Do we deserve to be canceled by our grandchildren?
We spend our middle adult years protecting our children. Indeed, parenting represents the most expensive and difficult responsibility of our lives. We baby-proof our houses. We warn them about the dangers of living in the 21st century. We educate them to be productive members of society. We seek to protect them from the dangers of drug abuse. We invest our retirement dollars so that we do not become burdensome on them.
It is an overwhelming challenge, and perhaps we all have at least a few regrets about certain decisions we made and priorities we chose. Then we run out of energy and are delighted to move beyond the parenting stage to the grandparenting years. Instead of continually putting out substantial dollars for the benefit of our children, we eagerly move into the next role. According to the 1978 Nobel Literature Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Children come with labor pains, but grandchildren are pure profit” (In My Father’s Court). We are finished with our parenting sort of responsibilities — or maybe not. What are our responsibilities to the future and more distant generations?
King Hezekiah of Judah is described by the writer of 2 Chronicles as a good king, in the tradition of King David (29:2). Yet, like King David, he had his human frailties, such as that described in Isaiah 39, when he succumbed to pride and showmanship by displaying his kingly wealth to the envoys from the King of Babylon. The prophet Isaiah confronts the king with the prophecy that Judah’s wealth would be looted and carried away to Babylon in the days of his descendants. Hezekiah’s response to this tale of doom was not to lament or to pray in sackcloth and ashes for deliverance, but to state, “‘The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.’ For he thought, ‘There will be peace and security in my days’” (39:8). Instead of seeking to protect his descendants, he saw the prophecy only in terms of the short-term personal implications for his own personal peace and affluence. The news was good for the years of Hezekiah’s life, though it predicted extreme loss for his descendants.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Hezekiah was not particularly concerned about protecting his grandchildren. I wonder, are we doing any better?
In the biological discipline of ecology, we are at least taking some steps to protect the earth that our grandchildren will know. At least there are recycling initiatives widely available today, though we hear stories that much of the materials we send for recycling are not actually recycled. We have not yet found a financially sustainable strategy to recycle our materials. We have managed to take only baby steps with reference to our consumption and our waste.
Yet, without a doubt, the most serious way in which we are not protecting our descendants is concerning financial irresponsibility. Our national debt is approaching 35 trillion dollars, representing a personal debt of $105,000 for every individual (adult, teen, child, toddler, and newborn) living in America. We are all in serious debt, and we don’t care. We will just pass it on to our descendants. Apparently, we are living in agreement with King Hezekiah. The news is good because it won’t blow up in my lifetime. It will not be my problem in my days.
There are a few of us who are unwilling to live our lives according to the slogan, “Not in my lifetime.” For example, Native American novelist Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests a different ethic in her novel Braiding Sweetgrass. She writes, “Knowing her grandchildren would inherit the world she left behind, she did not work for flourishing in her time only.”
It is personally costly to look beyond this decade, this century, and consider how our extravagant choices will impact our descendants. Will our grandchildren look back at us and think of us as protectors, or will they instead be tempted to cancel our culture? Unlike most of our forefathers, perhaps we deserve to be canceled.
Dr. Gary L. Welton is assistant dean for institutional assessment, professor of psychology at Grove City College, and a contributor to The Center for Vision & Values. He is a recipient of a major research grant from the Templeton Foundation to investigate positive youth development.
