A year ago this week my wife gave birth to two wonderful baby girls. I haven't been writing about fatherhood much on this blog because 1. Parenting blogging is notoriously awful, no matter how well-intentioned and 2. My kids don't need all kinds of stuff about them floating around in cyberspace that they can read later and resent me for.
However, there has been one thought on my mind the last few weeks that sums up how parenthood has changed my outlook. If possible, I have become more pessimistic about the direction the world and this country in particular is taking. I wonder whether the children of two teachers will have the financial resources and connections to compete in a world without a middle class.
Out of one of my speculative moods I hatched a sci-fi image of the future that I can't shake from my head. By the time folks my age are retiring, Social Security and Medicare will be in tatters (if there at all.) In my vision, the government will offer a large lump cash sum to the families of those people who decide to be euthanized at the age of 65, since they will save so much precious money for the system. Now that I am a parent, I actually think that if such a future exists, I would volunteer to be put to death like Sol at the end of Soylent Green, if it would mean that my children could live life with financial security.
I know that's a crazy thought, but I feel like I would do anything I could for my children, no matter what. That willingness to sacrifice everything for my kids pretty much embodies everything fatherhood has done to my attitude towards my life.
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