First Child ... Second Child
First Child ... Second Child - meaning Summary
Exuberant Then Indifferent
Ogden Nash contrasts two parental responses to newborns. The first child is greeted with comic hyperbole and frantic admiration, every ordinary feature celebrated as miraculous. The second arrival is reported in a terse, offhand announcement, reducing birth to a routine update. The juxtaposition satirizes parental pride, novelty fatigue, and social conventions around birth announcements, turning a familiar family event into a punchline about attention and expectation.
Read Complete AnalysesFIRST Be it a girl, or one of the boys, It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois, It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician Have possibly been a lobstertrician? His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory, But how's for an infantile inventory? Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle! Whether its head is oval or spherical, You rejoice to find it has only one, Having dreaded a two-headed daughter or son; Here's the phenomenon all complete, It's got two hands, it's got two feet, Only natural, but pleasing, because For months you have dreamed of flippers or claws. Furthermore, it is fully equipped: Fingers and toes with nails are tipped; It's even got eyes, and a mouth clear cut; When the mouth comes open the eyes go shut, When the eyes go shut, the breath is loosed And the presence of lungs can be deduced. Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder, This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder. A staggering child, a child astounding, Dazzling, diaperless, dumbfounding, Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed, A child to stagger and flabbergast, Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn, And the only perfect one ever born. SECOND Arrived this evening at half-past nine. Everybody is doing fine. Is it a boy, or quite the reverse? You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.
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