One Question Quiz
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ParentsAugust 1, 2017

24 perfect haiku about parenting

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Pixabay

Can you sum up parenting in a few syllables? We asked some members of the Brilliant & Amazing Writers & Mothers online writers’ community to share some haiku with us.

Cold hands grabbing me
Mummy, mummy, where are you.
I don’t know. Do you?

– Emalitza

Coffee. More coffee.
Remember waking up when
It was light outside?

– Kerry

Parenting fatigue
Toilet training, night waking.
Bad combination.

– Sophia

Yellow plastic pain
Lego interrogates foot
Up vacuum it goes

– Loretta

Cat, cat, cat, cat, cat
(Mummy says it’s called a dog)
Cat, cat, cat, cat, cat.

– Sarah

A pregnancy test

My eyes prick with tears
Such fragile early hoping
The earth holds its breath.

– Stacey

Someone is smelly.
Is it the dog or Pippa?
Oh. It’s both of you.

– Alexandra

How can so much wee
Come out of one little girl?
Where do you keep it?

– Jessica

The thing is, I can’t
Work out what to do with you
When you get like this.

– Liz

Strung out like washing
Exposed to life’s elements
When I need retreat

– Arihia

He holds me so tight.
Then he bites my nipple hard.
Smiling little egg.

– Emmaline

He is asleep now
I quickly cover my boob
A bra as armour.

– Sarah

1am. loud wail.
small toy, lost in tangled sheets.
found. held tight. silence.

– Jo

Reheated coffee
Post-breakfast baby sleeping
Simple luxury.

– Roz

A secret biscuit
Dipped in my lukewarm coffee
Thank fuck for cartoons.

– Dana

Coffee. School lunches.
Laundry pile. Grumpy teen
Morning progresses.

– Rebekah

Kindy time: the peace
The ache of missing them, too
Two parallel lives.

– Thalia

Can’t carve time for me
from block whittled by work kids
need more than sawdust.

– Sisilia

Juggle Mama work
Meeting email calls report
Balance not forthcoming.

– Helen

Loud cry fills the room
Lil hands and head seeks me out
Blearily I go.

– Kim

Marriage is trying
Not to lose it while you shit
60 minutes. Really?

– Helen

Considering if
It is acceptable to
School run in PJs.

– Kerry

So much exhaustion
Will I find the energy?
Yes, it’s in his smile.

– Linda

I hear baby cry.
Husband is rocking him now.
Please not my turn yet.

– Eliza

The day, mess, drags by
Greeted by, dark, hours doubting,
Did I give enough?

– Dana

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