My son, a happy and healthy child, has never wanted for anything.
And this sometimes worries me greatly.
If you’re the kind of father that has had the luxury of raising your son in far better circumstances than you had as a child, you are required to spend some time wondering how he will ever develop into a complete human without the character-developing experiences that only poverty and lack can provide.
It is a conceit of the insolvent that the upside to their struggle is that those better off are of somewhat weaker character, having been deprived of the need to make difficult choices.
Whenever this thought overtakes me, I first remind myself that this is ridiculous and that I mostly think it because it makes me feel better about my own life.
Then I remind myself of the first time I ever caught a glimpse of my son’s humanity.
One warm summer morning, I took him to the playground in a park near our apartment. And because I did, I’m sure his mother was out of town on business — for whatever reason, I become the kind of father that makes pancakes when my wife is out of town. He was very young then, maybe three or four years old. Young enough that he still fit comfortably in the little bucket seat child swings.
