Like I said here, I’ve been a dad since my son was born, logically. What a monumental day. Whereas my wife took something like nine months to mentally prepare herself for the reality of parenthood, I, not having grown the baby in my womb, had a few seconds before my mind imploded and I slipped into limbo. I made it back to reality, barely.
That was the day life stopped being about me. My wife had born me an heir – many kudos to her – and it was time for me to establish an inheritance, that is, finish school so I could get a job and keep feeding him his rice cereal and such. Very long story short, I finished the first round of school but started a second, during which time two other children appeared. The rice cereal disappeared quickly, along with other things like my socks and my keys, and both of my wits. Now, I’m still in school. But at least I’m not in limbo, or so it appears.
My kids’ inheritance, at least the tangible portion, consists of my baseball cards, my bike, some cool rocks I found on the beach, a box of wire scraps, and about seventy gallons of camping gear. Also, my tools and my original Nintendo, with games and controllers. Most of the value is in the camping gear and a few of the baseball cards. Once I get a job this list may grow to include more camping stuff. Otherwise, their inheritance will, hopefully, be an intangible but more valuable one. Our goal is to accumulate experiences, adventures, rather than things.
And so, pondering the depths of life and lots of other profound things, I’ve come up with a proverb: Give a kid a fish, and they’ll have something to play with for a day. Then it will get stinky and gross. Teach a kid to fish, and they’ll probably get the hook stuck in your ear. Then, after you get the hook out, you probably won’t catch anything. But it will be really fun.