The Senate of Lesser Sons

By Vincent R. Pozon

My mother once told me that a hankering of parents is that children and grandchildren be "improvements on the original." That's how she phrased it. In other words, they want us to be better than they were.

This explains parents' constant worrying, their preference that children "marry well," for stronger genes and brighter offspring, and "marry rich," to afford better education for future generations.

There is something in the direction of the hope. The mother's wish points forward; she imagines her child becoming someone she herself could not be, going somewhere she could not reach.

The dynastic hope points backward; it asks only that the child hold what the parent held.

Someone said, with nary an ounce of malice, that among those bearing longstanding political names, none are improvements on the original; few are anywhere near the calibre of their forebears.

Some, though, may be superior to their predecessors in slyness, contrivance and malice. I leave it to the reader to name them.