Parents

In response to a friend's blog entry about children, parents, and growing up - I present to you the unremittingly, unrepentantly bitter and virulent Philip Larkin:

This be the verse

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.

For me, at least, that's a bit excessive.
As always, Oscar Wilde's simple, elegiac words say it best:

Children begin by loving their parents;
as they grow older they judge them;
sometimes they forgive them.

I think I forgive you.