Dear Evan:
I’ve been thinking about work a lot lately. This week has been hectic for me, and I worry I’ve spent too little time with you. I get my Monday and Wednesday nights, of course, while your mommy teaches, but beyond that my time home is spent trying to eat dinner, pay bills, help out as much as I can with chores and somehow relax before my eyelids start to droop.
I hope you don’t remember that. I hope that by the time you do develop long-term memories, I’ve found a better balance between home and work life.
I really hope you think about work, like I have been. That’s odd to write, picturing you as a fat, burbling, smiling infant pondering careers. (Some of how we raise you will shape that, of course, and your mommy and I have been very careful in that regard.) What I mean to write is, when you’re a little older, when you start thinking about what your life will be after college, include in that thinking this question: What do I want life to be like for me?
Some days — and oh, how I hate to write this — some days I question my choices. I chose a career I would love — writing — and pursued it. I spent an exorbitant sum at a private university and came out making $17,000 annually. I gave up niceties like job security and the ability to afford luxury items in return for the sort of exciting career that makes for great cocktail-party stories. Was it enough? I think about how to provide for your future, and while I make a nice living at the moment — enough that your mommy really doesn’t have to work — I wish your college fund, your savings, money set aside for other expenses were all done already.
People will tell you to do what you love, and having followed that advice, I can’t fault it too heavily. But still, my parents were unable to help me at times, have said they wished they could’ve done more, and I worry that I may wind up in the same boat. There should be a cushion already in place for you, just in case (and in this economy, “just in case” is a daily worry). It’s frustrating.
So what do I tell you? It’ll be so much easier to teach you to shave or kick a soccer ball or those other father-son things. I want you to be happy. I want you to do what you love. But I want you to think, too: Would I love life more by having experiences instead of possessions, and the financial stress that goes with that? Or could I grind through a boring job for a decade or two and then retire early, live the rest of my life comfortably?
I did the former. Today, I wish I’d done the latter, just so you could have an easier time making the choice down the road.
Love,
Daddy
