Portrait of a Doomer Dad

This is a shortened version of an essay I finished in early 2024. I am penning a new version for 2026, but this piece does accurately capture my thinking a few years back.

 

“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

There he was, my then-six-year-old son, laying naked on his tummy in our bathtub while I scooped warm, soapy water into a whale-shaped bath rinser. It was the summer of 2023. 

As I rinsed the soap off my son’s back, he played with his toy orca and giant squid. While the deep-sea creature wrapped two of its enormous tentacles around the orca, it dawned on me that my son was playing with toys of oceanic animals that may become extinct within our lifetime. 

That is, depending on how long we manage to live.

Thirteen of My Favorite Children’s Books

from Arnold Lobel's Owl at Home

Mijo is turning ten in a couple of months. As anticipated, age 9 has been a year full of many developmental changes for our special little guy. For one, the transition from picture books to middle-grade books is fully on. This past year, we’ve read The Max & the Midknights series by Lincoln Peirce, a few Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, and the entire Lunch Lady series.

Since this transition is happening, it made me think of my favorite children’s books I’ve read for Miguelito. A few years back, I wrote about some of my favorite children’s books when he was littler, but now I want to write about my most favorite books I’ve read to him in recent years.

So here we go!