to live in a shoe?

[Eway]

"It was appropriate for the old woman who had 'so many children she didn't know what to do' to live in a shoe."

To live in a shoe? What does it mean? Why should old women with lots of children live in a shoe?

[Tdol]

There's a nursery rhyme about an old woman living in a shoe:
There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children
She didn’t know what to do;
She gave them some broth
Without any bread,
She whipped them all soundly
And put them to bed.

[BobK]

"It was appropriate for the old woman who had 'so many children she didn't know what to do' to live in a shoe."

To live in a shoe? What does it mean? Why should old women with lots of children live in a shoe?

This isn't an idiom, Eway. When I was a child I had books that showed the old woman and her children living in a giant shoe. It's a nonsense rhyme. It's not at all appropriate.

b

[MikeNewYork]

"It was appropriate for the old woman who had 'so many children she didn't know what to do' to live in a shoe."

To live in a shoe? What does it mean? Why should old women with lots of children live in a shoe?

I believe that the author is using a nursery rhyme as a metaphor here. If the original quotation is really a quotation, it seems to be saying that women who have more children than they can raise or afford will be consigned to poverty and that result is a fitting punishment for their actions.

[Ouisch]

Looks like the kids grew up and the old lady moved out.