WordsOut poems by
Dear son
Before
you're old enough to answer back,
I thought I’d better get in the advice
a parent is supposed to give.
By the
time you're five years old,
you'll know your dad is always right.
At eight
you'll know your dad’s usually right.
At twelve
you'll know your dad is sometimes right.
At
sixteen you'll know,
with devastating certainty,
your dad was never right about a single thing in his entire life.
You'll be convinced there was a mix-up at the hospital.
You couldn't be genetically linked
to anyone with such appalling dress sense
and disastrous taste in music.
But
that's all right.
By twenty-five you'll realise
he wasn't quite as hopeless as you'd thought,
and by the time you pack him off
to the Sunnydays Home for the Chronologically Gifted
you'll almost have grown fond of the old fool.
So before
this tiny window of opportunity
slams shut on my fingers,
here’s something you ought to know.
Parenting’s
not easy.
Even the word sounds like
it’s on probation from a social worker’s handbook.
It was
much simpler once.
Dads went out to work,
while mums stayed home and looked after the kids.
There was a canny granny
who knew a thing or two about colic
and could wield a nappy pin without malicious damage.
Now mum's
fulfilled by holding down a job,
and dad's a new man rushing home to change the babygros,
and both collapse at
half past nine each night,
racked with guilt and haunted by the ghosts of their inadequacy
because Mum's not Anita Roddick
and isn't running a small but profitable chain of underwear boutiques,
and
Dad's not Richard Branson
(and frankly looks awful in those chunky sweaters).
Help,
though, is at hand.
For godparents we have Mothercare
and the Early Learning Centre,
and lots of good advice
from educationalists, psychologists, anthropologists
and out-of-work sociologists.
All of
whom suggest we don't interfere.
Well, I’m
going to.
But the advice I’d like to give
is not the things at seventeen I swore
I’d never say to my kids.
Like Stop making all that noise,
or Don’t speak until you’re spoken to!
When
you’re older you might reflect
on what would happen if everyone obeyed that last instruction.
That sort
of advice is for the benefit of grown-ups
who’d like to judge you by appearances,
and want you to stay securely in your cot
where they can keep a watchful eye on you.
But I’m
going to be your role model.
Tough, I know, but we’ll have to make the best of it.
I’ll try to show you
some useful things that I’ve been shown myself.
It isn’t
what you do that counts,
but how you do it.
So if you really want to dye your eyebrows turquoise,
or set your heart on crossing the
or even become an accountant,
that’s ok.
It isn’t
who you are that gets you anywhere,
but who you follow.
So don’t be too concerned if,
when your childhood’s done,
your end-of-term report says your achievements are quite limited.
You think
two and two can make five.
You
suppose the kingdom of heaven
has a place in geography.
You
mistake history for literature
because In the beginning was the word.
You
believe relativity has something to do
with keeping a sense of proportion.
And in
philosophy you hold the eccentric view
that questions may somewhere have answers.
All in
all you will be quite ill-adjusted
to the expectations of society.
And if that’s the verdict then, dear son,
I think that both of us can say
we’ve come through pretty well.
Written for the dedication of
Adam Ryder Rust in 1993.