My Children

They’re funny little grubby things
That take your time each day,
They fight and grab and kick and scratch
While busy with their play.

They ruin rugs with stains and spots
They mar the decorations,
Your precious books, your works of art-
Subject to desecrations.

They mean you have to do without.
Your new Spring suit, or Fall-
It goes to buy their underwear
Their shirts and overalls.

You do not own a stylish car,
Canary birds that sing,
You do not have fine silverware,
You don’t have anything.

Except the satisfaction
Which small children prove to be,
And strange as it may seem to some
Means more than all to me.

-Doris Aldrich
(from Secrets of Wisdom from Mother’s Heart)

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