This Be The Verse, Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Families are so fucked up, and it's boring me now, like watching the same episodes of "Brothers and Sisters" (whose central axis is the theme of familial dysfunction) again and again. Hilariously, I doubt the family members themselves ever know just how fucked up each of them is. Really, you should ask each person's friends, former friends and boyfriends and girlfriends and then, once you'd filtered out their own baggage, you'd see the damage from every angle.

When I was 17 I thought of going to university in America quite seriously. Maybe if I hadn't got a boyfriend then I would've gone . . .