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Women Are The Fulfilled Sex. Through Our Children We Are Able To Produce Our Own Immortality, So We Lack That Divine Restlessness Which Sends Men Charging Off In Pursuit Of Fortune Or Fame Or An Imagined Utopia. That Is Why We Number So Few Geniuses Among Us. The Wholesome Oyster Wears No Pearl, The Healthy Whale No Ambergris, And As Long As We Can Keep On Adding To The Race, We Harbor A Sort Of Health Within Ourselves.

-Phyllis McGinley

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Women Are The Fulfilled

Phyllis McGinley

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Women Are The Fulfilled Sex. Through Our Children We Are Able To Produce Our Own Immortality, So We Lack That Divine Restlessness Which Sends Men Charging Off In Pursuit Of Fortune Or Fame Or An Imagined Utopia. That Is Why We Number So Few Geniuses Among Us. The Wholesome Oyster Wears No Pearl, The Healthy Whale No Ambergris, And As Long As We Can Keep On Adding To The Race, We Harbor A Sort Of Health Within Ourselves.

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Scratch Any Father, You Find / Someone Chock-full Of Qualms And Romantic Terrors, / Believing Change Is A Threat.

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Getting Along With Men Isn't What's Truly Important. The Vital Knowledge Is How To Get Along With One Man.

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A Mother's Hardest To Forgive. Life Is The Fruit She Longs To Hand You Ripe On A Plate. And While You Live, Relentlessly She Understands You.

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Ah, Snug Lie Those That Slumber Beneath Conviction's Roof. Their Floors Are Sturdy Lumber, Their Windows Weatherproof. But I Sleep Cold Forever And Cold Sleep All My Kind, For I Was Born To Shiver In The Draft From An Open Mind.

Frigidity Is Largely Nonsense. It Is This Generation's Catchword, One Only Vaguely Understood And Constantly Misused. Frigid Women Are Few. There Is A Host Of Diffident And Slow-ripening Ones.

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Happiness Puts On As Many Shapes As Discontent, And There Is Nothing Odder Than The Satisfaction Of One's Neighbor.

Of The Small Gifts Of Heaven, / It Seems To Me A More Than Equal Share / At Birth Was Given / To Girls With Curly Hair.

I Have Read That During The Process Of Canonization The Catholic Church Demands Proof Of Joy In The Candidate, And Although I Have Not Been Able To Track Down Chapter And Verse I Like The Suggestion That Dourness Is Not A Sacred Attribute.

Let Others, Worn With Living / And Living's Aftermath, / Take Sleep To Heal The Heart's Distress, / Take Love To Be Their Comfortress, / Take Song Or Food Or Fancy Dress, / But I Shall Take A Bath.

In Spring When Maple Buds Are Red, We Turn The Clock An Hour Ahead; Which Means, Each April That Arrives, We Lose An Hour Out Of Our Lives. Who Cares? When Autumn Birds In Flocks Fly Southward, Back We Turn The Clocks, And So Regain A Lovely Thing That Missing Hour We Lost In Spring.

It's Hard / Keeping Up With The Avant-garde.

Sons Do Not Need You. They Are Always Out Of Your Reach, Walking Strange Waters.

The East Is A Montage. It Is Old And It Is Young, Very Green In Summer, Very White In Winter, Gregarious, Withdrawn And At Once Both Sophisticated And Provincial.

Those Wearing Tolerance For A Label Call Other Views Intolerable.

Meek-eyed Parents Hasten Down The Ramps To Greet Their Offspring, Terrible From Camps.

Kindness Is A Virtue Neither Modern Nor Urban. One Almost Unlearns It In A City. Towns Have Their Own Beatitude; They Are Not Unfriendly; They Offer A Vast And Solacing Anonymity Or An Equally Vast And Solacing Gregariousness. But One Needs A Neighbor On Whom To Practice Compassion.

What In Me Is Pure Conviction Is Simple Prejudice In You.

The Successful Truck Gardener Can Never Go Out To Dinner In The Summer Or Spend A Week End Away, Because His Conscience Tells Him He Has To Be At Home Eating Up His Corn Or Packaging His Beans For The Freezer.

The Wonderful Thing About Saints Is That They Were Human. They Lost Their Tempers, Got Hungry, Scolded God, Were Egotistical Or Impatient In Their Turns, Made Mistakes And Regretted Them. Still They Went On Doggedly Blundering Toward Heaven.

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The East Is The Hearthside Of America. Like Any Home, Therefore, It Has The Defects Of Its Virtues. Because It Is A Long-lived-inhouse, It Bursts Its Seams, Is Inconvenient, Needs Constant Refurbishing. And Some Of The Family Resources Have Been Spent. To Attain The Privacy That Grown-up People Find So Desirable, Easterners Live A Harder Life Than People Elsewhere. Today It Is We And Not The Frontiersman Who Must Be Rugged To Survive.

Compromise, If Not The Spice Of Life, Is Its Solidity. It Is What Makes Nations Great And Marriages Happy

Ah! Some Love Paris, / And Some Purdue. / But Love Is An Archer With A Low I.q. / A Bold, Bad Bowman, And Innocent Of Pity. / So I'm In Love With / New York City.

Children From Ten To Twenty Don't Want To Be Understood. Their Whole Ambition Is To Feel Strange And Alien And Misinterpreted So That They Can Live Austerely In Some Stone Tower Of Adolescence, Their Privacies Unviolated.

Aunts Are Discreet, A Little Shy / By Instinct. They Forbear To Pry.

Sisters Are Always Drying Their Hair. Locked Into Rooms, Alone, They Pose At The Mirror, Shoulders Bare, Trying This Way And That Their Hair, Or Fly Importunate Down The Stair To Answer The Telephone.

Gossip Isn't Scandal And It's Not Merely Malicious. It's Chatter About The Human Race By Lovers Of The Same. Gossip Is The Tool Of The Poet, The Shop-talk Of The Scientist, And The Consolation Of The Housewife, Wit, Tycoon And Intellectual. It Begins In The Nursery And Ends When Speech Is Past.

For Little Boys Are Rancorous When Robbed Of Any Myth, And Spiteful And Cantankerous To All Their Kin And Kith. But Little Girls Can Draw Conclusions And Profit From Their Lost Illusions.

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Pressed For Rules And Verities, All I Recolelct Are These: Feed A Cold And Starve A Fever. Argue With No True Believer. Think-too-long Is Never-act. Scratch A Myth And Find A Fact.

The Saints Differ From Us In Their Exuberance, The Excess Of Our Human Talents. Moderation Is Not Their Secret. It Is In The Wildness Of Their Dreams, The Desperate Vitality Of Their Ambitions, That They Stand Apart From Ordinary People Of Good Will.

God Knows That A Mother Needs Fortitude And Courage And Tolerance And Flexibility And Patience And Firmness And Nearly Every Other Brave Aspect Of The Human Soul. But Because I Happen To Be A Parent Of Almost Fiercely Maternal Nature, I Praise Casualness. It Seems To Me The Rarest Of Virtues. It Is Useful Enough When Children Are Small. It Is Useful To The Point Of Necessity When They Are Adolescents.

Shunning The Upstart Shower, / The Cold And Cursory Scrub, / I Celebrate The Power / That Lies Within The Tub.

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For The Hearts Of Nurses Are Solid Gold, / But Their Heels Are Flat And Their Hands Are Cold, / And Their Voices Lilt With A Lilt That's Falser / Than The Smile Of An Exhibition Waltzer. / Yes, Nurses Can Cure You, Nurses Restore You, / But Nurses Are Bound That They Do Things For You.

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Nothing Fails Like Success; Nothing Is So Defeated As Yesterday's Triumphant Cause.

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Not Reading Poetry Amounts To A National Pastime Here.

I Sing Connecticut, Her Charms / Of Rivers, Orchards, Blossoming Ridges. / I Sing Her Gardens, Fences, Farms, / Spiders And Midges.

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Gardening Has Compensations Out Of All Proportion To Its Goals. It Is Creation In The Pure Sense.

Women Are Not Men's Equals In Anything Except Responsibility. We Are Not Their Inferiors, Either, Or Even Their Superiors. We Are Quite Simply Different Races.

I'm A Middle-bracket Person With A Middle-bracket Spouse / And We Live Together Gaily In A Middle-bracket House. / We've A Fair-to-middlin' Family; We Take The Middle View; / So We're Manna Sent From Heaven To Internal Revenue.

Tomorrow Will Come And Today Will Pass, / But The Hearts Of The Young Are Brittle As Glass.

In Australia, Not Reading Poetry Is The National Pastime.

Marriage Was All A Woman's Idea And For Man's Acceptance Of The Pretty Yoke, It Becomes Us To Be Grateful.

The Enemy, Who Wears Her Mother's Usual Face And Confidential Tone, Has Access; Doubtless Stares Into Her Writing Case And Listens On The Phone.

The System - The American One, At Least - Is A Vast And Noble Experiment. It Has Been Polestar And Exemplar For Other Nations. But From Kindergarten Until She Graduates From College The Girl Is Treated In It Exactly Like Her Brothers. She Studies The Same Subjects, Becomes Proficient At The Same Sports. Oh, It Is A Magnificent Lore She Learns, Education For The Mind Beyond Anything Jane Austen Or Saint Theresa Or Even Mrs. Pankhurst Ever Dreamed. It Is Truly Utopian. But Utopia Was Never Meant To Exist On This Disheveled Planet.

The Human Animal Needs A Freedom Seldom Mentioned, Freedom From Intrusion. He Needs A Little Privacy As Much As He Wants Understanding Or Vitamins Or Exercise Or Praise.

Wherever Conversation's Flowing, / Why Must I Feel It Falls On Me / To Keep Things Going?

Love Or Perish" We Are Told And We Tell Ourselves. The Phrase Is True Enough So Long As We Do Not Interpret It As "mingle Or Be A Failure.

A Lover Would Find Life Less Broken Apart After A Misguided Love Affair If They Could Feel That They Had Been Sinful Rather Than Foolish.

To Be A Housewife Is A Difficult, A Wrenching, Sometimes An Ungrateful Job If It Is Looked On Only As A Job. Regarded As A Profession, It Is The Noblest As It Is The Most Ancient Of The Catalogue. Let None Persuade Us Differently Or The World Is Lost Indeed.

Borrow My Umbrellas, My Clothes, My Money, And I Will Likely Not Think Of Them Again. But Borrow My Books And I Will Be On Your Track Like A Bloodhound Until They Are Returned.

Seventy Is Wormwood, Seventy Is Gall But Its Better To Be Seventy, Than Not Alive At All.

Oh, High Is The Price Of Parenthood, And Daughters May Cost You Double. You Dare Not Forget, As You Thought You Could, That Youth Is A Plague And A Trouble.

Sin Has Always Been An Ugly Word, But It Has Been Made So In A New Sense Over The Last Half-century. It Has Been Made Not Only Ugly But Pass?. People Are No Longer Sinful, They Are Only Immature Or Underprivileged Or Frightened Or, More Particularly, Sick.

Stir The Eggnog, Lift The Toddy, Happy New Year Everybody.

In A Successful Marriage, There Is No Such Thing As One's Way. There Is Only The Way Of Both, Only The Bumpy, Dusty, Difficult, But Always Mutual Path.

Oh, Princes Thrive On Caviar, The Poor On Whey And Curds, / And Politicians, I Infer, Must Eat Their Windy Words. / It's Crusts That Feed The Virtuous, It's Cake That Comforts Sinners, / But Writers Live On Bread And Praise At Literary Dinners.

A Lady Is Smarter Than A Gentleman, Maybe, She Can Sew A Fine Seam, She Can Have A Baby, She Can Use Her Intuition Instead Of Her Brain, But She Can't Fold A Paper In A Crowded Train.

The Knowingness Of Little Girls, Is Hidden Underneath Their Curls.

O, Merry Is The Optimist, With The Troops Of Courage Leaguing. But A Dour Trend In Any Friend Is Somehow Less Fatiguing.

If Childhood Is Still A State, It Is Now Chiefly A State Of Confusion.

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I Am He / Who Champions Total Liberty - / Intolerance Being, Ma'am, A State / No Tolerant Man Can Tolerate.

Suffering Is As Necessary To Entertaining As Vermouth Is To A Martini - A Small But Vital Ingredient.

Ladies With Curly Hair / Have Time To Spare.

Who Could Deny That Privacy Is A Jewel? It Has Always Been The Mark Of Privilege, The Distinguishing Feature Of A Truly Urbane Culture. Out Of The Cave, The Tribal Teepee, The Pueblo, The Community Fortress, Man Emerged To Build Himself A House Of His Own With A Shelter In It For Himself And His Diversions. Every Age Has Seen It So. The Poor Might Have To Huddle Together In Cities For Need's Sake, And The Frontiersman Cling To His Neighbors For The Sake Of Protection. But In Each Civilization, As It Advanced, Those Who Could Afford It Chose The Luxury Of A Withdrawing-place.

There Are Books That One Needs Maturity To Enjoy Just As There Are Books An Adult Can Come On Too Late To Savor.

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