Child Development
by Billy Collins
As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three-year-old children
enter the phase of name-calling.

Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.

The mature save their hothead invective
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dope heads
and that they themselves are Mr. Silly pants

Vocabulary
Navaho-1.a member of a North American Indian people of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah
               2.the language of these people, belonging to the Athapascan group of the Na-Dene phylum

Invective- Violent or intense scolding, scorn or criticism

Analysis
As the poem inaugurates, Billy Collins grants his notion that we all cross the threshold into this world of name calling assuredly resembling how prehistoric fish grew legs and learned to walk on land. That it is inside all of us and is naturally put into the formation of us as human beings to learn this form of bad mouthing at the age of three. He articulates that everyday new insults are added and they yell them from knee level with their little faces showing their challenging expressions. He uses names like “dumb goopyhead, big Sewerface, and you poop-on-the-floor” as a means to show us how amusing their insults can really be when you think about it. He relates this to trash talk that drunks would use in a bar to upset a foolhardy adult and says “nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out of the pub, but then toddlers are not trying to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.”

With conviction,  classic of Billy Collins, he says it blatantly, that there isn't much meaning behind this and it is just the way kids behave and they habitually get scolded for it; repeatedly scolded for being mean when really they mean nothing by it while adults are the real mean ones. Their name calling is done behind closed doors and in secrecy

                “They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.” 
                          

There leaves a possibility that behind closed doors, grown-ups know they are being silly because while children say what they want then and there adults conceal or disguise it and ever so often save it for later, inevitably saying the duplicate things as the children had only in other words.

            I do think that Billy Collins proposes that they mean no actual harm with this way of being, but it’s a way to get their feelings out only the try to be grownups about it. It shows in the poem his relation to the children’s minds and how they see adults in saying that

            The poem concludes with saying that grownups save their anger or tempers for inanimate objects, such as “an errant hammer, tire chains, or receding trains missed by seconds,” that unlike children who just blurt it out to one another as they see apt, and that even though we discipline our children for this supposedly atrocious behavior, we then think and realize to ourselves that we do the same thing, per say when the person turns their back, or at an object that doesn't even have emotions and can’t talk back to us, this is evident in the poem when Billy writes that, “though they know in their adult hearts, even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed for his appalling behavior, that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids, their wives are Dopey Dope heads, and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.” truancy 

The poem carries humorous vibes in the way he compares adults and their behavior to that of children’s so truthfully and illustrates frankly that in some ways adults truly never will grow up. A thought on the message of this poem is that; this very thing that drives adults to care of what other people think doesn't allow them to express themselves as most children so freely do.

This poem is relate-able! Because candidly we've all heard our parents in some way, be it joking or serous, talk not-so-fondly about one of their friends own friends or about “how aunt Betty had one too drinks at that wedding and was starting to embarrass herself let alone them”. This creed or belief system doesn't allow for adults to be themselves in public and this poem points out bluntly but makes you laugh along the way.