A poem

Clever commenter Yuna at the Marmot's Hole presented us with a poem by Philip Larkin:

They fu¢k you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

There is some truth to this of course, but not always. My father's father was a raging alcoholic who was violent and abusive. My father strived hard to be as unlike his own dad as possible, so in the end he has merely been abusive. 

[left: Philip Larkin, not my dad.]