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Phillis Mcginley

LAMENT OF THE NORMAL CHILD

The school where I go is a modern school

With numerous modern graces,

And there they cling to the modern rule

Of 'Cherish the Problem Cases'!

From nine to three I develop Me:

I dance when I'm feeling dancy,

Or everywhere lay on

With creaking crayon

The colors that suit my fancy.

But when the commoner tasks are done

Deserted, ignored I stand;

For the rest have complexes, everyone;

Or a hyperactive gland.

Or, how can I ever be reconciled

To my hatefully normal station?

Why couldn't I be a Problem Child

Endowed with a small fixation?

Why wasn't I trained for a Problem Child

With an Interesting Fixation?

I dread the sound of the morning bell.

The iron has ebtered my soul;

I'm square little peg who fits too well

In a square little normal hole.

For seven years

In Mortimer Sears

Has the Oedipus angle flourished;

And Jessamine Gray

She cheats at play

Because she is undernourished.

The teachers beam on Frederic Knipe

With scientific gratitude

For Fred, they claim, is a perfect type

Of Antisocial Attitude.

And Cuthbert Jones has his temper riled

In a way professors mention.

But I'm a Perfectly Normal Child,

So I don't get the least attention.

I'm nothing at all but a Normal Child,

So I don't get the least attention.

The others jeer as they pass my way.

They titter without forbearance.

"He's Perfectly Normal,” they shrilly say,

"With perfectly normal parents."

I learn to read

With a normal speed

I answer when I'm commanded.

Infected antrums

Don't give me tantrums.

I don't even write left-handed.

I build with blocks when they give me blocks.

When it's busy hour, I labor.

And I seldom delight in landing socks

On the ear of my little neighbor.

So here, my luckier lads reviled,

I sit on the steps alone.

Why couldn't I be a Problem Child

With a Case to call my own?

Why wasn't I born a Problem Child

With a Complex of my own?

Chapter VII