I preface this by being honest and saying: I have no children. This fact in and of itself has been a major, a huge issue between myself and the women in my life.
I would not want to bring a child up into our current American environment; all the women I’ve encountered have said “you would be a great father.” I have never seen it that way.
I’ve never seen myself as anyone’s father.
To cut through the crap, I freely admit: I’ve never wanted that massive responsibility.
I said to my first wife: “you’re born alone and you die alone.” She remembered that; it was the disembarkation point in our relationship.
She now has a satisfying relationship with a full family. I have moved for myself when push came to shove, for any number of reasons. I have only recently remarried in my 50s; it is only now that I have come to appreciate the meaning of a true union.
So the protection of children does not come naturally to me as, say, it would to a more normal male member of the human race. Despite that, the following makes me sick:
Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security recently revealed that arrests for child sex crimes during the first two years of Operation Predator have exceeded 6,000 and 85 percent of them are criminal immigrants.
How incredible is this? Are these persons who dwell within the continental United States, or are these predators who surf the internet from various external countries?
The majority of the arrests under Operation Predator – roughly 85% – have involved foreign nationals in this country whose child sex crimes make them removable from the United States. By matching immigration databases with state Megan’s law directories, ICE agents have arrested more than 1,800 registered sex offenders.
So I ask to you who read me now and think that allowing your children online is relatively harmless: how do you KNOW what your child is seeing and/or downloading or uploading?
The TRUTHFUL answer would be: you don’t know. You can’t possibly be with them minute to minute.
But, hey, if you set limits or parameters or took them off the internet entirely that would be an exercising of judgmentalism and that, in and of itself, would be wrong.
Wouldn’t it?
Because you could no longer be your kid’s best friend.
Because that’s what YOU wanted in childhood, wasn’t it?
Doesn’t that bespeak volumes?
Hi Blo, I pinched this article for my blog.
One day I looked up and my son was wearing size 9 shoes, playing football and getting As in Math. And although I’ll never be sure he won’t get hit by a truck, I know he’s better equipped than I am to handle the grit of this world.
You never know how strong your children make you until you make them. And they grow up seeing that strength in your eyes, and it works. That’s why it’s a miracle.
Patrick: pinch away, sir, I am honored.
Michael: parents frequently tell me this. In retrospect, I clearly came incorrectly hardwired from the factory. And considering today’s overall corrupting environment, that your son is doing all those things scholastically and physically tells me a great deal about your skills as a father.
10 25 05
Hey Blo Zep:
Looks like folks have realized you’ve got something to say:) YOu know I especially can relate to this article because I have no children either. I will be 29 in a couple of weeks and my husband just turned 43. He has no children and doesn’t want any! His birthday was a few days ago and he was reflecting on how he is the last man in his family. But he thinks the world is corrupt and would only want to have a child if he could stay home, or I could stay home and raise it. *Sigh* I have always thought I wouldn’t want to have kids either (I am the oldest of four), but at this age, I can feel the clock a tickin” AYHHHH…my head spins.
Blo, interesting you don’t have kids or want them. Hmmm, I couldn’t imagine not having them. However, if I get married and my wife is unable to produce them, I certainly won’t be upset.
Didn’t your first wife know going in that you didn’t want kids? I don’t think divorce is ever right or good, ever.
Eddie: as indicated, somehow I came from the factory, hardwired to feel that way. Yes, it was in fact communicated to my first wife, quite clearly. Mahndisa: I am familiar with the head-spinning thing on the issue, the older I’ve gotten.