I’ve had a facebook account for more than 5 years…

I’m looking forward to reading your new book. Congratulations.

I do not disagree with that statement at all. In fact I agree.

But you also said:

1) “If no one had children, we would all be candles in the wind. In one hundred years, there would be no human race.”

Has anyone suggested that no one should have children?

If we all had a dozen children, the world would be in abject poverty.

2)”…the often thankless work of raising that next generation of people.”

A shame you think it’s thankless. Raising children is a joy and a blessing. Not everyone can participate.

3) “Mr. Holland showed up for work and waved a baton”

In that statement you are saying that no teacher, no friend, no mentor has a real effect on a child. It is >99% a result of the parent’s teachings. You cannot possibly believe that to be true.

Regards,

I would give a million dollars for a device that would help me be able to distinguish, just by reading a comment, who is a troll and who is actually expressing a real concern. It’s often impossible to tell.

We all influence and are influenced by the people in our life. Without question, teachers have a profound influence on a lot of kids and I don’t think anyone is trying to belittle the effort that they give or the affect that they have. I have had a number of very powerful teachers that have influenced me in a number of ways and I still keep in contact with a few of them. However, influence is not something that can be measured in percentages or units. The only thing that I know is that no two people have influenced me more than my mother and father. This may not be the case for everyone but if I was given the responsibility to decide a child’s fate as to whether they were to have an amazing teacher or an amazing parent in their life, it would be the parent everyday and twice on Sunday.

Do the best with what you have. Try to have a positive affect on every person in your life, if not just through your good example.

Assume you have 80% influence over 3 children. (The other 20% coming for their own experiences) That’s 240 units of influence.

Now assume you are a teacher, or writer, or painter, or philanthropist. As an art teacher in elementary school- I have 450 students a year. Over 30 years (typical), that’s 13,500 students. Now, let’s assume that I influence 1 child every decade to love and pursue art for a lifetime-a choice of occupation. That’s about 30% influence, say 90 units. Then assume I influence about a hyalf of the kids positively about 1%, probably just by being kind, boosting confidence, and making them think about larger issues, and generally making an emotional impact on their tender souls. At a very young age- any influence is larger, and lasting. That’s (13500/2)x.01=67.5, plus 90. That’s 157.5 units of influence, about the same of that as a parent with 2 children.

This does not account for how childless people have a larger disposable income, as a group having a larger influence on the goods/services economy of the next generation.

And any person, single or parent, can have wealth and power that can topple governements, thus changing ways of life for many generations- millions of people. They would likley have more influence on future generations than a parent who worked 9 to 5 and had 2 kids who in turn worked 9 to 5.

Generational impact is not well contrasted within parenting/non-parenting. Your casusal argument is weak and emotional more than rational. It comes from seeing the awesome impact your actions have on your own children. Profound, to be sure (I have seen this with my own children), but not necessarily, at large, more impactful long term than the impact of those without children. Future impact is a result of what you do, not whether you procreate.

You may have greater impact on fewer people, while the childless may have more diffuse imapct on a larger number of people. It can even out. Or a similar impact on a few people too, depending on circumstance.

On a more positive note, congrats on finishing the book.

Change is something that’s become my friend, because it’s easier to accept it as such than to hate it. I’m getting ready to undertake my second move in five/six years! This time across the country in a different direction. :) Not sure what the next few years will hold, but I’m excited about it and feeling more optimistic than I have in a long time again.

Because that impacts how you save for retirement NOW, and it has to do more with the kind of person you are – productive and can’t-sit-still or not, which most people know about themselves by the time they’re eighteen – than what you might specifically be doing in forty years. I think you must have skimmed those articles, Johanna.

What change? The only “attitude” I have towards such people is that they have less impact on the next generation than parents do. Do you disagree with that statement? Please explain how, because I don’t understand.

I just read an older book, as relevant in concept now as ever, except for the included topical political events.

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping. The most interesting aspect was the constant insightful and humorously metaphorical analyzation of why we buy, and how the consumer culture works.

But how the heck are we supposed to know that, with life being so unpredictable and all? We ourselves change unpredictably – we may lose interest in some things and gain interest in others over time – and so does the employment environment. Twenty years ago the career opportunities for someone with a passion for writing were very different from what they are today. There was no such thing as a full-time blogger, for example. Isn’t it possible that it will change just as much over the next 20 years, and the next 20 after that? Forty years from now, when you and I are 71, the job that’s now your dream job may not exist in any form that would be recognizable today. And the jobs that are available at that time might not appeal to your future self nearly as much. And you might want to call it quits.

So that’s why I’m wondering why, with all the potential for change, you think it makes sense to make a firm decision about whether you’ll want to work for pay 40 years from now or not.

I’ll admit I get cranky occassionally about lots of change, then I get over it, embrace the “change” as part of the journey in life. Sometimes it is crappy, though I don’t spend time there – move on.

Looking forward to seeing Your Book!

Johanna, are you saying that all goal-setting is useless? The point of goals is to give us a direction to walk towards. Without that direction, we wander in circles and never get anywhere or achieve anything.

“For another example, this sort of rapid change has a lot to do with why many current and soon-to-be retirees are in financial trouble right now, yet you showed shockingly little sympathy to their situation.”

They’ve had decades to read their prospectuses and know the risks involved in betting their whole retirement on the stock market.