The case against kids; when parents sacrifice their ideals in the name of their children, both suffer

Washington Monthly, July-August, 1988 by Jsaon DeParle

The Case Against Kids

My friend Henry's a great guy. He's got a cherub's face and a gift for empathy. He's generous with his time; in college he spent a night a week as a prison counselor. He's generous with his possessions, too, as I know from college days spent tooling around in his car. And though he's smart enough to have succeeded in any number of lucrative professions, he chose the ministry.

These days, my friend Henry is also a father. I know he approached that event with pride and awe and the occasional ministerial musing on the mystery of creation. But when he wrote about it for the "About Men" column of The New York Times, he stressed something else: money.

"I have chosen what amounts to a vow of poverty by choosing the Christian ministry," he worried, "but i don't see how I can expect my family to take a vow of poverty as well. My children will feel limited--perhaps even trapped--by this decision of mine..." Realizing that his children won't have as much as they would if he practiced medicine or sold insurance, he began to "feel pretty slimy about it."

Slimy? About being a minister? This was no character from Wall Street talking, this was Hank. He'd been heading toward the ministry for as long as I'd known him. The fact that he was overcome with worries that his family would "feel its sacrifice and may not enjoy any of its rewards" raises questions for lots of parents: Is it selfish to pursue your chosen work when you have a family to support? Do parenting and principle mix?

Having no children, it's not a question I've had to face yet. My biggest financial worries have to do with things like record players and fishing trips, not hospital bills, day care, or tuition. Childbirth can become an occasion of wild hope, deepened reverence, new tenderness--these are unambiguously fine emotions, and the accompanying financial worries, the urge to protect, flow from the same wellspring. Having kids, for most people, is a fine thing to do.

But even those of us without kids can legitimately wonder whether parents don't sometimes use them as a cop-out, an excuse to retreat from commitment. Henry, happily, vowed in his column to "regain perspective" and has stayed with his work. But not all parents do.

At its most cynical level, the kids' defense can be used to justify a greediness that has a life of its own. The Wall Street Wizard may be applying the bulk of his hefty paycheck to a second Mercedes and a house in the Hamptons, but he can quiet his conscience and critics with these words: "I'm doing it for my kids."

But usually I'm-doing-it-for-my-kids takes a more earnest form. Many parents set aside the work they care about most for more lucrative pursuits with the sincere intention of helping their children. The high school English teacher joins a public relations firm, for his kids. The unhappy corporate manager sticks it out, for his kids. The GS-15 with a fantasy of opening a restaurant resists it, for his kids. Small business ideas get shunted aside, flights of fancy (large and small) deterred, and incomes maximized--"for the kids."

To be sure, children need a certain level of material support. But the people I'm talking about--the people who mostly are my friends--aren't facing questions of subsistence. They have college educations and they typically have spouses who work, Usually, they're puzzling over whether to make $30,000 in pursuit of something they care about less. Say they find themselves with two $25,000 incomes while doing the work they want; they'll still rank among the top fifth of American families. While most of the world is busy simply surviving, these are people fortunate enough to have choices. It's worth wondering whether too often they limit those choices in the name of their children.

The alternative--forgoing the more lucrative option for work that is more enjoyable, interesting, and significant--has several advantages. The first is purely selfish. The father who wants to join the foreign service will find greater satisfaction there than he will as an accountant. Or maybe he likes debits and credits, but wants to be his own boss; if so, he's likely to find greater satisfaction owning his own firm than in the bowels of Arthur Andersen. The challenge is to fill his professional life with work that's useful and enjoyable--to lead his life rather than letting it lead him.

Sure, not everybody has grand dreams about writing novels or starting businesses or helping the poor. Some would rather play basketball, but, being born too short, survey the available options and go to law school instead. Others, like Steven Jobs, can do useful work and still get rich. And some jobs that used to be regarded as low-paying and idealistic, like portions of the civil service and journalism, can now push the two-income family closer to $100,000.

But lots of gratifying and important work (like teaching, social work, nursing, and some forms of government service) offers only modest pay. And lots of people set aside what might be their second or third choice, for a ninth choice just for the money. Selling out has its costs. No one wants to face death-bed notions of what-I-might-have-done. And the country shouldn't be built around life with the high-paid blahs.