'Superintending What He Cannot Regulate'

In my family we can’t get away from the “Y” chromosome. Having children is known as “going to the Y.” I have three sons, no daughters, and my brother, who died last summer, was my sole sibling. My mother had five brothers, no sisters. My father, two brothers, no sisters, etc. Little girls and by extension, women, remain mysteries to me, even more so than they are to most men. I envy my friends with daughters, though I’m not complaining. My sons are healthy, smart, seldom boring, often funny and have never been arrested. 

Today is Michael’s twenty-fifth birthday. He is my middle son, a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, a cyber officer stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland. He is a walking balance of left and right brain. His interests include mathematics, etymology, history, rock climbing and literature. We can keep up with most of each other’s conversations. About Michael I have few worries and no regrets. Talking with other parents, I know how fortunate I am.

 

Dr. Johnson had no children of his own but was devoted to his stepdaughter, Lucy Porter, the daughter of Johnson’s wife, Elizabeth Jervis Porter Johnson (1689-1752), known as Tetty. Lucy was born in 1715, six years after Johnson, lived in Lichfield with his mother and served in her shop. She died in 1786, two years after her stepfather. Johnson had always assumed a fond, fatherly role with Lucy, who became one of his most frequent correspondents. For this most stoical of men, the death of loved ones was always shattering. In his 1974 biography of Johnson, John Wain notes his emotional state after his mother’s death in January 1759:

 

“His letters to Lucy Porter are pitiful; he leans on her, begs for her help and comfort, asks that she shall stay on in the house and let the little business go on as it can, and is content to leave all the details to her and take her word for everything. ‘You will forgive me if I am not yet so composed as to give any directions about anything. But you are wiser and better than I and I shall be pleased with all that you shall do.’”

 

Lucy was his close contemporary, a mature woman, which is not the same as raising a child from birth. The love is real but less blood-deep. Johnson suggests this in his Rambler essay from November 13, 1750:

 

"It may be doubted, whether the pleasure of seeing children ripening into strength be not overbalanced by the pain of seeing some fall in the blossom, and others blasted in their growth; some shaken down by storms, some tainted with cankers, and some shriveled in the shade; and whether he that extends his care beyond himself does not multiply his anxieties more than his pleasures, and weary himself to no purpose, by superintending what he cannot regulate."

 

Johnson intuitively understood a parent’s vulnerabilities and limits. Michael has never fallen, been blasted, shaken, tainted or shriveled. Still, one worries, quietly.