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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 11 (February 1, 1937)

Custody Of The Parent

page 42

Custody Of The Parent

If Those Lips Could Only Speak.

It is the privilege of parents to imagine that they bring up their children. Perhaps they really know better, but foster the fiction to save their souls from damnation and despair. Have you never shrunk before the candid contempt in baby's blue orbs? Has your polluted past never reared up and socked you one in the Conscience when the searchlights of inspired Innocence have illuminated the solitary-cells of your personal penitentiary? Have you never said to yourself, when, cringing before the contemptuous contemplation of a three-months' morsel, “If those lips could only speak?” Have you not thought what a good thing it is that the lisping lip is sealed until such time as pristine prescience is dulled by the perpetual demands of the midriff? Else what a crop of red left-ears there'd be amongst those present.

Infantile Injustice.

Perhaps you have listened-in to the optimistic oblations of young ‘prentice parents contemplating the first-fruit of their optimism chewing its toe in its cot. Ten to one they say, “We shall bring him up different. He shall be reared as no other child ever has been reared. There shall be no mistakes.” They dismiss the matter as easily as that; as though the Infant Samuel were so much cat's meat on the hoof. Not for a moment do they consider him as a whirring bomb of obstructive and destructive potentiality; a bundle of dynamic perversities—an enigmatical engine whose only certainty is its uncertainty. Do they discuss with Samuel a matter so vital to his future? Not on your life! They take it for granted that Sam is happy, nay proud, to be the property of such blu-perfect parents. And Samuel just goes on sucking his toe and marshalling the facts and arguments against the time when he can give them the air. But, could he broadcast his bedtime story, this is what he would say:

“How you ever fell for that sap I can't imagine.”

“How you ever fell for that sap I can't imagine.”

Baby Comes Clean.

“Look here, mum and dad, cut the cackle and get down to crusts! It's all very well for you to go about blowing up your chests and spilling the beans about me. I admit I'm the stork's double-yoker, but what have I got to skite about? What about me? Was I ever consulted about this parent business? No, siree! I just woke up to find my whole future gummed to a pair of burst-tyres like you. It's not fair—'pon my body and soul, ‘tis grossly unjust. The least a baby might expect is a pre-view of his parents and the right of veto. But what do I get? The double-raspberry, that's what I get. Here I am with ninety per cent, of dad's bad habits ready to burst out on me like measles; I inherit Uncle Willie's egg-head, grandpa's bow-legs, Aunt Agatha's anti-streamline chassis, and dad's thirst. Do you call that a fair pop? Talk about the accident of birth! It's a calamity—a calamity with crepe trimmings. You'll have to change—change good and plenty—if you want to be a credit to me. I want to bring you up different. I want to rear you as no other parents ever have been reared. I would like to think that there shall be no mistakes. But when I get an eyefull of pop! I'm amazed at you, mum. How you ever fell for that sap I can't imagine. Of course, I realise that love is blind, and all that, but even a blind woman could sense out that dad's not the full quid. And I've got to be handicapped with him all my life. ‘The sins of the fathers' is right! But I suppose other babies have put up with almost as much and have grown up in spite of their parents. But let me tell you.

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“Boys, they're not much to look at, but can they cough up the mazuma? I'll say—y—y!”

“Boys, they're not much to look at, but can they cough up the mazuma? I'll say—y—y!”

If you want this thing to go over, remember, I'm the boss, and what I say goes—and I don't mean half-goes.”

A Protest From the Pram.

“And while I'm in the headlines let us get this name business straight. I'm wise to you parents with your pansy monikers and fancy baptismal frills. So get this! No Percy names for me! No Marmadukes or Mont-morencys or Plantaganets or Rudolphs. Life is going to be hard enough with a couple of dumbells to rear, without having a can of nominal improprieties tied to me. I refuse to carry a load of ancestral tradition in my Christian names. Christian is right! Do you call it Christian to penalise a poor puling innocent with such pseudonymous slanders, such phony prefixes, as Cuthbert Adolphus Sebastian, or even Basil Megaphus Rufus, just because they have been in the family for centuries like inherited flat-feet and warts? Plain Bill will do me; I'll probably be called Dough-face or Fish-eye, anyway.”

Giving “The Bird” to Parental Plans.

“Another thing that's got to be cleared up is this career business. Don't think I'm asleep just because my eyes are closed. I'm wise to your discussions about my future. Future—nix! Don't you think I've got any ambitions of my own? You can wash out everything you ever thought of. Don't imagine that I'll button up at the back all my life. You only do it so I can't chew off my fastenings, anyway. If dad thinks I'm going to be a stool-pigeon he's crazy. He can put this in his cherry wood. If I can't be an engine-driver or a traffic cop on a motor-bike, or an air pilot or a cowboy movie hero or a pirate, I stick right here in my bassinette until I qualify for the old-age pension. And that's that.”

Farewell to Goo-goo.

“And while I'm in the mood I want to lodge an emphatic protest against the way folks take an unfair advantage of my temporary helplessness. They seem to think that just because I'm on the broad of my back they can come and goo-goo all over me. They make me feel positively small the way they go on. If they only knew how nutty they looked they'd cut it out and be their age. Besides, all this finger-poking will send me cock-eyed unless something is done. Grandma is the worst offender. Hasn't she got any dignity at all? Can't she grow old gracefully instead of yelping tiggy-tiggy-tiggy at me like an oyster-dredger in a fog, and bobbing her face in and out of my pram like a Christmas balloon? It's humiliating, to say the least of it, for a five-bottle man.”

The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild

A Five-Bottle Man.

“And, speaking of bottles; the stuff you've been slipping across lately has been pretty ‘pansy’ liquor—a cissy sort of soup. It lacks the kick we Moderns demand in our ceremonial cups. I grant you that it may be Plunketly perfect and saturated with glucose and vitamins A to Z, but it lacks snap—it's deficient in devil. No wonder my five-o-clockers are a flop. From now on dad can have my bottle and I'll have his. Heaven knows, he acts childish enough to take his stimulation in a childish way. How I'm going to live him down I don't know. Honest-to-goodness, mum, you really should have thought of me before you slipped the bracelets on him.”

A Word of Warning to Mum and Dad.

“And, getting back to parents, you'll have to ginger up your technique if you want me to be proud of you. You're out-of-date, off the map, old-fashioned, Victorian. You tip off all this goo about respect-to-parents, obedience, and speaking polite. You've got to slip in the clutch and be Modern. What's modern? Why, shiver me rusks! Pull up your ladder-proofs, mum! Modern is doing all the things your parents think you shouldn't; it's—well, you had parents of your own once, didn't you? But, honest, folks! I want to respect you when I grow up. I want to be able to point to you and say, ‘Boys, they're not much to look at, but can they cough up the mazuma? I'll say-y-y!’” So, in future, you adults, when you broadcast what you think of babies, try to imagine what babies think of you.

page 44