Gymboree Mommy

[everyadventure]

http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/13/a-mothers-murder-suicide-chilling-but-familiar/

Gymboree mommy plays Mozart to her womb.
She will birth a jolly baby who never sh**s,
her genius infant will sign, long before he sits!

Cloth diapers with ruffled butts, hand-washed, line dried!
A schedule means he'll sleep through the night!
Organic veggies, free of dyes!

Gymboree mommy will never tell
how she cries in the shower.
No one ever mentioned:
motherhood is hell.

[PrinceMyshkin]

It's fun as far as it goes but it feels like a bit of a rush job, written while you held one baby under your other arm...I wasn't quite ready for the shift to the downbeat ending, was still caught up in the mother's utopian fantasies.

[everyadventure]

@Prince: that's kind of the idea... we all start out with such high expectations, and are flabbergasted to find ourselves plop in the center of reality, with a soiled baby under one arm and Barney blaring on the TV... it is certainly a rapid descent! :)

[blank|verse]

Hmm, the daker side of competitive parenting. Nicely observed, ea.

The last two lines are a bit too direct and 'telling'; lines 7 and 8 are stronger as they 'show' the consequences and parental pain and are more effective. Perhaps you could extend these two lines to three for a stronger ending?

[Delta40]

It isn't a far leap EA from high expectations to crying in the shower. In Australia we've all been flabergasted by this incident:

http://www.news.com.au/national/keli-lane-sentenced-for-killing-baby-tegan/story-e6frfkvr-1226039512869

and this:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/arthur-freeman-sentenced-to-life-in-jail-with-a-non-parole-period-of-32-years/story-fn7x8me2-1226036871675

I fail to understand both of these people.

[MorpheusSandman]

It does feel a bit rushed, but unlike Prince I think the shift is actually the best part of the piece as, as you explained, the joys of expectation are crushed by the depression of reality. Reading that link of yours made the piece all the more potent, although perhaps it would've been better to work that into the poem instead of just linking to it.

[Jerrybaldy]

It returns me to the stepford wives I felt from you some time ago and I love it as such Mis .

[AuntShecky]

Oh, that old line, "That's so funny because it's true" may be a cliché, but your posting is both.

Ripe for spoofing are the "helicopter parents" of the Western world, those upper middle class super Yuppies about which the late, great George Carlin railed so hysterically about. I still remember his lines about the front-loading baby carriers to keep Mom's hands free for shopping.

A recent The Simpsons episode (actually a repeat from several seasons ago) showed Marge subscribing to a parenting magazine called "Fretful Mom." The cover story featured something which might keep obsessive Moms awake at night: "Is Your Baby Too Cute?"

Your piece of light verse here is in that vein. The use of the word "birth" as a verb rather than "give birth to" is similar to the husband of a wife who is expecting saying, "We're pregnant." (Oh really, how's the morning sickness workin' out for ya, Guy?)

Again, your piece is funny and true as hell. Give us more of this type of humor, everyadventure. We need all the laughs we can get!