Success, For Jeremy

Success by Michael R. Burch for Jeremy We need our children to keep us humble between toast and marmalade; there is no time for a ticker-tape parade before bed, no award, no bright statuette to be delivered for mending skinned knees, no wild bursts of approval for shoveling snow. A kiss is the only approval they show; to leave us?the first great success they achieve. I wrote this poem after fixing my son Jeremy some toast and getting a kiss in return. The “marmalade” is poetic license; it was actually toast with butter and jam, or maybe peanut butter and jam. Keywords/Tags: Child, Children, Childhood, Son, Sons, Sonhood, Boy, Boys, Boyhood, Father, Fathers, Fatherhood, Parent, Parents, Parenthood, Parenting, Family, Families, Family Life, Growing Up, Testing Wings, Empty Nest Syndrome