K8 the GR8

I wrote this rather maudlin poem today while stuck between a rock and a hardplace.  Puppychild was outside playing with other children when suddenly a kid pulled a toy out of her hands, causing her to fall over.  Tears followed, with heartrending appeals for a motherly hug which I felt I had to deny her for her own good.  I watched with tears in my eyes as she eventually picked herself up and decided to fight for the toy herself, a fight which she won. 

My pride at her small accomplishment made me realise that sometimes it is selfish to want to protect a child from absolutely everything, so I am trying hard to figure out exactly where the line falls between love and cruelty, nature and nurture. 

For parents everywhere
(Or: A sonnet for softies)

How tough it is to leave the loving room
Where childhood slept wrapped up in tender care
How suddenly the blanket of my womb
Was ripped away to find my child laid bare

Now on her own, the daunting task is nigh-
To let her grow despite the harshest winds
How do I stem the love, my kiss deny,
To ready her for schoolyard streetwise sins?

A greater pain I feel for cuts and scars
Than she, the wounded child who stands alone
Though tears are falling softly through the bars,
My heart must build a prison cell of stone

My freedom waits until the day I see
She’s found her comfort independently