In his essay “Beyond 1984: The People Machines,” Ray Bradbury writes: “People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.”
Better.
Bradbury knew well that envisioning a different future means figuring out how to raise the kids who’ll live in it. Some of his best work, from “The Veldt” to “All Summer In a Day,” tackles precisely that question. This week, as we head toward Father’s Day 2016 amid ongoing election-year furor about how to shape our society’s immediate future, we’d like to offer one simple idea for a holiday that might help shift our collective vision of parenting a little farther into tomorrowland.
Allow us to explain.