Ogden Nash 3.2

Meanwhile psychologists grow rich
Writing that the young are ones parents should not undermine the self-confidence of which.
~     Ogden Nash, "There's Nothing Like Instinct. Fortunately." (9)

Parenting is a common theme for Nash, and he speaks of his daughter(s) with wit and adoration. One poem is even written from her perspective (ironically) and another speculates about what she must be thinking. The poems themselves are often juvenile, especially the few about animals or insects. Despite these bouts of childishness, the presence of the daughter or child in the poem is always "othered." The child does something frustrating (spills ice cream, refuses to do chores, etc), but not with author-like power, or agency. Like texts in Childland, childhood is set up as opposed to adulthood, but the adult perspective is privileged. Children are this other thing that the adult attempts to understand, or over which the adult places a facetious interpretive paradigm.

I need to find the books he co-authored with his oldest daughter, or the book "Girls Are Silly."