When I got here, one of my best friends had just given birth to her beautiful daughter (whom I didn't get a chance to meet, due to my cold), another couple friends were trying to conceive and subsequently succeeded in doing so, and yet another friend was a few months along in her pregnancy.

I have any number of friends who've been parents for years whether they've adopted or given birth to their children. I've heard about and witnessed all kinds of parental (and specifically maternal) misadventures.





I don't know what it's like to be a parent. But I think I've been around long enough to realize that should you choose it, parenting is the most important task/joy you can undertake in your life.

I might blame my dear friend Christopher for having posted this on his Facebook wall on 17 November 2012: "The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it. -David Orr"

Well? I don't think we can meet this need without exceptional and giving parents. We can't do it without parents who're willing to put the needs of their families (themselves included) ahead of desire, want. Now, I've taught in a classroom, and I know that while teachers can do a lot, I know that most of us (in a given American high school, for example) only see our students five hours out of every week. It's not an ideal chunk of time for teaching peacemaking, healing, restoration, storytelling or moral courage.

So who gets that time with Our Future? Their parents, hopefully.

And this is where I'd like to posit, again: if you choose to be a parent (to raise children), there's nothing more important to be doing than that. All the things you do-- whether that's pursuing a successful, lucrative career or making yourself happy-- should be in the service of your children and family.

It's a really serious undertaking.



I began thinking about this when I started wondering whether my career pursuits and my hope to raise children someday were mutually exclusive. I have decided, for now, that they're not.

But I think some career pursuits might be. I hope, for example, for the sake of his children (for those two lives!), that Barack Obama is a better parent than he is a president. And I don't mean this to be a criticism of the man's administration; rather, I mean to say that I hope he loves being a dad more than he loves being the leader of the free world. I hope he gives more to the first undertaking than he does to the latter. And frankly, I have my doubts. The man hasn't got much time, but I hope he gives it to them when he can.

Because I have a sneaking suspicion that if more people were to focus on their loves, their children, and their ethics instead of their ambitions (regardless of the purity or motivation), the world would look much more like the place for which David Orr hopes.

I might have the huevos next time to get into the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Burmese opposition politician noted for her fifteen-year-long house arrest. She has two children. How much participation did she get to enjoy in their lives during this period?





What happens when we choose work (however ambitious, White Collar Criminal, noble, low-paying, average, peacemaking, prestigious) and prioritize that over the needs of our children and families?


Or, what happens when we choose work that serves the needs of our children?