instruction to be carried out. The child must reply, "Mother/Father, may I?" before carrying out the order, to which Mother/Father always consents. However, if the child omits to ask permission he or she is required to go back to the start. Children who have advanced a long way towards the goal are thus brought to ruin; instructions to go backwards must also be asked for lest a worse fate awaits. The art to being a good mother or father is to bring everyone as equally as possible. Other variations of this kind of crossing-over game are "What's the Time, Mr. Wolf?" (sometimes called "Old Mrs. Fox, What Time is It?", although this version is slightly different), "Grandmother's Footsteps" and "Bulldog", played in Britain. In the first of these, gameplay is similar: Mr Wolf faces away from the children (or Mrs. Fox faces the children), the children together chant in a well-known fashion "What's the time, Mr Wolf?" (or "Old Mrs. Fox, what time is it?"), and if he or she replies with 9 o'clock, the children move 9 steps forward. Should anyone reach Mr. Wolf, he or she becomes the new Mr Wolf. Alternatively, however, should Mr. Wolf reply to the question by saying "Dinner Time!" (or in the Mrs. Fox version, "Midnight!") he turns and chases the children back towards the start. If he catches one before he or she reaches safety, that child is the new Mr. Wolf. References in fiction Mother Mae-Eye is the name of a villain from the Teen Titans animated series. "Mother May I" is a track by Coheed and Cambria that features on their 2005 album, Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness In the first season of Barney & Friends, the episode "Down on Barney's Farm" featured Barney and the kids playing the game while waiting for another farm album to show up. A Sesame Street sketch had Luis and a group of kids playing "May I?" until Oscar the Grouch showed up and suggested a similar game, the difference being instead of "May I?" the players ask "Do I have to??" In The Poisonwood Bible, Ruth May befriends a group of local children by teaching them the game. In the 2017 film I Love You, Daddy, multiple characters describe a naked adult version of the game that teens play on Spring Break. References