Attention unnamed male child to come:
Greetings.
Do not be alarmed. I realize you do not know who I am.
Here is a hint: You are not born yet, and already I must apologize to you.
Can you guess? My name is John Hodgman, and I am your father. Feeling sorry, as I trust you will sadly learn, is something of a habit of mine. I am always apologizing, afraid that I have offended someone. This is because I am a person who wishes to be liked all the time. Even by hateful people. Even by historical figures I will never meet. Even by strangers and children and, naturally, by you.
Here is an example. The other day, I was at a playground with my 3-year-old daughter. Surely you are familiar with my daughter? In public, I refer to her as "Hodgmina."
At the playground on this spring day before you were born, Hodgmina desired to use a certain playground structure. It was a kind of corkscrew fire pole. At the time, there were two girls circling down together, their legs entwined.
Okay. That sounds dirty. But it really wasn't. They were just 5-year-olds, wrapped up in each other in that unselfconscious way that children—some children—are able to achieve. Laughing, beaming, they were perfectly connected as they inched their way down.
Hodgmina and I watched them, and here I would use the adverb sullenly. We are both quiet people. Shy people. We do not entwine much with others. We held hands, but we were each alone. Hodgmina said quietly, "I am waiting my turn."
After a period of time, I intervened. I explained that Hodgmina now wished a turn, and the older girls broke off reluctantly. Naturally, I apologized. Hodgmina walked over, and I lifted her up to the top. But I didn't let her go. I held her all the way down, guiding her fall into a slow, stuttering slide that was visibly unfun for everyone.
I turned to the older girls, who were observing me skeptically. "She needs my aid," I explained, "for Hodgmina is only a 3-year-old child, a little girl. She is not a big girl, like both of you."
My daughter, who has better manners than I, let this pass in silence. But when we got home, Hodgmina let me have it. Why was I apologizing to children? she asked. And why was I running her down, calling her a "little girl"? Why did I feel I had to do that?
"You're right," I said. "I'm sorry."
This is not a good habit, and I do not recommend living this way, and that is part of the reason I am writing this letter.
I am also sorry because your father, who is me, is a professional writer.
Now don't get excited. This is a profession that often seems exciting and glamorous to young people. It did once to me as well. There was a time in my life when I, too, believed that it would be easy money to sit on beautiful lawns and write and read short stories. For reasons you will soon learn, I didn't know any better.
But to you this fact will mean mainly that your college education will be unfunded. College is where the most beautiful lawns exist, of course. But you will not be able to enjoy them as I did, for you will be forced to work various menial jobs (for some reason, I picture you in a butcher's shop, trimming briskets) in order to pay for your education—all because I wanted to sit beneath a tree and read Love in the Time of Cholera.
Because I was something you shall never be, which is to say, an only child. I trust you shall never quite forgive us for this. But before you damn me forever, please hear this explanation.
Over the years, many people, including your mother, who has two sisters, have asked me the same questions: What was it like to be an only child? I would always respond the same way: "I have no idea." Being an only child was all that I had ever known. And since I had no basis for comparison, how could I possibly compare one experience to the other?
Of course, I was being polite.
The fact is, I was always comparing, always subjecting my siblinged peers to the cool, dispassionate analysis and reflection that only an only child has the quiet hours to cultivate, while watching Doctor Who without fear of interruption.
And my conclusion was inescapable. Being an only child was much, much better. Probably the best thing in the world.
Cast sentiment aside, and siblings are always a matter of cruel math, the unfair distribution of limited resources: cash, love, attention, patience, solitude. This is obvious on its face—even my siblinged peers knew it. That was why they asked the question in the first place.
And as they asked, I could see the quiver of dread in their eyes, fearing an honest answer. And so I would say, "I have no idea." Only an only child can afford such emotional generosity.
As an only child, I had gotten used to a certain lifestyle. I was born in the Boston area in 1971, to two successful but by no means wealthy nonwriters. My father was the eldest of three, my mother the first of seven, though in some ways she was an only child as well. She was older than her one brother and five sisters—in her 20s when the last two arrived (twins).
Did she seek for me the privacy that she had always coveted? Or the solitude that she had always, in her own way, known? We will never know, for she is no longer living. But by the time I was 3, the decision was made that our family would never grow larger, and so we did the natural thing: We moved to a 16-room house.
Tags:
5 year olds,
adverb,
childhood,
corkscrew,
father,
fire pole,
greetings,
habit,
legs,
older girls,
only child,
period of time,
playground structure,
siblings,
spring day,
stuttering,
two girls,
waiting my turn
