Dads and Kids

Last evening I helped our church serve hot dogs with the trimmings at the public school that we have partnered with for many years. The school had a spring program, outdoors in the parking lot. There were several hundred people there, kids, parents, grandparents, etc. Following the program they came inside and we served the dogs.
I stepped outside while the program was going on. I didn’t pay so much attention to the performances as I did the people in the audience. I sort of walked around the perimeter and just observed for awhile.
I was heartened to see so many dads and father figures at the event. Many came to the program directly from work or at least didn’t have time to change. The school is in a poorer neighborhood, and there were many ethnic groups represented. The dads who were there also interacted quite well, it seemed, with their families and some really got into the program, clapping and pointing (presumably at their child’s performance).
I also observed the children a little. I wondered as I saw the kindergarten and first grades perform what the world would be like when they were old. They have a good chance, some of them, to see well into the last quarter of this century, and some may even see the twenty-second century.
What legacies will we leave to them? Will there be a United States of America? If so, what will it look like? What will the world be like then? How will travel have changed? Will people be living on Mars (or some other celestial body)? What will a dollar buy in 2070? How will morals have changed? How will life have changed?
There’s no way we can answer these questions now. We just don’t know enough to have any kind of understanding of the way things might be even 10 or 20 years down the road, let alone 50 or 70 years.
The kids didn’t seem to care, though, and I doubt that any of them have even thought of these questions. Maybe that’s one of the good things about childhood…the problems of life many times come at just about the time when we can begin to grasp and grapple with them. Now, I know that’s not always true; many kids are thrust into adult or caregiver roles through no fault of their own well before they are ready. Sometimes that works out…sometimes not.
Bravo for the dads that came to the event and enjoyed the evening with their families. I’m glad we could be a small part of that.