MUSINGS OF A GOOD FATHER ON A BAD DAY

"There is nothing sadder than the childless couple. It breaks
your heart to see them stretched out, relaxing around swimming pools in
Florida, and California, suntanned and miserable on the decks of boats,
trotting off to enjoy Europe like fools – with money to spend, time to
enjoy themselves and nothing to worry about.

Childless couples become so selfish and wrapped up in their own
concern that you feel sorry for them. they don’t fight over the kids’
discipline. They miss the fun of "doing without" for the
child’s sake. It’s a pathetic sight.

Everyone should have children. No one should be allowed to escape
the wonderful experiences attached to each stage in the development of
the young. The happy memories of those early years – saturated
mattresses, waiting for sitters who don’t show up, midnight asthma
attacks, rushing to the emergency room of the hospital to get the kid’s
head stitched up.

Then comes the payoff – when the child grows from a little acorn
into a real nut. What can equal the warm smile of a small lad with the
sun glittering on $1,500 worth of braces – ruined by peanut brittle – or
the frolicking, carefree voices of 20 hysterical savages running amok at
a birthday party?

Children are worth every moment of anxiety, every sacrifice. You
know it the first time you take your son hunting. He didn’t mean to
shoot you in the leg. Remember how he cried? How sorry he was? so
disappointed you weren’t a deer. Those are the memories a man
treasures.

Think back to that night of romantic adventure, when your budding,
beautiful daughter eloped with the village idiot. What childless couple
ever shares in such a wonderful growing experience? Could a woman
without children equal the strength and heroism of your wife when she
tried to fling herself out the bedroom window? Only a father could have
the courage to stand by ready to jump after her.

The childless couple lives in a vacuum. They try to fill their
lonely lives with dinner dates, theater, golf, tennis, swimming, civic
affairs and trips all over the world. The emptiness of life without
children is indescribable.

See what the years have done. He looks boyish, unlined and rested.
She is slim, well-groomed and youthful. It isn’t natural. If they had
kids, they’d look like the rest of us – tired, gray, wrinkled and
haggard. In other words, normal."