COLUMN: The World's Noblest Profession

From Brian Kennedy's "Surfo Ergo Sum," Fall '93 From Brian Kennedy's "Surfo Ergo Sum," Fall '93This December marks two important stages in my life. First, this is my last venture as a DP columnist (Please forgive me the use of the first person this time; I need it to introduce my thought.) Second, my sister is due to have her first baby, and I am eagerly awaiting my entry into uncledom. While these two topics really have very little in common, my incessant pondering of how to perform in both roles has merged the two into one. At Penn, this tendency is more apparent than in most other communities. My columns usually framed this into a humorous picture, where all of our follies were exhibited. No matter what professions we enter as we leave Penn, no matter how many times we see the folly of our actions, we will continue to act as if we are more important than we really are. Even if you are the best brain surgeon in the world, in time you will still be replaced. Both the frustration and beauty of being human arise from this truth. We will, however, assume one role that is permanent. Not accidentally, it is the one role where we can never over-exaggerate our importance. The overwhelming majority of the people reading this column today are, or will be parents. Except for a small number of people who choose not to be for valid reasons, most of us wind up becoming either fathers or mothers. There simply is no human endeavor that compares in importance with rearing children. Ask the C.E.O. of IBM if he defines himself first as a parent or as a businessman. Ask the professors on campus if receiving their Ph.d. was nearly as fulfilling as watching their daughters kick their first goal in little league soccer or their sons finger their way through fourth-grade tuba solos. None of them, I'm willing to wager, would give their professions more importance than their children. Maybe this is overly obvious, but I don't think so. As highly intelligent, motivated students and citizens, we tend to set goals that ignore our futures as parents. After all, even an uneducated fool can become a parent, so why would we Ivy Leaguers want to associate with such a simple task. Even when parenting is pondered, it is usually placed in a secondary status to our professional goals. Often discussions arise about the importance of money. Accumulating wealth, after all, is the raison d'etre for our most prestigious school. When questioned by bohemian liberal arts majors why they want to make money the object of their dreams, many people answer that they want to provide for their families as best as they can. For some, this is a convenient excuse for a greed they recognize as unbalanced. Yet for most, this is why they do what they do. There is nothing nobler than providing for your family, be you man or woman. But what often happens is that we naturally tend to forget our motives when trying to attain them. More concretely, sometimes striving to provide for the family can, paradoxically, destroy that goal. Making sure that Muffin has a car on her sixteenth birthday is fine, but it does not excuse one from not being at her party. Everyone wants to achieve the highest degree of happiness possible, yet no one has a concrete formula. The Greeks called this Eudaimonia, and it would be the proper end for any right thinking man. Aristotle outlines his theory of how to achieve this state in his Nicomachean Ethics. There are two levels of this good; the first is a social or state level, the other is personal. Leaving aside all of his remarkable insights, he sees that the greatest personal happiness comes from leading the life of a philosopher, the second degree comes from being a statesman. Aristotle's motive for writing this book was to impart wisdom to his son Nicomacheas. This goal undermines his theory that a person's identity as a philosopher or statesman is his best assurance for achieving Eudaimonia. Practical experience, such as asking professors if they are happier as parents of Ph.d's, reveals the same truth. The greatest personal happiness comes from success as parents. But what about Aristotle's other ethical concern, the creation of justice in a community or state? The only truly effective way to advance society is through parenting. If you want to eliminate discrimination, you will be hard pressed to do it through codes or laws, no matter how brilliant they may be. To eliminate discrimination, instill the values in your children, and exhibit no hostility towards other races. Kids pick-up on their parents' reactions like flies find garbage trucks. If everyone acts justly in front of their children, racism will disappear in the course of a generation or two. My final point. To be a good parent is not impossibly hard. One does not need a degree to master the skill; one just needs to imitate good parents. Just think about moments where you feel your parents succeeded with you, and act exactly as they did. Conversely, take the moments where you think they failed and act oppositely. This applies whether one was reared in a "traditional" family, an adoptive one or a broken one. Just act as you wish they had, and you will be a good parent. Aristotle's advice was, not surprisingly, if you want to be a good person, then find a good person, follow him around, and imitate him (or her). Of course it is harder to do this in practice than in theory, but it is a good rule to follow. This may all seem a bit sappy, and uncharacteristic. But in my last column I did not want to attack our follies again; I wanted be entirely positive. Making fun of a community is easy; giving positive direction is not. Yet, I am so firmly sure that parenting is the most important venture we will ever undertake, that I don't hesitate to profess it publicly. To build a better society and to achieve the greatest amount of happiness, we should concentrate not on our careers, but on our futures as parents. Ciao! Brian Kennedy is a senior English major from West Orange, New Jersey. Surfo Ergo Sum appeared alternate Tuesdays.