The Crooked Path Away From Childhood

For those of us who grew up
dandled* in the lap of luxury
no subject beguiles us more as adults
than that of childhood suffering.

The sort of thing where shame
 is reinforced by material comfort,
or worse, material privation,
as the child learns to replace the trust
in those say they care for them
for for the grudging gratitude
and the distanced deference,
both of which represent the best
that family life has to offer.

Shame finds so many ways
of pushing people apart
that its disguise is so skilled
that it hard to spot
before it take full hold
in places we wish it didn't.

Life goes by so fast for a child
that even if they accurately took in
the details of life as they grew
then they won't have time to recall
and reflect on them until long after,

Even the best of what children know
gets sentimentalised, to hide the envy
between adults that they half-saw at the time
that didn't know would become inevitable.

 

*To be held at full height when small,
so your feet touch the thighs
of the adult who is sat on a chair
and who is holding you,
Often the adult is a relative
who is not the parent,
usually it happens in a public place;
the word describes how children
used to get passed around
on big family occasions.