If I’ve learned anything from these 800-something blogs, it’s that even if two things occur together it doesn’t mean that one thing was responsible for the other. As the following Dad Jokes will attest.
How do you tell an extroverted mathematician? He looks at your shoes when they talk to you.
What do accountants use for birth control? Their personalities.
What do you call a musician without a girlfriend? Homeless.
But of course we all know articulate mathematicians, personable accountants, employed musicians.
Even if any of the above connections had any truth to them, the direction of the causal arrow is tough to assess. Do shy folks become mathematicians or does doing mathematics make you introverted? Can we just all agree that you can make a life in music, but you can’t make a living.
Still and all, what are we to make of the Duchess of York, who had this to say about her son.
Thou cam’st on Earth to make the Earth my hell.
A grievous burden wast thou born to be;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy,
Cause I gotta say, I am not at all surprised that Richard III grew up to be about as heinous a villain as even Bill S. could invent, killing his nephews and assorted family members so he could be king. Richard was also no prize as a husband, using marriage as a political tool. Somebody should have taken Richard’s manipulative and predatory relationship with Lady Anne out behind the barn and shot it.
To be fair, the historical Richard is purported to have done nothing of the kind—slaughtering infants or abusing his spouse--not a bad guy by the standards of the English royalty who didn’t get where they were by playing nice with the other genealogies. Shakespeare was a flak for the Tudor dynasty what with Queen Elizabeth’s grandpop being Henry VII aka Henry Tudor. And the real-life Richard was married to Anne for decades. The psychological wretchedness of their union was also Shakespeare’s invention.
So Richard wasn’t as bad as the playwright penned, but you have to admit, the duchess in the play is not going to receive the Maternal Support Award from the Unconditional Love Foundation. The point being that even 400-something years ago it was well known that peevish parents produced unhappy offspring. Or possibly that once mom learned what a snot her boy turned out to be that she thought back and determined that he had always been a “grevious” burden and a grumpy child, but for the purpose of this essay I’m going with the milk of human kindness being pretty thin. Creepy mom resulting in horrific child.
Tens of millions of copies of Richard III have been printed since the play first appeared in 1597 which—given my experience assigning readings as an English teacher—makes me think that dozens of people have actually read it. Are readers of Shakespeare more likely to be better parents or are superior moms and dads more likely to be well read?
I wouldn’t presume to guess. I will say that loving the kid you get improves the odds of getting the kid you love. And that if you can possibly avoid telling your child that their very existence made your life hellish, you might dodge having that kid be responsible for the deaths of bunches of your relatives.
In the non-fiction world in which so many of us abide, I’m going to continue recommending unconditional love and support for our beloved children. Because the last thing you want 400 years from now is dozens of people reading a play about what a lousy parent you were.
