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My father was the dad of nine children! As you can imagine, with that many children, sometimes he had a bad day. Following is a short essay that he found somewhere, copied it down, and kept since the early 1960s, I believe. I have only seen this in two other places on the internet, and they do not credit any author. My father indicated that the author was I. Burke. If you know who this person is, I’d love to know.

Have any of you ever had moments like this?

Musings of a Father on a Bad Day
By I. Burke

There’s nothing sadder than the childless couple. It breaks your hart to see them stretched out relaxing around swimming pools in Florida, sitting all suntanned and miserable on the decks of their boats - trotting off to Europe like lonesome fools. It’s an empty life. There’s nothing but more money to spend, more to enjoy, and a whole lot less to worry about.

The poor childless couple gets so selfish and wrapped up in their own concerns that you have to feel sorry for them. They don’t fight over the child’s discipline, they don’t blame each other for the child’s most nauseous characteristic, and they miss all the fun of doing without things for the child’s sake. They go along in their dull way doing what they want, buying what they want, and liking each other. It’s a pretty pathetic picture.

Everyone should have children. No one should be allowed to escape the wonderful experiences attached to each stage in the development of the young. The happy memories of baby days, the alert nights, coughing spells, debts, diaper deliveries, “dipso” babysitter, saturated mattresses, spilled foods, tantrums, emergencies, and never-ending crises.

Then comes the real fulfillment as the child grows like a little acorn and becomes a real nut. The wonder of watching your overweight ballerina make a fool of herself in her leotard. The warm smile of the small lad with the sun glittering on $500 bucks worth of braces ruined on peanut brittle. The rollicking, merry, carefree voices of hordes of hysterical kiddies stampeding at a birthday party.

A married couple without little ones envy their neighbor’s strains. It isn’t enough to be godparents to the entire block, they still miss out on the glorious period of childhood that is alive, exuberant, and bursting with healthy impulses to shatter the shredded nerves.

I pity the couple without children to brighten the cocktail hour by brushing the martini from the shaking hand, massaging the potato chips into the rug, and wrestling for the olive. How dismally vacant is the peaceful home without the constant childish problems that make for a well-rounded adult life and an early breakdown. The tender thoughtful discussions when the report card reveals the progeny to be a step below a half-wit; the close-knit family gatherings around the fireplace to roast hot dogs (and the puppy if he isn’t fast on his feet); the end of the day reunions with all the joyful day’s happenings related like well placed blows to the temple.

Children are worth it all. Every moment of anxiety, every sacrifice, every complete collapse pays off as a fine, sturdy adolescence is reached.

The feeling of reward the first time you took the boy hunting. He didn’t mean to shoot you in the leg. The boy was excited. Remember how he cried? How sorry he was? How disappointed that you weren’t a deer? These are the times with a growing son that a man treasures, the poignant moments that are captured forever and held in the heart and limp.

Think back to the night of romantic adventure when your budding, beautiful daughter eloped with the village idiot. What childless couple ever share in the stark realism of that dream? Weren’t you a better man for having lived richly, fully, and acquiring that tic by your left eye? Could a woman without children touch the strength and heroism of your wife as she tried to fling herself out of the bedroom window? It takes a father to attain the stature of standing by ready and resolute to jump after her. The climax came when you two became really close in the realization that, after all, your baby girl was a woman with the mind of a pygmy.

The childless couple lives in a vacuum. They fill their lonely days with golf, vacation trips, dinner dates, civic affairs, tranquility, leisure, and money. They contribute no addition to the human race - which is satisfaction in itself.

There is a terrifying emptiness without children, and the childless couple is too comfortable to know it. You just have to look at them to see what the years have done. He looks boyish, unlined, and rested. She’s slim, well-groomed, and youthful.

It isn’t natural. If they had kids, they’d look just like the rest of us - tired, grey, wrinkled, and sagging… In other words, NORMAL!!