I’m Convinced that Having Children is Payback for How We Took Our Parents For Granted

Is it karma, or does God have a sense of humor?

my family pic from my files

It hasn’t been that long since I found an envelope full of notes from my father. He sent them to me in college over forty years ago. I wouldn’t say they were letters; more often, they were simple notes torn from a notepad that my mother brought home from the hospital.

Here’s some of what he had to say.

“Here’s some money for you.”

“It sure is quiet around here.”

“You could come home sometime.”

“Your mother had a surprise birthday party and got a lot of loot.”

That last one floored me because apparently, I forgot my mother’s birthday all those years ago. I probably didn’t even call her. Then there was the day I called home on my father’s birthday but didn’t even realize it. My mother had a certain edge in her voice when she said, “Don’t you want to tell your dad happy birthday?

I remember my attitude in those days. I thought I was grown. I remember how a friend and I went to the administration building and filled out a form to keep our parents from getting information about us. That wasn’t common back in the 1970s. There was a common thing called…