Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Parents, Guardians, Significant Adults in the Lives of Children

Children give carnations to parents on Parents' Day in South Korea

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, 
my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. 
You will always find people who are helping.” 
― Fred Rogers

“Children need to be raised in loving environments. Whenever domination is present love is lacking. Loving parents, be they single or coupled, gay or straight, headed by females or males, are more likely to raise 
healthy, happy children with sound self-esteem. ” 
― bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody

“I'm inspired by the love people have for their children. And I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.” 
― Barack Obama

The International Day for Protection of Children, Children's Day,
is celebrated in many countries on June 1st, though the date varies.

Midweek Motif ~ Parenthood

Parents, Guardians, Significant Adults 

According to Wikipedia:  

Parents' Day is a holiday combining the concepts of a Fathers' Day and Mothers' Day.  The United Nations proclaimed June 1 to be the Global Day of Parents "to appreciate all parents in all parts of the world for their selfless commitment to children and their lifelong sacrifice towards nurturing this relationship.".^[1] It is the same day as International Children's Day.

When I taught high school English, it was easy to tell which students suffered from a lack of nurturing adult presence in their lives.  At times these children needed my attention more than they needed an English lesson. I wondered if spending an hour a day with children in classes of more than 30 students was anything like parenting.  Could parents see 170 children a day, even if only for an hour?  My own parents struggled financially early on and were too angry and scared to be consistently loving until I was a pre-teen.  I feel love and gratitude for them now. 

Your Challenge:  Write a new poem, in which you take on the voice of a child with real or ideal adults parenting them.  

I Go Back to May 1937

Related Poem Content Details

BY SHARON OLDS

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges, 

I see my father strolling out 

under the ochre sandstone arch, the   

red tiles glinting like bent 

plates of blood behind his head, I 

see my mother with a few light books at her hip 

standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks, 

the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its 

sword-tips aglow in the May air, 

they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,   

they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are   

innocent, they would never hurt anybody.   

. . . . 

Read the rest HERE.

Lullaby in Fracktown

Related Poem Content Details

BY LILACE MELLIN GUIGNARD

Child, when you’re sad put on your blue shoes.

You know that Mama loves you lollipops

and Daddy still has a job to lose.

So put on a party hat. We’ll play the kazoos

loud and louder from the mountaintop.

Child, when you’re sad put on your blue shoes

and dance the polka with pink kangaroos,

dolphin choirs singing “flip-flop, flip-flop.”

Hey, Daddy still has a job to lose — 

. . . . 

Read the Rest HERE.

Driving My Parents Home at  Christmas

BY ROBERT BLY

As I drive my parents home through the snow

their frailty hesitates on the edge of a mountainside.

I call over the cliff

only snow answers.

They talk quietly

of hauling water of eating an orange

of a grandchild's photograph left behind last night.

When they open the door of their house they disappear.

And the oak when it falls in the forest who hears it 

through miles and miles of silence?

They sit so close to each other; ­

as if pressed together by the snow.

***

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and 

visit others in the spirit of the community.

                       

 (Next week Sumana's Midweek Motif will be - Commitment)