Even though he does not directly address why he is opposed to prognostication of his son's future, it is very probable that this reason is one of the motivators for his opposition. Right after describing his son being brought home in a police car, the speaker feels the need to clarify he does not think his youngster will only be acting disobediently: .
Not because.
I can't imagine the way he will carefully.
hold his hand above his heart.
after he has unfurled the skin from his meaty thumb (Thomson 5-9).
What the father wants to communicate through the image of his descendant holding his hand above his heart is as if he was saluting a figure of authority, someone he has great respect for, perhaps the father himself. He wants to feel proud of his son; he wants to know he has raised a well-rounded kid, someone with values, morals and ethics. He also visualizes "how he will rip apart a frog hind legs to jaw and how he will feel after" (Thomson 9-10). The father imagines his son dissecting a frog at his biology class, then, feeling bad about it. This could probably mean that he wishes his son to feel compassion for animals, just like he does. These verses, along with the ones about "The Audobon Field Guide", not only show that he wants his kid to be an animal lover, but that he himself is one. In the next two stanzas he shifts from what he wants to happen to his kid, to what he fears happening to him:.
I have not talked about the day he will wrap.
his friend's car around a tree and somehow.
walk away, leaving the scene limping.
home to sleep in bloody sheets (Thomson 11-14).
What the father thought about when writing these verses is his son not acting in an exemplary manner. He is aware of the many risks youth is exposed to now a days. Society is currently encountering lots of teenagers participating in risky, dangerous and otherwise irrational behavior. The speaker is most likely imagining his son drinking and driving, situation that eventually ended up in an accident killing his friend.
