Poetic parenting advice

Don't read this if you get offended at expletives.  And if you do, or if you don't get offended,  then do read this.  (thanks to Jo for the link!)

The afore-mentioned article inspired me to pull out my most loved and cherished anthology of poetry to read the full, mordantly disturbing poem by Philip Larkin.  I have spontaneously decided to depart from my positive approach to my (also quite possibly, mordantly disturbing) blog, and share this poem with you.  And yes, you guessed it, being consistent throughout his poetry in his horror of family life, Larkin died single and childless.  (I wonder what he was like as a librarian, his life-long day job? I'd be too scared to ask him for a book in case he scorned me as vociferously as he does parents in this poem...).

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
   They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
   And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
   By fools in old-style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy-stern
   And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
   It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
   And don't have any kids yourself.


I've skimmed past this poem many times.  I'm oddly amused reading it again now to find that I really like it!

Other poems in this anthology, also about raising children but from quite different perspectives, move me to tears.  Or at least they did when my children were younger than 10.  Here's two such poems:

Beatrix is Three
Adrian Mitchell


At the top of the stairs
I ask for her hand.  O.k.
She gives it to me.
How her fist fits my palm,
A bunch of consolation.
We take our time
Down the steep carpetway
as I wish silently
That the stairs were endless.



A wish for my children
Evangeline Paterson


On this doorstep I stand
year after year
to watch you going

and think: May you not
skin your knees.  May you
not catch your fingers
in car doors.  May
your hearts not break.

May tide and weather
wait for your coming

and may you grow strong
to break
all webs of my weaving.


The editor's footnote to this poem asks the reader, "As parents, how many of us are capable of looking forward to the day when our children no longer need us?".

A note back to the editor: actually, this last week, I have been utterly, unerringly, enthusiastically imagining a time when Teen1 will have left home.  So, I guess I am a feeling closer to 'Larkin' than to 'Mitchell' at present.


...a post in homage to the parent-child dichotomy in us all....






P.S.  just in case you haven't already seen Anita Renfroe's the Mommy Song set to the William Tell Overture.  And,  a final thought for the night, maybe there's a market for a New Zealand anthology of poems and writings charting the trajectory of teenager-hood?