'The Wrong Parents.... '

I was ten when I spoke to a child psychiatrist,
and I only once did I see him in his surgery.

He asked me lots of questions
and just as Mother wanted me to,
as soon as I was sent to the play room
I forgot what he asked and what I answered.

It was her turn next and she took a long time
which I did not mind
-as soon as I was in the play room
on my own I enjoyed the space
by making things with the huge lego set,
which was bigger than the set
I was now disallowed from getting out
in the parental house-playing with it there
took up too much room and what I did
was of no interest to anyone else
when dad wanted the house to be as tidy
as the studios of the television
that he wanted us to watch 
because the television was his plaything.

It is now most of fifty years since I saw the psychiatrist,
in his office and I can picture him still, he was stout
and wore a three piece suit
and had' salt and  pepper goatee beard and 'tache,
and I wanted, but was stopped, from sitting on his knee
-I was 'too old and too big' for that treatment. 

I forget his name and I no longer care
what he said about me, to my mother.
But I know what he said to me about dad and her
before I was officially declared 'maladjusted'
-'Son, you were given the wrong parents.....  '.