Girl Power: I can sit still

Girl Power: I can sit still

 P1, 1960.

I am five years old.

I can sit still and listen. 

I will not talk because 

the teacher asked us not to. 

Us is me too.

This is not hard to do.

It's just as easy as standing still

or, after playtime, marching indoors  

quietly in pairs while holding

your partner's hand, or

Good Morning, Boys and Girls,

returning the teacher's greeting

in unison. And likewise sitting down

on receiving the invite, as thusly 

it was phrased, for politeness.

So proceeded the day; politely,

willingly, orderly, quietly.

Such discipline needing no effort

for although I did not know it

this is what makes me, me.

My little self, showing an iron will

in following a template whose end

was to make me worthy

of respect in my journey to

being a lady, the loveliest  and

the truest girl power.

Admittedly, the time frame is short for its application, but one wonders if epigenetic effects are also involved in the apparent constitutional inability of so many contemporary children to sit still and otherwise demonstrate the strong self-control of their recent ancestors. This control being especially true of little girls then, who could apply and project it at a truly formidable level, as I clearly recall.

We refer to 'also involved' as an acknowledgement of the various societal changes in this same time-frame. Powerful though such forces obviously are, they still seem to me to be not sufficient to explain the random, inner chaos that finds first expression in the inability to sit still on instruction.

And repeated instruction.