We’re getting to that point at which the end is visible. Not quite looming yet, but certainly visible. The end, I mean, of being a parent with kids who live at home.
This prospect does not make me happy. My parents are aging. My kids will soon rightfully enter into their own lives, separate from mine. What’s left?
There are people out there who are relieved when this happens, because now they get to do what they want, with whom they want, etc.
I have the wrong temperament for that. I am not at all a fan of voluntaristic relationships. I don’t think it’s all that great to “choose” who you spend your time with. Because voluntaristic relationships are capricious. In fact, they’re generally full of shit.
People say a lot of nice things, but the moment you need anything—a kidney, say, or even, less radically, a pencil or a paperclip, they are not there for you. It’s all false.
That’s why it all has the feeling of consumption. When you choose people to associate with, they are an object of consumption to you and you are an object of consumption to them. It’s not a proper relationship. You are not, in other words, and to play on words a bit, related.
What we’ve all lost is the extended family context. The people you’re saddled with, forever, that you can’t escape, but that you can also depend on. We should never have given that up. And the people who don’t like theirs? Tough shit. They should have been forced, just as was always the case, to live with them. Because they are yours.
Stop living lies.