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THE
PURPOSE OF FAMILY
Although
the term family has come to mean many different things in the twentieth century,
whatever it’s form, it is still regarded as the ideal institution for the care
and nurturing of children. There
are several poems in the Children And
Family section that refer to children and childhood: “Those Winter
Sundays” by Robert Hayden, “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, and
“Mother To Son” by Langston Hughes. These
three poems, by three different authors, vividly capture all the ignorance,
innocence, and idleness that dwells within the heart of a child.
The
blissful ignorance of children is described by Langston Hughes in “Those
Winter Sundays”. The author uses
a steady rhythm, combined with harsh beginning constants and similar vowels
sounds, to describe the unpleasant things her father chose to do for her on
Sundays—of which he always went unthanked: “Sundays too my father got up
early / and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, / then with cracked hands
that ached from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fires blaze.
No one ever thanked him” (Hayden 51).
As this poem describes, in my youth I never saw all the things my parents
did for me, the sacrifices they made—if by chance I did happen to take notice, I shrugged off any
semblance of gratitude, telling myself that all good parents were supposed
to do such things. The author
ends this insightful poem with the words “What did I know, what did I know /
of loves’ austere and lonely offices?”, accentuating the reality that
children are very inexperienced with relationships, and lamenting the fact that
it isn’t until adulthood, when we begin to experience the same kind of thanklessness
from the cold, harsh world, that we truly begin to appreciate all our parents
did for us. Such is the ignorance
of youth.
The
innocence of children is spoken to in the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by
Theodore Roethke. With quatrains
that connote emotional suppression and end rhymes that make the lines almost
melodic—like a waltz, the poem describes the events of an
evening spent with a drunken father.
Despite the almost brutal encounter illustrated by lines such as “We
romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf;” (Roethke 61), and “You
beat time on my head / with a palm caked hard by dirt,”
the child still clings to his father’s shirt as he waltzes him off to
bed. This vivid imagery reminds us
of the innocence of a child’s love for his parents—a love that is
unconditional. It reminds us that
we must be mindful of the power we have over our children.
As a child, my parents could do no wrong in my eyes.
If they made a mistake, I considered it to somehow be my
mistake. Such is the innocence of
youth.
The
poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes speaks to the idleness that children
feel when faced with an obstacle. The
author uses vivid imagery to hold the readers attention, and drawn-out lines to
mimic the drawn-out course of life itself.
The poem is written in the persona of a mother, explaining to her child
that her life has not been easy: “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair /
It’s had tacks in it, / And splinters, / And boards torn up” (Hughes 52). Sometimes our adult determination can, in our children’s
eyes, make life look as if it’s been easy for us because they don’t see all
the pitfalls and obstacles we’ve had to face:
“And sometimes goin’ on in the dark / Where there ain’t been no
light.” When our children are
young, we don’t want them to see our burdens because to do so would make them
worry about their own welfare. But
when they reach adolescence, and life begins to take effort on their part, we
are suddenly faced with the task of explaining to them that our lives haven’t
been as easy as they’ve seemed. My
parents always made everything in life seem easy.
We always had food, clothes, and a nice middle-class house.
At 17, I was shocked to learn that my father had once worked two or three
jobs at a time to support my family—and doubly shocked to hear that he
hadn’t graduated from high school, that he’d been working toward his GED
while employed at those two or three jobs.
And there I was refusing to work ten hours a week at McDonald’s!
Such is the idleness of youth.
These
three poems, “Those Winter Sundays”, My Papa’s Waltz”, and “Mother To
Son”, demonstrate my view of family as it pertains to the raising of children.
However there is one short work in the Children
and Families section that is the antithesis to my view.
“Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid embodies everything that should not be
imposed upon a child. This author
uses a rampant lithogy of dos and don’ts to illustrate the overwhelm
experienced by children when a parent dictates too many rules.
“This is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house;
this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like
too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how
you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea”
(Kincaid 13). The average child
would tune out this bombardment of parental control, or, worse yet, internalize
it and become full of fear and self loathing.
The true purpose of a family, as illustrated by “Those Winter
Sundays”, My Papa’s Waltz”, and “Mother To Son”,
is to guide a child into
becoming who they are meant to
be—not, as “Girl” so harshly illustrates, to berate them into becoming what you feel they are supposed
to be.
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