PUSHY PARENTING

You create them
You give birth to them
You nurture them
You raise them
All the while seeking to rearrange them
For you insist on always owning them

Kids are forever
Children are our saviour
Dynasties become prolonged
It is never best to have just one

Mirrors of one’s ambition
Apple of our critical eye
A mini me who is never contrary
A vessel to fill with my life plan
Someone to control till I die

Pride is king
The family name is nirvana
The façade of respectability must never crumble
All and sundry must toe the line
For the world must believe all in this household is fine

Be better
Be all we wish you to be
Attain heights we never grasped
Never let our ambition lapse

Caged and thus unable to be free
Longing for a faraway glimpse of liberty
Dying to show some level of individuality
A life on a road to eventual calamity

Secrets and hopes
Are encased deeply
In a psyche that aches gloomily
Insular and depressed
They contemplate university

They exist from day to day
Awaiting a long list of all they need to say
The dress sense must be perfect
Their manner never abrupt
Everything is done to give the family
A social step up

Grades must be exemplary
A career path must show economic sensibility
Friends must be vetted minutely
Who cares about your sanity
Do it all for our vanity

You can never grow up
We own you for life
Fly the nest and we follow
We are your bothersome shadow

Letting go is hard for us to do
When we made you
It was not only because we wanted you
Our future plans have always revolved around you
Smile and never let the world know
How dismally we have wrecked you

Those that must forever be
The centre of another’s world
Have a big responsibility
They are clones
And will always be second best