Responsible Parenting, a la Sarah Palin

Growing up in one of the major liberal fortresses of America, I was always taught that it is considered "irresponsible parenting" to not allow one's children to chase their dreams to their fullest extent. To force the parents' now-bygone childhood dreams onto their children is not only irresponsible, but downright inappropriate. That is what I was taught in school.

Then, of course, my parents raised me in the entirely opposite manner. It's the whole Asian filial piety "Oooh my son goeeng to be a doctah, what YOH son do? My son go to Hahfahd, wheh YOH son go?" type of bullshit. (Actually, my parents have been much better about this kind of stuff recently, but only because I'm convinced that they've given up almost all hope regarding my future.)

So on Saturday, as I was sitting outside the California Science Center in Los Angeles, eating lunch and getting ready to play for a Cal tailgate/rally that was neither really a tailgate nor a good rally, I watched a happy, beautiful, decidedly European family of four walk past us. The couple couldn't have been older than thirty. The father had his young son on his shoulders while the daughter waddled across the grass with her tiny hand in her mother's. Other than the fact that they were decked out in what looked like discount USC garb, they were damn near perfect.

That gorgeous painting of the Great American Dream was shattered as soon as the father opened the cumdumpster that he likes to call his "mouth."

In a very pointed, I'm-compensating-for-my-subpar-educated-ass manner, he said loudly to his son while looking at me, "You see this? This is what happens when you go to a state school. Sitting on the ground eating bad plastic box lunches. Sweetheart, promise me you'll never go to a *ahem* STATE school."

He walked off, giving us the ol' stink-eye and had his two fingers up in the air. Undoubtedly, those two fingers smelled of runny, undigested-corn-and-nut-embedded poop from picking at his hemorrhoids all day. That, or he started self-testing for prostate cancer twenty years too soon.

Which brings me back to my original point of what is considered responsible parenting: if, for whatever ungodly reason, it becomes my child's greatest and only dream to attend USC, would it be wrong of me to do my very best to make it as difficult as possible for my child to do so? Much in the same way that I feel about sending my kids to private school for education levels below that of a bachelor's (plenty of great public schools out there), I don't really feel like wasting my money on an educational experience that costs four times as much and produces half a man, especially if the degree name itself doesn't even hold that much clout in the workplace or academia. (Superficial, I know, but the sad truth is that, as much as we'd like to say "So what if you went to Harvard, you were last place in your class," it's still a Harvard degree, and the degree name is still a real point of consideration when it comes to the job market.)

Would my child hate me for obstructing his greatest dream, which if unfulfilled would probably destroy his faith in humanity for all eternity and definitely lead to a life on the street, hiding in back alleys and sucking dick for crack? Probably. But I think in the end, it would be better for him in the long run to leave his dream unfulfilled and end up a drug mule than to end up a terrible excuse for a human being, as exemplified by my friend Poopy Fingers.