My Inheritance...

Right Today Wrong Tomorrow

The Modern Baby

THE HAND that rocks the cradle " — but there is no such hand;
It is bad to rock the baby, they would have us understand;
So the cradle's but a relic of the former foolish days
When mothers reared their children in unscientific ways —
When they jounced them and they bounced them, these poor dwarfs of long ago —
The Washingtons and Jeffersons and Adamses, you know.

They warn us that the baby will possess a muddled brain
If we dandle him or rock him — we must carefully refrain;
He must lie in one position, never swayed and never swung,
Or his chance to grow to greatness will be blasted while he's young.
Ah! To think how they were ruined by their mothers long ago —
The Franklins and the Putnams and the Hamiltons, you know.

Then we must feed the baby by the schedule that is made,
And the food that he is given must be measured out or weighed.
He may bellow to inform us that he isn't satisfied,
But he couldn't grow to greatness if his wants were all supplied.
Think how foolish nursing stunted those poor weaklings, long ago —
The Shakespeares and the Luthers and the Buonapartes, you know.

We are given a great mission, we are here today on earth
To bring forth a race of giants, and to guard them from their birth,
To insist upon their freedom from the rocking that was bad
For our parents and their parents, scrambling all the brains they had.
Ah! If they'd been fed by schedule would they have been stunted so?
The Websters and the Lincolns and the Roosevelts, you know

I know the rules for today such as "back to bed" but will that still be the rule twenty years from now. I remember being taught to put my babies on their tummies just in case they spit up.

I remember my oldest daughter was very hard to burp and, if I didn't get up those bubbles, I had to suffer through colicky crying—or was it her that suffered?

I would lay her across my knees and pat and pat and pat, pretty firmly. Now they say that patting addles their brains and your just suppose to rub their little backs softly and squish them a bit. At least that was the last rule on burping I heard.

It really is amazing my five kids made it to adulthood, eh?

~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~

ASIN: 0385000197	The Best Loved Poems of the American People Product Type: Book
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