KHADIJAH SIMON ENGLISH B POEM ESSAY

Parenting woes are clearly visible in the poems “Little Boy Crying” and “The Woman Speaks

to The Man That Has Employed Her Son.’’ In both poems, each parent has to make an

important decision for their child. These decisions do not only affect the children, they also

affect the parents. In each poem, the use of metaphor and Irony assists in portraying the

challenges associated with parenting.

In “Little boy Crying”, the boy’s father had to make a decision about discipline. His

son was playing in the rain which was something that he was not supposed to be doing. Even

though the father did not like to see the son suffer, he still beat him because he could not ruin

the lessons that his son must learn. If his son does not learn these important lessons, he will

lack the discipline he would need when he gets older.

In “The woman Speaks to the Man who has Employed Her Son”, the mother had to

make the decision to accept the job that her son has. Even though she put no limit on what her

child could be when he becomes an adult, she was not expecting that he would get into a field

that was so lethal. According to the field that her son works in, he has to deal with deadly

weapons in risky situations where either he would be able to harm people or people would be

able to harm him. In anticipation of his passing, she bought black cloth in order to make an

outfit for her to wear at his funeral.

 This decision that the mother had to make affected her in a negative way. She felt

disappointed, scared and powerless over the situation between her and her son. She could not

understand where she went wrong after all the time spent nurturing her child. She wept in

distress in front of her son’s boss. Despite this, she found some strength in prayer and reciting

psalms for both her son and his employer.

The use of metaphors in “The Woman Speaks to The Man who Has Employed Her Son”

portrays the challenges of parenting. In the first and second stanzas, the speaker explains the

joys and the sorrows of parenting. A metaphor used in Stanza one about the metallic tide of

morning sickness shows how agitating carrying a child could be then to see them throw away

their life by doing a deadly job.

In “Little Boy Crying” however, the poet uses irony to portray the difficulties of parenting.

Even though the little boy sees his father as a mean person who does not want to see him

happy, the irony is that his father does not want to see his son crying and longs to play with

him and make him happy. He does not want to have to be rough on him, but has to because

his son needs to learn that there are consequences for being disobedient. No parent would

want to see their child unhappy.

In conclusion, the theme of parenting issues are relevant in both poems with effects that

affect both parents and their children. Each poet uses literary devices to portray the theme and

get their point across.