What's Wrong?

By Lena Carroll

      (Previously published in Hobbies, Etc., parent publication of Pencil Stubs Online.)

I love my precious children

            Each one is so dear to my heart;

Not for a million in any man’s gold

            Would I from one of them part.

And, yet so oft in the evening

            After my day of toil;

Many a quarrelsome word is spoken,

            Each loving impulse they foil.

Sad I am and thoughtful

            Pondering it o’er and o’er;

Just why should my own offspring

            Try my patience sore?

Is it that I’m not worthy

            Not meant a mother to be;

Or is there some influence

            That I’m too dumb to see?

Surely I didn’t skip orange juice,

            Oatmeal or cod liver oil!

All through their babyhood I washed

            Diapers and never counted it toil.

Those ads, Oh, did I skip Lysol

            In the daily floor cleaning chore--

Or could I have been so thoughtless,

            A bug on the loose to ignore?

I know that a schedule was needful

            There was always something to time;

Did they sleep too long

            Or too often did I let them dine?

What? Oh, what in their childhood

            Did ignorant mother neglect?

That now my little darlings

            Are not always what I’d select

© circa 1949 Lena May Carroll