Priorities

I got an email from Rich informing me that he failed to watch House last night because he got caught up in the election results and with the raising of his children. I have decided that I cannot allow this to slide without saying a few words.

Rich, this was a midterm election. Picture in your mind a very small potato. Children in 20 years will be required to learn exactly nothing about this entire campaign season. Don't believe me? Then ask your children for a blow-by-blow of the 1986 elections. Try to look surprised if they didn't know there was one. If this year goes into the annals of history for anything, it'll be that Hugh Laurie was not nominated for an Emmy.

Secondly, enough already with the children thing. I have watched over the years as you've declined invitations to attend concerts, parties, the post-work drink rituals and possibly thousands of other things, and you always tack on this lame excuse about needing to spend time with your kids.

I can remain silent no longer. You are robbing your children of scores of opportunities by spending time with them. It is a integral part of American childhood to have distant or absent parents. Your children will grow up and enter the world having no one to easily scapegoat for all of their problems. This will only alienate them from their peers. And, aside from your much bally-hooed poverty, they have nothing to overcome.

We are fortunate in America in that we have the right to expect our schools to raise our children for us. Learning to read? Covered. Restricting what they can read once they've learned? Covered. Setting boundaries? Covered. Punishments? Covered. The sex talk? Covered. So relax. It's all covered. Most places, they'll even pick the kids up in the morning and drop them off when they're done.

There is no skill requirement to becoming a parent. And it only takes a few minutes. So you shouldn't be punished for years and years just because you had a kid or four. They've got their whole lives ahead of them, but you're not getting any younger. The children are the future, not the present.

But the most important thing you're missing out on is the heartwarming reconciliation when they're long since grown and moved away. They'll come back for Thanksgiving or something, with all their latent resentments in tow. And you'll say something about wishing you were there more when they were young. And everybody will hug and learn a lot before the credits roll and whatever is next on Lifetime comes on.

OK, I have to wrap this up. My therapist wants me to come in for an extra session today for some reason.