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13 Feb 2014

Who looks after your kids? (poem)

Digging in the work of Kathleen Lahey, I found a footnote with the following poem by Kirsten Emmot, which is also compiled in this collection of poetry about work:

"Who Looks After Your Kids?" 

"Who looks after your kids when you work?"
"Who does the housework?"
"How do you manage working those long hours with a family?"
"How do you manage with the kids?"

Well, there's their father, and a nanny and a day care centre
but they don't really hear, the people who ask.
They don't want to know about it.

What they want to hear is:

Who does the housework? My henpecked worm of a husband. Me, until four in the morning. A Jamaican wetback whom we blackmail into slaving for peanuts. Nobody, we all live in a huge tattered ball of blankets like a squirrel's nest.

Who bakes the bread? Never touch it. Mac's Bakery. The pixies. A little old Irishwoman named Kirsten Emmott comes in every week.

How do you manage with the kids? I don't. I neglect them.
I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown, please help me.
I'm drinking heavily. I don't give a damn about the kids,
let them go to hell their own way.

Who looks after the kids? Nobody, I tie them to a tree in the back yard every day. My senile old grandmother. The Wicked Witch of the West.

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