Maturity

Winston Churchill reportedly said something like, "if you're not a socialist at twenty you have no heart, but if you're still a socialist at forty you have no brains."

The idea, of course, is that the cheery optimism of youth eventually gives way to a more sobering assessment of human nature and the human condition. I thought about this recently, as a friend asked me if the years and parenthood has caused me to turn toward more conservative views in recent years.

For me, the punditry's views of left/right have always seemed a little odd. I grew up in a world of church-going, petit bourgeois African American aspirer. The political gripe wasn't that the system was wrong. The problem was that we weren't always allowed to be a part of it. My parents thought hippies were nuts. Why would anyone want to be poor on purpose? They'd been poor without choice in the Jim Crow rural South, and it sucked. The war in Vietnam was good to my neighborhood. My father, who worked at a local shipyard, was told he could work as long as he wanted. The military and related industrial complex was good to them. Dear ol' dad was a member of the American Legion and joining "the service" was a fine option for a young man or woman.

When I was my son's age, six plus years, my parents would send me down to the local grocery store two blocks away to pick up a quick loaf read or milk or a pack of cigarettes (this was the '60's, fyi). No problem. There were (at least) three members of the church between home and the store, so I was well-protected and well-watched to and from.

So I was raised among pretty "conservative" values. Which is why it bugs me that these are considered conservative. Liberals have allowed the right to co-opt what everyone pretty much values. But that's a blog for another day.

Back to the present, I find that my values haven't changed, just what part of the morning paper I turn to first. In college, you have no large financial obligations to meet each month. Your room and board can be Spartan, but after that, your biggest concern is having enough pocket money to take out that cute honey in general ed History you've got your eye on. So the news for you is the Really Big Stuff. War! Peace! The governance of the Federal Reserve! And it puzzles the hell out of you why the rest of those schnooks on BART in to work every morning don't obsess over this stuff as well.

Once you get out in the world, however, the details start to matter. You track interest rates because you'd like to buy a house, re-fi the one you have, or start a business. You watch the tax laws to see how much you can put away for your retirement or your kid's college. Education policy is important, as you'd like your kid to be able to read and write by the time he or she is outta high school. Soon, that war in Outer Bumphuq, which would have kept you going for hours over French roast at the coffee house in college, seems mighty remote.

So it's "less growing up" than stretching out. Your life covers more, so your natural intensity gets spread out over a broader range. There is more minutae involved, so you're more interested in the public policy which affects that minutae, and the business decisions involved.

So I'm now looking forward to retirement. I figure once the kid is out of the house and my business life is done I can get back to sipping lattes and arguing about Central American politics. They say it's never too late to have a happy childhood. I assume this covers the college years too.