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... a family-values type
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They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to,
but they do.
They fill you with the
faults they had
And add some extra, just
for you.
But they were fucked up
in their turn
By fools in old-style
hats and coats,
Who half the time were
soppy-stern
And half at one
another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
... Philip Larkin (1822-85), English poet (entitled This Be The Verse)
No keen analyst is required to unravel this. Larkin had not only a bombastic fascist for a father, but a simpering weakling for a mother. Sydney Larkin had the grace to die early but his widow, Eva, lingered on, querulous, demanding, and hypochondriacal (and extremely unwell), for decades. She may not have meant to make her son’s life a nightmare of guilt and annoyance, but she did. This resulted in his lover Monica Jones’s winning at least one round. On no account, she told her man, should he be blackmailed into living with Eva. “Don’t be robbed!” she beseeched him. “Don’t be robbed of your soul.” If she couldn’t have him, she at least wouldn’t surrender him to that form of “the other woman.”
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