LAMENT OF THE NORMAL CHILD

Phyllis McGinley

The school where she goes is a modern school

With numerous modern graces.

And there they cling to the modern rule

Of “Cherish the Problem Cases!”

Solo 1: 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,

Desereted, ignored, I stand.

All: For the rest have complexes, everyone;

Or a hyperactive gland.

Solo 1: Oh, 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?

She dreads the sound of the morning bell.

The iron hs entered her soul.

She’s a square little peg who fits too well

In a square little normal hole.

Solo 2: For seven years

In Mortimer Sears

Has the Oedipus angle flourished;

Solo 3: And Jessamine Gray,

She cheats at play

Because she is undernourished.

Solo 4: The teachers beam on Frederick Knipe

With scientific gratitude,

For Fred, they claim, is a perfect type

Of the Antisocial Attitude.

Solo 5: And Cuthbert Jones has his temper riled

In a way professors mention.

Solo 1: But I am a Perfectly Normal Child,

So I don’t get any attention.

I’m nothing at all but a Normal Child,

So I don’t get the least attention.

All: The others jeer as they pass her way.

They titter without forbearance.

Solo 5: “She’s Perfectly Normal,”

All: they shrilly say,

Solo 5: “With Perfectly Normal parents.”

Solo 1: 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 seldom delight in landing socks

On the ear of my little neighbor.

All: So here, by luckier ones reviled,

She sits on the steps alone.

Solo 1: Why couldn’t I be a Problem Child

With a Complex of my own?