Sharon Olds has a parent moment with her daughter . . .
The Talk
by: Sharon Olds
In the sunless wooden room at noon
the mother had a talk with her daughter.
The rudeness could not go on, the meanness
to her little brother, the selfishness.
The eight-year-old sat on the bed
in the corner of the room, her irises distilled as
the last drops of something, her firm
face melting, reddening,
silver flashes in her eyes like distant
bodies of water glimpsed through woods.
She took it and took it and broke, crying out
I hate being a person! diving
into the mother
as if
into
a deep pond—and she cannot swim,
the child cannot swim.
I’ve had my fair share of the kind of parent talks that Olds describes in this poem—when you have to teach your child hard lessons. And it does all boil down to that simple statement—I hate being a person! Being a human being can absolutely suck sometimes, and it’s up to the parent to help the child navigate that suckiness.
Here are some things that suck about being an adult: work, taxes, aging, ear hair, bills, kale, death, heartbreak. Eventually, every person living on this planet has to deal with the suck.
It’s tax day in the United States. That’s one of the suck. I mailed my income tax check to the Treasury Department yesterday morning. I wasn’t happy about doing it, because I’m not a huge fan of what the Republican-led government is going to do with my money. As I was making out the check, I told my wife that I was going to include in the memo line what I want my money to be used for. She just gave me a tired sigh and said, “Just write the damn check.”
My daughter has been a person for some time now. She moved out of our home about three years ago. She graduated from college, has a steady significant other, and a job. Pretty soon, she’ll be heading off to medical school, moving even further away from my ability to parent her.
My son has been asserting his personhood for quite some time. He’s stubborn and independent and wants to do everything his own way. (I have no idea from whom he inherited these personality traits.) He’s only 16 years old, and he’s already talking about getting an apartment with one of his friends when he graduates from high school.
I wish I could tell both my kids to slow down. Take time to enjoy being young and full of hope. However, that’s another suck lesson to learn—how life sort of picks up speed with each passing year. One day, you’re 21 and getting high with your friends. The next day, you’re talking to your wife of almost three decades about retirement accounts and the strange-looking mole on your neck
If you can’t tell, I’m a little tired of being a person who pays taxes to a government that’s quickly devolving into a fascist dictatorship. A person who has five jobs to pay the bills. Who can’t eat a full order of cheese curds without spending at least a half hour on the toilet in the middle of the night. Who worries about strange sounds his car or furnace is making. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
I really cherish the days when snowstorms and ice storms meant staying inside, reading, watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island or The Munsters or Lost in Space, and eating Hostess cupcakes. Now, when it rains in the middle of a February night, I worry about power outages and road conditions (since the world doesn’t shut down for bad weather when you’re an adult person).
I guess what I’m saying is I wish I could protect my kids from the harsh realities of being a person in the United States of America right now. Lee Greenwood needs to change the words to his song. He should be singing, “It’s hard to be an American” instead. Or, more preferably, he needs to stop singing it altogether.
Saint Marty wrote a poem about an ice storm, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:
Write a poem that begins: After the rain it all looked different. Make sure your poem contains specific details about the landscape, the glistening, the spring flowers, and perhaps the mood of the speaker.
Winter Rain
by: Martin Achatz
After the rain it all looked different.
Last night, as I drifted toward
the Land of Nod, I heard thunder—
yes, thunder!—so loud it rattled
panes, make my dog moan, scratch
in her sleep. The water snapped, hissed
in the branches like some animal ready
to pounce on a smaller, wounded animal.
This morning, I found what was left
of a rabbit after a barred owl had its way
in the dark, fur, blood splattered like a Jackson
Pollock on the snowy ground. Pine needles
sparked, frozen grenades of pine cones made
trees bow, genuflect like monks giving thanks
for another day, their timid souls raptured
into mud and blue and sunlight.
Wonderful poem. I could feel the cold and visualize its wonders!
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