&gt; My goals have been simplified down to making sure that I do right by my children<p>You know, I don&#x27;t have kids and I&#x27;m not you, so I truly have no opinion about that. It&#x27;s your call and I&#x27;m sure you&#x27;ve made it carefully and are doing what&#x27;s right for you and your life.<p>However, I just want to say that when this attitude is repeated over and over, with a whole population of people using their children as their contribution to society, and then the children make the grandchildren <i>their</i> contribution to society, and it repeats generation after generation, you can end up with essentially a bunch of families who are taking care of themselves, and sort of punting social responsibility down the line perpetually to later generations.<p>When I look out at the world I see a lot of people trying to make sure their kids are better off than they were... which is great. It&#x27;s like bubbles in a glass of water that are all slowly rising. But it also seems like with everyone looking upward, we stop noticing that down below there are people whose bubbles are sinking down. Or maybe you&#x27;re actually closer to that reality and you&#x27;re fighting like hell not to fall below that line. And again, I would never question that choice.<p>But as a group what it adds up to is that there are families that are just trapped below that line. And we can focus on helping our kids rise, and they can help our grandkids rise, but at some point I think as a group we need to look beyond our families and realize that there are kids—and grown ups–out there who aren&#x27;t our blood but are just as deserving of our support.<p>And I do see people make that choice, to really try to support someone beyond their immediate family, and it&#x27;s amazing. But sometimes I worry that the attitude you describe is a little too easily accepted.