The paternal condition

LISTEN. Back from our beach holiday, but that June mood persists. Long hot days when those who don't rise at dawn are to be pitied for missing the literal and figurative cool of aurora. The triple-digit forecast has been downgraded to 99, but sitting here with the pups in 59 degrees with windows open anticipating a pleasant walk... that's the glory of summer. 

And Father's Day is part of the glory of summer. Younger Daughter plied me with thoughtful presents (not least of which was a sumptuous breakfast), but none could exceed the simple gift of her presence. I'm not taking it for granted, Older Daughter has been two time-zones away for years. The strongest parental bonds stretch and won't break, but there's a lot to be said for geographical proximity.

And despite the sacrifices and losses and occasional disappointments there's a lot to be said for the experience of parenthood. Fathers Day is a good time to reflect on that, on the expectations we bring to it and the reality that confounds some of them. But my expectation was always that it would be a privilege and a pleasure to spend quality time with growing minds, and to anticipate the ways in which they'd add value to a world in dire need of amelioration. That expectation hasn't been confounded, it's been rewarded. Being Dad to two smart, funny, creative young adults who are making the world better than it would or could have been is a profound joy. 

So that's my answer to the anti-natalists and other parental skeptics. I'm with Ezra Klein on this, and with Hannah Arendt. Natality is the hopeful flipside of mortality, the "miracle" that just might redeem this mysterious unfinished project we call humanity. 

“The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, ‘natural’ ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted. It is, in other words, the birth of new [people] and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born. Only the full experience of this capacity can bestow upon human affairs faith and hope.” The Human Condition

I'm also with those who say that, contra Elon, we may already have enough people. What we need more of is happy people, engaged in the noble melioristic struggle to save the world. That's the point, for me, of Fathers Day. And Mothers Day. And Teacher Appreciation Day, if that's ever a thing.

 

James P. Oliver, 1957-

James C. Oliver, 1928-2008