For Partly Proud Parents

Light verse about children.

From the Introduction:
It was high time, I thought, that parents rose up in rebellion. Already
they had lost their youth, their sleep, and their authority. What had they
left to lose save their chains? They needed a Voice, and it had not spoken.

I was too pessimistic. Unknown to me, at that very moment, on a California
campus, a voice was being lifted.

It was not the voice of an agitator - of a Robespierre or a Trotsky. It
was a mild and patient and reasonable Voice. It did not advocate abolishing
children. It did not recommend overthrowing (bloodily) the Progressive
School. Rather, it sought to explain the case of Parents. It asserted that
they, too, had beating hearts and palpitating nerves and Rights.

The voice belonged to one Richard Armour doubly one of the Little People,
because in addition to being a Parent he was also a Poet. And this book is
his manifesto.

.
.
.

Parents who read (and they say there are many such, although they do it by
night and stealthily) can now see themselves presented in a properly
sympathetic light.

.
.
.

Even the younger generation must recognize themselves here, and if they
don't burn the book in the streets (or, more likely, use it to crack nuts
on the parquet floor) may give thought to what lies ahead. For Armour is
Telling All, he is Striking a Blow, but he is also a merciful man. Even at
his most cutting, he has the welfare of the race at heart. Adults must
rise up all right, he warns. But this book contains another sort of
warning, an implicit one, and it is this: Let every child remember that
he too may some day join the ranks of the underprivileged. Some day he,
too, may be a Parent.