Thoughts On Aging 001: Seventy-Six Is Enough

If you have your first child at twenty-three, then if that child has a child at twenty-three, you will be forty-six and a grandparent. If that grandchild has a child at twenty-three, you will be a great grandparent at sixty-nine.

If you have two children in two years, at twenty-three and twenty-five, and those two children produce two children each in the same intervals, you will have four grandchildren by the time you are fifty. If the grand children go on to produce two children each at two year intervals, then by the time the second cohort of grandchildren produce their second cohort of children, you will be seventy-five and have eight great-grandchildren, four grandchildren and two children.

Over this time you will have raised your children and helped your children raise their children -- your grandchildren. After that, you can pass on the "helping raise" part to your children, who will help raise their children's children -- your great-grandchildren, whom you can just enjoy for at least a year, after which you can drop dead, knowing that you will have fulfilled your biological duty of producing grandchildren and knowing that your children have also fulfilled their duty.