Your Mother's Upstairs

Your mother's upstairs
And upset
Very upset

Because of something
Somebody said to her today

Who do you think that was?

Who do you think said something?

Do you know?

Do you know who it was?

Do you?

Well, she's crying

Your mother is crying in bed
And I'm not sure what to do about it

I'm not sure there's anything
That can be done

Somebody really broke her spirit today
Didn't they?

Didn't they?

And that person should feel very, very badly
About themselves

They should ask themselves
If they feel good
About what they've done

And if they do
Then maybe
Just maybe
They don't deserve a mother
As kind and sweet and loving
As the one crying upstairs

Don't you think so?

You know, we've had these problems before
Many, many times
And I'm not quite sure how to deal with them

And yet I have to deal with them
Because I'm the father
Because I'm in charge

Because I come home to find your mother crying
And you sitting in your room
As if nothing's happened
As if nothing's happened at all

Some fathers would hit you, you know

Do you know that?

My father used to hit me
When I did something wrong

Not when I made my mother cry
Because I wasn't such a terrible child
To make my mother cry
And if I had, well, I'm not sure I'd be here
Talking to you today

But I don't believe in hitting
And neither does your mother
So where does that leave us?

I don't know

It doesn't leave us many options though
Not many at all

And yet I have to find one
When I'd really rather just relax
After a hard day at work
But I can't
Because then I'd be a bad father
And we already have someone in this family
Doing poorly at contributing
To make things better
So I certainly can't start slacking off
Or the entire institution would crumble, wouldn't it?

Were you aware of that?

Probably not

It would take too much thinking on your part

Well, I'm going to go upstairs
And wait for your mother to calm down
So we talk about what we're going to do

Perhaps you should go somewhere for a little while
And think about what happened today
And think about whether or not
You actually think you deserve to be in this house

Perhaps you'll decide not to come back

...That would be your decision

Or perhaps you'll just choose to start contributing

But then again, some people find it impossible
To turn themselves around
Once they've discovered
Just how rotten they are

Either way, I'd like you to remain outside of this house
For at least a few hours
While I try and repair what you've done

The irreparable harm you've done

I couldn't even conceive of doing something so awful
As talking back to my mother
When I was in fourth grade
But then again, I'm not you, am I?

By now, if you'd had my father
You'd be begging me to let you go outside
And get away from your punishment

So consider yourself lucky