I have a baby now. I’m thinking as I write this on the couch next to that little colicky version of myself and my wife mushed together that it might have been a bad idea. It’s 5 a.m. on March 7, 2025, and I’m expecting the news of the day on the state of the country to be worse than the day before since yesterday’s news was just a tad shittier than what preceded it. I’m sure no period of history was ever truly the “perfect” time to have a kid. No matter how much fun the Little Rascals made the Great Depression look, every age has its own miseries and deprivation. Hell, even if the fruit of my loins wasn’t born at the very moment the American experiment died writhing in the gutter but instead came into existence a couple years ago, back when America was shitting blood, sure, but insisted it just needed to “lay off the party drugs and eat something green,” my sweet little offspring would still have had a tough road ahead. Its handsome father is but a simple singer in a mid-tier Midwest rock band and a lowly writer for CREEM. Their first words will be “Hey, mister, can you spare a dime?” Their second words will probably be some variation of “Gimme the money and nobody gets hurt.” I swear, if there’s ever The Little Rascals: The Next Generation (and, of course, there will be), please let them consider my infant for a role. It loves to perform, can be rigorously trained, works long hours, and has a father/manager who is as unscrupulous as he is poor. We just need to save enough money to buy a dinghy that can make it across the Detroit River to Canada when the time comes.

But in all seriousness, the kid should be fine. It can probably swim to Canada if things get too dicey. It’s me I’m worried about! You see, this whole “having a child" thing to “create love” or “find meaning and purpose in existence” is all well and good, but do you remember me listing off my jobs in the previous paragraph? Those are cool jobs! Those are the kinds of jobs where you gotta be on the razor’s edge, forever young, with your finger on the pulse of every tomorrow. You can’t do that when you’re stuck at home changing diapers all day because you’re the one in the marriage with the cool job. “Cool” means “unprofitable, scanty, childish" in this scenario. What is a cool guy like me to do?