Alternative endings to rudyard Kipling 'If'

[reikizen]

I enjoy the poem but have an obvious problem with the 'you will be a man, my son' ending. Does anyone have any suggestions for female alternatives?

"You will be a woman, my girl"?

Marie Stopes actually suggested an alternative ending to Kipling. Her idea might have been good feminism, but it also showed her unfortunate (but common in her day) racism:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And you will lead the race o'er ground you've won.

He politely told her to eff off.

Gender neutral: 'You will be an adult, my child'

Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, alas, and doesn't scan.

Apart from that being a badly written ending which doesn't fit with the rhythm and metre, I took "race" to mean a running race or competition and the person to be a winner.

The ending doesn't need to be changed but how about
"You'll be a transwoman my son?"

Do you mean alternative poems or re-writing Kipling's poem. I think you explain it was written in a different time and place.

Many of Kipling's attitudes would be unacceptable today but you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is still merit in stoicism and an acceptance of duty.

Why is there an obvious problem with the ending ?

The problem being I am not a man, nor will ever be - and don't see maleness as the pinnacle of human achievement! I just thought it would be nice to have a neutral alternative ending to read to my daughters, it has bugged me for many years! love the idea of being a trans woman, so 2017!

I am not a man, nor will ever be - and don't see maleness as the pinnacle of human achievement!

That is not what the poem is saying.

The poem is a set of guidelines on how to live and act with integrity and right values such that one becomes the ideal human.

I really don't see what is so difficult with explaining "man" means a child grown into an adult a parent can be proud of and explain the historical context of when and who wrote it.

These match the syllables:
"And- which is more- your adulthood is won"
Or
"And- which is more- your humanity is won" (too many syllables)
Or
"And- which is more- your best is yet to come" (almost rhymes)
Or
"And- which is more- you'll find that life is fun"

The last two are the closest to the original metrically I think.
None have the same impact as the original, though!

Ooh, I like your adulthood is won.

Or you could go all netmumsy:
"You'll be a woman, hun!"

Sorry, but I think all of those suggestions are terrible. They spoil the flow and none capture what he was saying. The last 2 might be closest metrically but they don't capture the sense at all.

I still don't understand what the problem is with simply explaining the meaning and leaving Kipling's words alone.

You will be grown, little one.

I much prefer joke version "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.... you probably don't understand the severity of the problem" though.

Shame he sent his son to die a pointless death in the trenches, really. He wasn't a man for long, poor sod.

'And what is more, your childhood will be done." ?

I've always thought it was written to his actual son, which, considering their relationship adds an extra dimension.

I realise it isn't a feminist work, but I still take what I like from it.

I think it would be better to write a new poem about womenhood, rather than say that a man's concept of how a man should be should be rolled out across all of humanity. To express the experience of womanhood, one must be a woman - Phenomenal Woman or Still I Rise couldn't have been written by a man.

you'll be a woman, hun

😂

"You'll be a woman, hun!"

Nailed it

I vote for the hun

I liked the other joke version: if you can keep your head while all around are losing theirs... You're the axe murderer.

Not too keen on the last couple of lines anyway; they're a little too jingoistic for my taste.

I think one of the problems is that the poem is so much of its time that you either need to rewrite the entire thing, find something else, or explain the context.

As suspected, someone's already had a go at a feminist version here, which I quite like:

serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/reflections/if

Sheesh! Do we have to rewrite every poem ever written which includes the word "man"??

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52705

Argh!

I think both of the rewrites show how good a writer Kipling was.

Yes, my comment was as much to do with the writing as the bread and fudge!

I actually can't find much fault with the Kipling If. It's obviously a popular one, but it doesn't really get tired, which is a huge feat.

Yikes, that second one is particularly awful.

Had a little titter at 'you'll be a woman, hun'. Very droll.

MumBod you might be interested in his poem 'who will return us the children' if you haven't run across it. Kipling more than understood afterwards that he'd helped and encouraged that poor lad to rush towards an awful death.