Parent’s Love Spectrum
Sylvia Plath expresses in “Morning Song” a mother’s love for a newborn child. A single cry from the child and the mother without hesitation goes to the child. “One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral In my Victorian nightgown.” (Plath line 13-14). This conveys the quick action a mother takes for her child. Newborns are vulnerable to the world and mother’s feel they need to not only nurture but protect them from harm. When you hear a baby cry you are not always sure what they are crying about. That baby’s mother will promptly tend to the child in a loving manner to find out. This same mother deprives herself of sleep at her “wake to listen” (line 11) for her baby. A mother has instinctive incomparable love for their newborn.
A way to express love for a child is to teach them. In Margaret Atwood’s free verse poem “You Begin” she writes about teaching a child. This poem is about how a mother can teach her child, first about the simple things in life like the hand and colors. Learning is a constant action that children should continue to undergo. “Once you have learned these words you will learn that there are more words than you can ever learn.” (Atwood line 21-23). Teaching a child about basics is a necessity for a child’s success as they get older but telling your children that the world is a hard place is a good lesson for a child to learn. “This is the world, which is fuller and more difficult to learn that I have said.” (line 16-17). Parents are showing a deeper love for their children when they teach them that life can be hard but that should not restrict them from still achieving. Preparing children for life is another type of love a parent can give. The speaker readjusts her thoughts back to the appropriate audience, a child, by the end of the poem.
Dedicating time to your children is another approach how parents can express their love. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writes about this time in “The Children’s Hour.” In this poem he uses a tradiational rhyming scheme, rhyming the second and forth lines, similar to a children’s poem or book. This is a metered poem about how the father “pauses in the day’s occupations” (Longfellow line 3) to spend time with his children. This also represents a child’s love for their father, childishly plotting to all sneak up on their father with love. “They almost devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine” (line 25-26). This father does not rush his children out of his study but enjoys the moment of love with his children. Longfellow knows that he has a never-ending love for his children. He uses the metaphor that he is in a castle and that his children have entered the walls. Longfellow ends the poem by saying he has captured his children and put them into the dungeon in his heart where they will forever stay until the walls crumble. He is simply stating he will forever love his children and they will always remain in his heart.
Another form of love a parent can have with their children is an empathetic love. This love is expressed in an unrhymed poem by Richard Wilbur in “The Writer.” This poem is written in three line stanzas and addresses how a father feels the emotions his daughter is going through as she writes. He can hear the typewriter keys going, pause and then start up again. He can understand the working and thought process that goes into writing and wishes “her a lucky passage.” (Wilbur line 9). This is where a parent shows love through silence not action. I feel that the father is not only empathetic but also proud of his daughter for trying to be a writer and following in his footsteps. He ends the poem with a silent compassion to his daughter hoping the best for her.
One of the hardest loves a parent goes through is letting their child go. “For a Daughter Who Leaves” by Janice Mirikitani is a free verse unstructured poem where a mother is preparing for her daughter’s wedding. This is a mother’s continuous love and the realization of letting her daughter go and start her own life. The mother uses the “spool, the same she used to stitch her daughter’s first jacket” (Mirikitani line 8-10) to sew the wedding slippers. I feel this represents the endless love the mother has had for her daughter since the beginning. The mother reminisces about when her daughter was young and how she has grown into a woman. The wedding slippers represent how the mother is preparing her daughter to go and walk into her new life. “The woman spins her thread from the spool of her heart,” (line 26-28). The mother is letting go and passing on the love to her daughter.
Another type of love a mother can go through is the love for the unborn. Gwendolyn Brooks writes about the controversial subject of abortion in a free verse poem “The Mother.” This poem speaks of the love a mother has with the creation of life and the unborn child. Mothering a child can create a bond that cannot be broken and though this baby was never born does not mean the baby was not loved. “You will remember the children you got that you did not get,” (Brooks line 2). This is a compassionate poem how a mother who made a choice does not mean they never loved the child. She realizes she cannot complain or whine about her choice. This mother of the unborn feels she did love the child though she was unable to meet or hold them. I feel the poem is ended best, “Believe me, I loved you all. Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I love you All.” (line 31-33). This can be a difficult subject for anybody to talk about, but this poem shows another side, the love. It might not be expressed the same as a parent/child love but this is love for a child that only the mother knows.
This next poem is advice to mother’s to allow their kids to grow up during their childhood. In Frank O’Hara’s jagged fragments of sentences in “Ave Maria” he gives advice on a way for mother’s to love their children. He feels that mothers should allow their children to go to the movies while they are young and learn “where candy bars come from” (O’Hara line 16). He gives advice to mothers and all parents to love their children by not sheltering them from their childhood. Let children experience their childhood so that when they are older they do not go “blind in front of a TV set seeing the movies you wouldn’t let them see when they are young” (line 34-36). An overprotective parent is limiting their children from allowing them to grow up. The parents that let their children grow and learn without constant mediation are helping their children to be better adults. This special type of love is rewarded to those parents because as the children sees what the parents have done, they will love their parents more as they get older.
Not every poet feels the same about parents love. I am including an antonym poem to my anthology. Philip Larkin is one of the poets that feel differently for he expressed this in a simple contemporary free verse style poem, “This Be The Verse.” He mentions that your parents “fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.” (Larkin line 3-4). He doesn’t express that the parents do not love their children but that parents can corrupt their children. He ends by advising we should prevent anymore rotten people entering this world telling everyone “don’t have any kids yourself.” (line 12).
I found “A Parents Love” a poem by an unknown author that depicts the emotions of parents the best. No matter how much a parent advises, offers, and teaches to their children, that once it is given to the child it is in the child’s hands. This poem is written in couplets of what a parent can do and what they do not have control over. “I can teach you right from wrong, but I cannot always decide for you.” (Unknown line 11-12). I feel this poem illustrates the best on what parents can give to their children and the types of love they have for them while observing the realistic truth that a child is their own person. The parent knows that the child might choose to do something wrong or against their will but that does not stop a parent from trying to prepare their children. The last line of the poem is the control a parent does have, “I can love you with unconditional love all of my life… and I will!” (line 47-48). I feel this poem ties my anthology together, that regardless of the loves a parent has, it is ultimately the child’s choice.
I love my parents and they have taught me a great deal about love. They do not always love me the same way, and react differently to my sisters and me. That does not mean they love one of us more or less, just differently. During different times of my life they have expressed their love from the unconditional motherly love my mom has to the hard love my gives me to see I succeed. I feel that people can relate to the love between a parent and child and know that it is not one dimensional. I have gathered these poems together as an adult realizing the different loves parents have. In the children’s book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, speaks of the love a mother has for her son. As the son get’s older and changes, at the end of the day the mother still loves her son the same. This book was written for children to understand the love of a parent. The son becomes a parents and truly understand the love his mother had for him. These poems are more abstract, harder to understand, and as an adult you are able to see the underlining theme of a parent’s love. My anthology was gathered as a daughter who has experienced the parent’s love spectrum.
Bibliography
Atwood, Margaret. "You Begin." The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret
Cohen,
Larkin, Philip. "This Be The Verse." The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “The Children’s Hour.” Online. 2 Dec 2007.
Mirikitani, Janice. “For a Daughter Who Leaves.” Online. 30 Nov 2007.
Munsch, Robert. Love You Forever.
O’Hara, Frank. "Ave Maria." The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret
Plath, Sylvia. "Morning Song." The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret
Wilbur, Richard. “The Writer.” Online. 2 Dec 2007.
No comments:
Post a Comment