Cradle Knockers Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

I remember when being physically disciplined,
Was an immediate lesson taught.
No one ran to books to raise their children.
Or tolerated the sight of pouting.
Being punished with a whipping,
Was dared to have a tear drip from eyes.
Yet...
I never understood why my mother would cry,
Telling me not to while swinging a switch.
The very one she told me to pick,
And strip it of leaves.
So proud I was to announce I had found,
One if the biggest ones I saw on the bush.
Who knows.
Perhaps she cried because she thought,
I had begun loving to get...
My bare butt whipped.

In those days,
Adults were adults.
And children were made to pay attention.
Those that didn't,
Raised children who paid the consequences.
How else can one explain,
The epidemic of stupidity today?
It seems the only ones who get the message,
Are those released from prison.
Healed from emotional wounds,
Inflicted by unqualified parents.

Cradle Knockers.
These folks did not run to their kids,
As if trained and manipulated...
By little demons seeking ways to control,
Movements made by others around them.
Using sweet and cute giggles,
Reeling fools in on the casting of their bait.
And certainly...
No one I knew,
Had been paid millions of dollars...
Before they crawled and knew how to walk.
As an 'allowance'? ? ?

This activity,
Permitted to continue to exist...
Will produce,
A mind to discover tricks and wickedness quick.
With the slickest use of manipulation,
One day 'someone' is going to pay for it.
Or, Heaven forbid...
A complete downfall of a nation.
Blinded by and beyond light years of delusion.
Feasting on this kind of addicting mental illness.

Spare the rod.
Spoil the child.
With a doing done to do,
To produce...
Bushels.
Orchards.
Cities.
States.
Left crazed.
By rotten spoiled apples allowed to be cute.
Allowed to be sweet.
Allowed to decay the quality of life.
To then be applauded and cheered for it.
This...
Is some serious missed distribution of sanity.
Or how it had been effectively called,
A normalcy!
When not under destructive to instruct it hypnosis.