Instructor: Can you guys think of any legends or ghost stories that you learned at home or from friends?

(There were multiple responses from varying students, however this post focuses on a single student’s response)

Angel*: Yeah! Baby Blue

Instructor: Whats that?

Angel*:

It’s like uhm you go into the bathroom and look into the mirror and uh fold your arms, and if you feel a weight in your arms its Baby Blue and you gotta drop it!

Maria : No no no, you gotta go into the bathroom by yourself and turn the lights off and cradle your arms like you’re holding a baby and say ‘Baby Blue’ in the mirror three times. If you feel a weight in your arms like you were holding a baby, you gotta pretend to drop it in the toilet and flush it before it gets too heavy.

Instructor: Or else what happens?

Maria: The baby will haunt your family.

Daisy : No if you don’t flush the baby, her mom will turn up behind you and scream at you to give it back and kill you if you don’t.

Instructor: So, who is baby blue?

Maria: It’s like a evil baby that will haunt you if you don’t get rid of it I think.

Instructor: And who is the women?

Daisy: Some kinda evil spirit I guess.

Instructor: Have any of you done this?

Daisy: I tried it once with my big sister.

Instructor: And did the woman show up?

Daisy: No, but I felt a weight in my arms and through it in the toilet so maybe I did it before the baby grew too big.

Instructor: Was it a scary experience?

Daisy: Yeah I guess, me and my sister ran outta the bathroom straight after flushing the toilet.

Analysis:

I found Baby Blue to be very interesting, becuase it reminded me a lot of games I played as a child. However, this had a different, darker twist on it. The idea is that the woman has most likely killed her child, at least thats what some of the children thought. However, a google search found that many of these stories are rooted in a much more srious topic. Some theorize that Baby Blue is actually about a botched abortion, or a mother who drowned her child due to severe postpartum depression. Although none of the children were aware of these deeper meaning, both the instructors of the class and the teacher were taken aback by the stories coming from these young kids. I likened this to played “Bloody Mary” in the bathroom as a kid, but upon further examination, i’ve realized that it most likely has a lot more to do with the political climate surrounding abortion and news cases that these kids have been raised around.