A Rule for My Unborn Son

You may have heard of the fantastic blog 1001 rules for my unborn son, where a father-to-be catalogues pieces of advice for his unborn son, ranging from "stand up to bullies - you'll only have to do it once (#270)" to "if you have to make more than one substitution, order something else (#385)." It's a beautifully simple, exceptionally unique, and uncharacteristically meaningful concept for a blog. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to write your own.

Obviously I love cataloguing ideas - it was the original concept for this blog, now gone astray. But I'm not planning on having a son anytime in the near future (Mom, if you're reading, please read that last sentence again). Still, it's very much within the realm of possibility. So "1001 rules" got me thinking about what I might tell him. What immediately popped into my head was "there is no good reason to grow a mustache" - but that was pretty much already taken.

So here's another one I hope I teach my (theoretical) future son well:

#1 Be skeptical of anyone who tells you to be afraid.

It seems so obvious all typed out like that. But I think I've spent a lot of time listening to agents of fear. People who tell us we must go to war to prevent nuclear destruction. People who forecast economic collapse and the second coming of the Great Depression. People who claim killer bees or Swine Flu will kill us all. People who say the president's healthcare program's death panel will kill your grandmother. People who promise us hell and claim moral decadence will soon bring about societal collapse. People who tell us the liberals, the Muslims, the Christians, the Religious Right, the fundamentalists, the government, the corporations, the media, the evolutionists, the creationists, the pluralists, the minority races, the immigrants, the homosexuals, the non-believers, etc. are out to get us, our freedom, and our way of life.

A lot of people in my life have told me to be scared (of everything from dating to Democrats), and I've found the vast majority of them were uninformed, trying to sell something, or scared themselves. If I have a kid one day, I want there be a red flag that goes up in his mind anytime he hears one of these people even even hinting towards fear.

Now certainly fear has its place, in its own way. I would want my son to have a healthy fear of the Lord. A fear of what will happen if he disobeys me. But this type of fear is a failure of language, I think. It is more about love, respect, honor, obedience, integrity, and character than fear of Swine Flu or illegal immigrants could ever hope to be.

So there it is -- rule number 1. Rule number 2 is probably "Cut your old man some slack, he doesn't know what the hell he's doing."