mark on her neck when she was little because one of her dolls had one and our mum told her that she had the same.

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Madwife2009@reddit

I thought so - when I did my midwifery training that was the general consensus as the mark is caused by enlarged blood vessels that calm down over time so the mark vanishes. They are usually flat and a paler colour compared to other birth marks.

The ones that my children had all disappeared over time.

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noggerthefriendo@reddit

Anyone have that clip from Addam’s Family values ?

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Prestigious-Garbage5@reddit

This is exactly what I was told (growing up in the 1950's)

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Eukonidor_Of_Arisia@reddit

You may have a talent for translating holy texts from the metaphors they use. Just a thought.

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Milly-Molly-Mandy-78@reddit

My mother pregnant with youngest brother, subscribed to a nursing magazine. It featured a photo story of birth. I was allowed to read it (age 6.5) and watch the accompanying tV programme. Granny came to stay just before the birth and was horrified. She took me to one side and told me not to believe that and tried to convince me that Barbie came from under the gooseberry bush. I went straight to mum and asked her to explain childbirth to Granny as poor granny believed the gooseberry bush story. It never crossed my mind that granny had birthed six children of her own!

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Flibertygibbert@reddit

I had the M&S pregnancy and birth book. My daughter loved looking at the pictures and talking about the new baby coming soon. She was 30 months old when her little brother was born and deeply miffed to have missed seeing him born!

She had learned a lot from studying the book's photos about baby care though and kept trying to tell me what to do 😂😂😂

I'd not have got away with storks, gooseberry bushes etc as she never trusted the Father Christmas, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy stories.

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Gwenfrewy@reddit

I heard it in the UK in the 1980s. The only time I think I encountered the stork thing was from US media. My parents just gave an age appropriate version of reality e.g. special hugs, baby in mummy's tummy etc. Judging from my friends that seems to be usual way of telling children now.

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Queen_of_London@reddit

Don't know how widespread it is, but I certainly heard it a lot as a kid. The stork thing I heard about as a slightly older child via books and TV that weren't from the UK.

Supposedly gooseberry bush used to be slang for women's pubic hair. I kinda doubt that etymology, but it can be prickly.

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PrincessPK475@reddit

Actually you're spot on, that's exactly the basis of it.... The Georgians had a sense of humour totally lost on the Victorians

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PrincessPK475@reddit

It was popular through the Late Georgian era to avoid the sensitive topic. It was a "polite botanical" euphemism for pubic hair and a little adult joke while staying respectable. (The Georgians had senses of humour)

It was (re-)introduced as the Stalk by Hans Christian Anderson In the 1830's (Stalk and fertility associations are traced back to ancient history... Greek/Egypt/Pagans etc) - but his work gained real reaction and popularity in the UK with the Victorians only in the late Victorian era but they immediately swapped stories over because they were so prudish.

The stork story was even more deeply embedded after Dumbo was released.

The stalk is also most famous in the UK now... But anyone who had a living Victorian or early Edwardian parent, grandparent or great grandparent who was born to Georgian or early Victorian era parents and were perhaps more liberal may have retained the Gooseberry expression.

(My great grandmother for instance...was a pre-teen when the Titanic sank and I was 11 when she passed away so we had all sorts of funny Victorian era things passed down directly to us - she had a wicked sense of humour.... But would never admit she got pregnant out of wedlock!)

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BG3restart@reddit

The gooseberry bush saying is very old fashioned, common in my youth (1960s). I don't hear it used now. The stork is much more common. New baby greetings cards often feature a stork still. Can't remember when I last saw one with a gooseberry bush.

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ForeverInSlippers@reddit

I heard that as a kid for sure. I always thought it referred to a child that looked nothing like its parents.

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MadWifeUK@reddit

I came from the Baby Shop. My friend came free with a packet of cornflakes.

I guess we're the processed version and only organic babies are found under gooseberry bushes?

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Realistic-Muffin-165@reddit

Never heard of the gooseberry bush one.

My mum used to say we were knitted!

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SaysPooh@reddit

We had a silly rhyme back a thousand years ago at school - “I was born under a gooseberry bush and I have a pr!ck to prove it”

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ashtrxy55@reddit

my mum told me she found me at asda so...

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SamVimesBootTheory@reddit

Yeah I feel like I did hear the 'gooseberry bush' thing at some point as a kid, I did also hear the stork and cabbage patch versions as well.

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KitFan2020@reddit

Yes! Gooseberry bush. Not a stork in sight.

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Specialist-Web7854@reddit

It’s from Victorian slang, where gooseberry bush = pubic hair.

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cuntybunty73@reddit

I was always told that I was found in a cabbage patch 🥺😭

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Friendly_Features@reddit

Same!

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Streathamite@reddit

Same! Although my grandparents had a cabbage patch and didn’t have a gooseberry bush so maybe that explains the change

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purte@reddit

My husband and I were talking about this over the weekend. He’s not heard it (born in rural Kent) but it was a widespread term in South London where I was born in the 60s. ‘Mum, where do babies come from?’ - ‘We found you under a gooseberry bush’.

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MD564@reddit

Ah mine was cabbages. But I think that's something to do with cabbage patch kids which I loved when I was little.

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DemonicFrog@reddit

I was behind the drainpipe apprently.

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Ricky_Martins_Vagina@reddit

Never heard that.

We had an allotment with a pretty gnarly gooseberry bush, never once found a baby under it.

Used to catch slugs and impale them on the thorns though 😬

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snowdroptiger@reddit

Also heard this one. My mother used to say you harvested babies in the vegetable patch and that they grew with the cabbages, that may have been just her..

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Thin_Personality_196@reddit

In Nottingham there is a Wetherspoons pub called the Gooseberry Bush on Peel Street. It sits on the site of the former women’s hospital, part of which was a maternity ward.

https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pub-histories/the-gooseberry-bush-nottingham/

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adymann@reddit

My mum always used to say I was found under a gooseberry bush, but my brother and sister were found under a mushroom.

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terahurts@reddit

I heard it in the 1970s as a child.

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Snoo93102@reddit

Possibly comes from the Roman practice of 'exposing' unwanted or illigitimate children to the elements. Early abortion practice. Think GOT borrowed this idea for the whiye walkers. Those times were not these times. Some of the things attributed to German woods and witches are very dark also.

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ADiestlTrain@reddit (OP)

I thought that was a Spartan thing. Of course, most of my knowledge of Spartan culture comes from 300 and God of War, so I don’t pretend to be an expert.

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Snoo93102@reddit

Many Greek, Roman an Spartan practices overlap. Med culture.

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LoyalFridge@reddit

Spartans are Greeks. They would do this but other Greeks such as Athenians didn’t. It was done to test the mettle of babies allegedly rather than with the hopes of their failing.

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Candid-Engineer-6926@reddit

I mean that’s not abortion it’s infanticide. Abortion can be induced by like drinking certain teas early in pregnancy

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Snoo93102@reddit

I know

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ComprehensiveApple14@reddit

I have a singular memory of my grandmother singing this to my youngest sister. That's all I've got. I didn't think about it at the time but the memory is lodged in there.

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schemmenti@reddit

I think you're misremembering "round and round the mulberry bush"

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Historical_Heron4801@reddit

That song is supposed to come from the women's exercise yard at Wakefield Prison. Its less about finding babies and more about caring for them once you've got one.

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ComprehensiveApple14@reddit

I checked the brain tapes, they seem pretty insistent granny insisted on gooseberries, but it's definitely good to note that the actual song is mulberry bush.

False memory? My gran hating mulberries? Who's to say. We'll consult the elderberries for wisdom.

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MolassesInevitable53@reddit

It was widely know that babies were found under gooseberry bushes when I was a child in London in the 1960s.

I assume the expression 'playing gooseberry' relates to it. In case anyone hasn't heard if 'playing gooseberry', it is being the third person hanging out when the other two clearly want to be alone so they can kiss and cuddle.

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Eukonidor_Of_Arisia@reddit

... And the idea of a baby being carried by a bird at high altitude, suspended in its beak, bundled in a white sheet doesn't sound horrific to you?

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ADiestlTrain@reddit (OP)

Well… when you put it that way….

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Eukonidor_Of_Arisia@reddit

Lol. Something tells me that maybe we should start by being straight up with kids from now on. It would be less confusing that way.

Maybe if we tell them that mummy and daddy do 'special wrestling' in which they merge together magically and create a baby. That would also explain the strange noises they may hear in future.

Two storks with one stone.

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