When I am a Mother

When I am a mother
I will not let my kids watch tv.
I will only let them read.
They will know
Why the caged bird sings
And where Waldo is
By the time they get to first grade.
They will have heard the call of the wild
And tasted the grapes of wrath.
My children will sing the song of themselves
Before they will beatbox and scream incomprehensible hip hop lyrics at me.
“It's the money that  makes shit get ugly
It's the money that makes these hos love me
It's the money that makes—“
Um, no, don’t say that word
Unless you’re an uneducated poor boy
in the 1800’s sailing down the Mississippi
with a slave named Jim.
When they get asked in school what they want to be
When they grow up,
My children will not say
“A teacher.”
They will say “I want to teach defense against the dark arts at Hogwarts.”
My children will worship the Lord of the Flies.
My children will know for whom the bell tolls.
They will know that four legs are good, two is bad;
And that four legs are good, but two legs is better.
My kids won’t snicker when someone says Moby Dick.
My kids will know that “To be or not to be”
Isn’t the question.
They will know the real question is to read or not to read.
My children will ask me to read to them
After dinner and I will pick a book off the shelves in our homemade library
Nothing will be too far-fetched,
Too emotional,
Too sexual,
Too banal.
We will find out what George is curious about tonight,
We will find out what happens to Jay Gatsby.
We will cry together when
Old Dan and Little Anne die,
We will laugh over the names
Of Eliot’s cats.
When their peers ask them,
“Did you watch American Idol last night?”
My kids will puff out their chests and say,
“No, but I started reading an American Tragedy.”
And the kid who asked the question will walk away
Wondering what the hell is wrong with my kid
And I will be so proud.
If you even understood
one of the references in this poem,
you are a friend of mine.
If you understood more than one,
More than 2,
More than half,
I want to meet you
And ask you what your parents did.