Braveheart

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today's poem first appeared on the blogs in 2011

Some parents are bullies, even those who genuinely think they have their child’s best interests at heart. Young people should be allowed to follow their own paths in life, not those mapped out for them by parents who see a chance of their own frustrated aspirations being realised in their children. 

‘Bullies’ is no exaggeration. Until children reach an age when they are credited with a mind of their own by certain adults, they are pawns in what is sometimes a very nasty game, unable to establish their own rules of play. (It is not only LGBT boys and girls, men and women who need to break free of certain stereotypes nurtured during formative years.)

Thankfully, many of these young people rebel and assert themselves for the better in later years although it can be tough , and not all parents 'get it'. I’ve heard many a parent complaining about an ‘ungrateful’ child. (Perhaps they should have asked us what we want from life?)

My father was a psychological bully. I was less embarrassed about coming out as gay in my teens as  scared the atmosphere at home whenever he was around would get a lot worse. Consequently, I hide  in the proverbial closet, lonely and scared for much of the time.

I don't believe you should have children so they can be ‘grateful’ to you, but for the pleasure of nurturing them and seeing them grow into their own person, not a carbon copy of a disillusioned or misguided parent.

We don’t ask to be born on the back of our parents' sexual satisfaction and shared ego trip. So why should we be grateful and feel guilty when we resist the kind of emotional blackmail from parents who cry crocodile tears if we don’t fall in with their plans for us?

Good parents don’t have to ask or connive; we willingly give what we can because we love them. Sadly, a significant number only want children because their religion does not take over-population into account and/or  by way of  reserving an ‘insurance’ policy to cushion their old age.

Good parents everywhere - and there are many - deserve a BIG HUG, and more.

BRAVEHEART 

I'd cower in corners of the mind
like a child besieged
by gremlins in an encroaching dark;
captive of human nature,
dragging on chains of well-meant
parental expectations,
sum of their worst felt failures,
haunting limitations

Confronting limitations, I'd call on
the strength of Samson,
if only to risk locks cut to the quick
by a well-meaning ambition
that’s not mine so (can no one see?)
unfit for purpose, better suited
to someone of a different mindset,
anyone else but me

Finally, breaking free! May those
thinking they 'know'
and only ever meant what's 'best'
for me, pause long enough
to reason why (and how) I fought
to be the person I am now,
for needing to make my own (adult)
choices (no one else's)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2011

[Note: The genesis of this poem appears under the same title  in Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, (January) 2001]