The Glamorous Life

[FREDERICKA]
Ordinary mothers lead ordinary lives
Keep the house and sweep the parlor
Mend the clothes and tend the children
Ordinary mothers, like ordinary wives
Make the beds and bake the pies
And wither on the vine—
Not mine

Dying by inches
Every night—
What a glamorous life!
Brought on by winches
To recite—
What a glamorous life!

Ordinary mothers never
Get the flowers
And ordinary mothers never
Get the joys
Ordinary mothers couldn't
Cough for hours
Maintaining their poise

Sandwiches only
But she eats
What she wants when she wants
Sometimes it's lonely
But she meets
Many handsome gallants

Ordinary mothers don't live out of cases
But ordinary mothers don't go different places
Which ordinary mothers can't do
Being mothers all day
Mine's away in a play
And she's realer than they...

What if her brooch is
Only glass
And her costumes unravel?
What if her coach is
Second class?
She at least gets to travel

And sometime this summer, meaning soon
She'll be traveling to me!
Sometime this summer, maybe June
I'm the new place she'll see!

Ordinary daughters may think
Life is better
With ordinary mothers near them
When they choose
But ordinary daughters seldom
Get a letter
Enclosing reviews!

Gay and resilient
With applause—
What a glamorous life!
Speeches are brilliant
If they're Shaw's—
What a glamorous life!

Ordinary mothers needn't meet committees
But ordinary mothers don't get keys to cities
No, ordinary mothers merely see their children all year
Which is lovely, I hear
But it does interfere
With the glamorous—

I am the princess, guarded by dragons
Snorting and grumbling and rumbling in wagons
She's in her kingdom, wearing disguises
Living a life that is full of surprises
And sometime this summer
She'll come galloping over the green!
Sometime this summer
To the rescue, my mother the queen!

Ordinary mothers thrive on
Being private
And ordinary mothers somehow
Can survive it
But ordinary mothers never
Know they're just standing still
With the kettles to fill
While they're missing the thrill
Of the glamorous life!