Cog
2007-06-04, 09:42

I really hate this world sometimes.

It's Monday morning, and so comes the early call from my daughter, who is having a bad wakeup this morning, and is crying into the phone about how she wants me to come home and that she doesn't want to go to daycare and just wants to stay home with mommy and daddy. I soothed her into a calm as I usually do (it's easier for me to do because I'm not trying to get myself and two children ready for the day like H is at that time of morning) with promises of hugs and kisses when I get home. But every time she does this, calling for daddy to Come Home, it tears my heart from my chest. I realize that this is not a unique situation, that countless parents have had to soothe their child into facing another day away from their parents.

And is there any way out of this workdeath? I wasn't born wealthy. I didn't let myself get a secondary education because I wasn't ready for it when I was younger and now that I am ready for it I can't afford the money or time. I don't have a unique talent that will launch me into a higher sociofinancial class. I don't have the stomach for Capitalism and the stomping on others to 'get ahead'. I've accepted that I will never be comfortable financially, trading long hours at something I hate to be a more present father. But 'more present' still isn't very present, in my view. It doesn't lessen the blow I take every time I get one of those morning calls to "come home, daddy".

I understand that this is not a new kind of situation, and that millions of families have done just fine, even with two working parents. Work is a reality of life. Or is it? How much of what we do is truly necessary? If we got rid of all the TVs and Happy Meal toys and collector's spoons and plastic grocery bags and disposable pens and commemorative plaques and all the other superficial, useless crap we produce twenty-four hours a day, and pared things down to the truly necessary, how much would there be to do? Sure, there's be a lot more people than jobs, but if we'd gone this route to begin with, of only producing what's necessary and beneficial, we wouldn't have as many people on this planet to support. And then we'd quite possibly be spending more time with our families, instead of insulating ourselves from the rest of the world with our iPods.

I've been talking and whining too long. I have to get back to trying to empty the ocean with a bucket.

*I am in no way complaining that women should not work - that's not what I mean by this at all. Nowhere in my head lies the idea that women are in any way lesser than men. Men or women, black or white, young or old, religious or atheist - everyone's a potential idiot (the one area in which I can honestly boast that I have reached my own true potential).

-- End Transmission --