That My Child May Have Peace

There is an impressive plea by Thomas Paine expressed in this sentence in 1776: “If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” Perhaps we could be permitted a paraphrase: If there must be problems, let them be solved in my day; if there must be debts and penalties, let them be paid, if possible, in my day, that my children may have only their own burdens to bear. Each generation has its own living to make, its own life to be lived. And if it were possible to give the children of each generation a fresh start without imposing upon them the penalties of the past, perhaps we could hold them more closely accountable for the use they make of their own opportunities. But as it is, they can almost always plead that their problems were not of their own making, that the penalties of the past were placed upon them without their acquiescence. Of course, we cannot constitute each generation a separate entity because life is continuous, and every day there are many thousands leaving and entering the scene. It isn’t quite as if a generation were an individual, all of whose acts could be defined within the limits of one lifetime. But isn’t it, in a moral sense, somewhat the same to extort from another generation as it is to extort from another man? At least it is a question that should be conscientiously considered. And might there not be a whole new feeling of earnest effort and a resurgence of self-reliance if we should commit ourselves to paying for our own present and for our own past and to living within the limits of what we have, or less, rather than placing a penalty upon our children and our children’s children? Doing so would require sincere self-examination and could mean some rigid revision of attitudes toward taking from the future. But no doubt most of us look at our children at times and wish deeply from the depths of our souls that we could spare them the consequences of mistakes that we and other men have made. We shall not accomplish it all at once, but if we honestly commit ourselves to its accomplishment, we shall have made a magnificent move.