PHILIP GOT IT THE WRONG WAY ‘ROUND

 
Oh Philip came up with a rhyme

And most convincing it did sound

Yet it transpires, with passing time

He got it the wrong way around!

That lazy so-and-so got out –

He left the game before he should

He never learned what life’s about

He never really understood!

His Mum and Dad, his granny, too

Those ‘fools in old style hats and coats’

His words, oh surely they did rue --

He sowed no more than wayward oats.

So this I write, for them, for me

For every parent who but tries

All parents – surely – will agree –

That Mister Philip Larkin LIES.

 Your children %&*@ you up, you know

They may not mean to, but they do

They take on all your awful faults

-- plus some they never got from you.

And you %&*@ed your own parents up,

And drove them wild at every stage

From when you were the merest pup

Who fit and fumed in infant rage

And kept ‘em up night after night

Exhausted, spent and worried sick

With every tantrum, every bite

And every fight you had to pick

Until, as spotty, sullen teen

With music blasting from your room

All full of adolescent spleen

You treated them to glower and gloom.

The disrespect! The rage! The scorn!

The not-one-thing-they-could-do-right!

You cursed them you were ever born

(And stayed out late ‘most every night!)

Kids hand on misery to Dad

-- and Mum – it’s sad, but it’s still true.

But kids -- we swear -- it ain’t all bad

Make sure you have yourself some too!