Non-fathers play tennis. Non-fathers live in the fast lane. Fathers live in a subdivision near a good school, an all-night grocery, a clinic and a gas station. Non-fathers wear silk ties with subtle designer logos. Non-fathers invest in certificates that mature in a year.
Fathers invest in shoes for feet that mature in six weeks.
When it comes to rearing children, every society is only twenty years away from barbarism. Twenty years is all we have to accomplish the task of civilizing the infants who are born into our midst each year. These savages know nothing of our language, our culture, our religion, our values, our customs of our interpersonal relations. The infant is totally ignorant about communism, fascism, democracy, civil liberties, the rights of the minority as contrasted with the prerogatives of the majority, respect, decency, honesty, customs, conventions, and manners. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.