I was talking to a co-worker the other day and said that I hope one of my kids simply cares enough about me to put me in a nursing home with a view. "A view of what?" she asked. "Something with foliage," I answered, "I don't even need an ocean view." She responded by saying, "I don't think that's asking too much." She doesn't have kids. She shouldn't be so sure.
Are kids overrated? Do you get a return on the investment that you put in day after day? It may seem like a cold, callous question, but consider what else is overrated.
According to a 2006 profile in New Yorker magazine, the author and philosopher Christopher Hitchens said that "the four most overrated things in life were champagne, lobsters, anal sex and picnics."
Too crass? Maybe. But I agree that picnics are overrated. The others - I like champagne. That's all I'm saying.
Twitter is overrated. I have a twitter account, yes, but there are very few tweets that I find useful. Sports reporters - yes; certain local radio and civic personalities - yes; a certain Chicago Now Community Manager - yes; celebrities - no; me - no. In fact, of the alleged 50 million tweets a day, 40 percent are pointless babble, 6 per cent are self-promotion and 4 percent are spam. News and other messages with "pass-along value" represent about 12 percent.
It seems as though many people find the Mona Lisa overrated - I agree.
Many find Bob Dylan overrated - I don't really care that much. How about Citizen Kane? The greatest movie ever made to some, but overrated to me and to others. Restaurants with celebrity chefs and food as art seems overrated to me, but certainly not to others who lavish the chefs with worship worthy of rock stars. Speaking of rock stars - I find Radiohead to be highly overrated. Have you ever tried to listen to that stuff? I like basketball, but the NBA - overrated
Back to kids. I have four of them of my own and two of the step-child variety. Don't get this twisted, I do love my kids and I want and work for the best possible outcomes for them, but really, can't we make the argument that they're overrated? Through years of schooling, we're taught to perform cost-benefit analyses before making a decision of significant import. Can anyone make the case for kids in that kind of analysis? Perhaps not, but I guess that's where emotions take over and analysis ends.
Still, anyone with children has experienced those moments where you make significant effort to do something nice and then, without warning, you get a comment or a look which makes you wonder why you did it. I keep thinking that it will pay off in the end.
If you read this and think, "wow this guy is cold, no heart at all," you're missing the point or maybe you don't have kids. If nothing else, isn't it fun to try to come up with things that are overrated? Like ocean views.
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Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/its-never-just-black-and-white/2011/06/kids-are-overrated-along-with-other-things.html
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