(Be)labored Posterities

I am a revolutionary so that my son can be a farmer and his son can be a poet.†

We are revolutionaries so that our sons can be revolutionary farmers and their sons can be revolutionary poets.

I am one engaged in a revolution so that my human male offspring can be a person who cultivates land or crops or raises animals (as livestock or fish) and his human male offspring can be one who writes poetry.

She is a pure contralto and he is a carpenter and he is a pilot and he is a mate and he is a duck-shooter and they are deacons and she is a spinning-girl and he is a farmer and he is a lunatic.

I am a Rough-In Plumber and she is a Dental Assistant II so that our children can be Operations Managers.

You are a Full-Time Porter so that their son can be an Assistant Payroll Manager and his children can be Licensed Attorneys.

She is a Merchandise Analyst so that her daughter can be an Admissions Recruiter and her daughter can be a Senior Real Estate Accountant.

I was a Hair Dresser Assistant so that he could be a Compliance Specialist and she could be an Employee Relations Program Manager.

She is a waitress so her daughter can be a waitress (and perhaps a medical assistant) and her daughter can, perhaps, do something else.

She is a cashier (at Hardee’s®) but her teenage daughters (whom a journalist calls “Ana” and “Esmeralda”) need to work in the tobacco fields, and next summer her son will be old enough to work there too.

We are capitalists so that our children can be capitalists and their children can be capitalists.

I am one who has begun and am carrying on an enterprise or activity of a fundamental change in political organization, especially the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed so that my bipedal primate mammal, being the sex that produces gametes which fertilize the eggs of a female, which was the product of the reproductive processes, can be a human or individual who fosters the growth of the solid part of the surface of the earth or plants or animals or plant or animal products that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence or breeds or brings to maturity those of a kingdom (Animalia) of living things that typically differ from plants in having cells without cellulose walls, in lacking chlorophyll and the capacity for photosynthesis, in requiring more complex food materials (as proteins), in being organized to a greater degree of complexity, and in having the capacity for spontaneous movement and rapid motor responses to stimulation (as animals kept or raised for use or pleasure or any of numerous cold-blooded strictly aquatic craniate vertebrates that include the bony fishes and usually the cartilaginous and jawless fishes and that have typically an elongated somewhat spindle-shaped body terminating in a broad caudal fin, limbs in the form of fins when present at all, and a 2-chambered heart by which blood is sent through thoracic gills to be oxygenated) and his bipedal primate mammal, being the sex that produces gametes which fertilize the eggs of a female, which was the product of the reproductive processes, can be one who forms writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm (as words) by inscribing the characters or symbols of on a surface.

I own a laundromat so that my daughter can be an elementary school teacher and her son can be a (lyric) poet.

He can be a landscaper so that he can be a mail boy so that he can be a library assistant.

He worked for Homestead Steel Works so that his daughter could be an adjunct in a department of modern languages and literatures and die in poverty after being let go after 25 years of teaching.

After the revolution, she went into exile so that her son could be an inaugural poet and write, “Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper— / bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us, / on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives— / to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did / for twenty years, so I could write this poem.”

I will work for food so that my kids can work for food and their kids can work for food.

I was a laundry worker (and studied war) so that my son could be a waiter so that he could be a draftsman, but he was killed by an auto plant foreman in Detroit for being “Japanese.”

He was a revolutionary (and president) so that his son could be president and his son could be a diplomat and build the first presidential library.

I am a firefighter so that my son can be a police officer, who would kill a man allegedly selling cigarettes on the sidewalk.

I am a mother, and a secretary, so that my daughter can be a lawyer, and her husband, the president, can say, “folks can make a lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree,” and a Senior Lecturer in Art History can reply that “we challenge students to think, read, and write critically,” and her husband, the president, can respond, “understand that I was trying to encourage young people who may not be predisposed to a four year college experience to be open to technical training that can lead them to an honorable career.”

I will perform or carry through a task requiring sustained effort or continuous repeated operations for material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy so that my young people can perform or carry through a task requiring sustained effort or continuous repeated operations for material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy so that their young people can perform or carry through a task requiring sustained effort or continuous repeated operations for material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy.

We are parents so that our children can be stepparents and their children can be childless.

I mean to effect an action that follows established patterns or procedures or fulfills agreed-upon requirements and often connotes special skill or to carry out a usually assigned piece of work imposed often to be finished within a certain time demanding as necessary or essential prolonged conscious exertion of power or performances, which are renewed or recurring again and again, of a practical work or of something involving the practical application of principles or processes marked by uninterrupted extensions in space, time, and sequence for matter that has qualities which give it individuality and by which it may be categorized, essentially composed or made up of various naturally occurring extremely complex substances that consist of amino-acid residues joined by peptide bonds, contain the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, usually sulfur, and occasionally other elements (as phosphorus or iron), and include many essential biological compounds (as enzymes, hormones, or antibodies), various neutral compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (as sugars, starches, and celluloses) most of which are formed by green plants and which constitute a major class of animal foods, and various compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that are glycerides of fatty acids, are the chief constituents of plant and animal fat, are a major class of energy-rich food, and are soluble in organic solvents but not in water, put into action or service in the organized physical substance of an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent to give support to a stage in the process of growing, the act of repairing, and continuing natural or biological activities or functions concerned with or necessary to the maintenance of life and to provide usable power that is needed so that my members of a family or kinship being in the first or early stage of life, growth, or development can effect an action that follows established patterns or procedures or fulfills agreed-upon requirements and often connotes special skill or to carry out a usually assigned piece of work imposed often to be finished within a certain time demanding as necessary or essential prolonged conscious exertion of power or performances, which are renewed or recurring again and again, of a practical work or of something involving the practical application of principles or processes marked by uninterrupted extensions in space, time, and sequence for matter that has qualities which give it individuality and by which it may be categorized, essentially composed or made up of various naturally occurring extremely complex substances that consist of amino-acid residues joined by peptide bonds, contain the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, usually sulfur, and occasionally other elements (as phosphorus or iron), and include many essential biological compounds (as enzymes, hormones, or antibodies), various neutral compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (as sugars, starches, and celluloses) most of which are formed by green plants and which constitute a major class of animal foods, and various compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that are glycerides of fatty acids, are the chief constituents of plant and animal fat, are a major class of energy-rich food, and are soluble in organic solvents but not in water, put into action or service in the organized physical substance of an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent to give support to a stage in the process of growing, the act of repairing, and continuing natural or biological activities or functions concerned with or necessary to the maintenance of life and to provide usable power that is needed so that their members of a family or kinship being in the first or early stage of life, growth, or development can effect an action that follows established patterns or procedures or fulfills agreed-upon requirements and often connotes special skill or to carry out a usually assigned piece of work imposed often to be finished within a certain time demanding as necessary or essential prolonged conscious exertion of power or performances, which are renewed or recurring again and again, of a practical work or of something involving the practical application of principles or processes marked by uninterrupted extensions in space, time, and sequence for matter that has qualities which give it individuality and by which it may be categorized, essentially composed or made up of various naturally occurring extremely complex substances that consist of amino-acid residues joined by peptide bonds, contain the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, usually sulfur, and occasionally other elements (as phosphorus or iron), and include many essential biological compounds (as enzymes, hormones, or antibodies), various neutral compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (as sugars, starches, and celluloses) most of which are formed by green plants and which constitute a major class of animal foods, and various compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that are glycerides of fatty acids, are the chief constituents of plant and animal fat, are a major class of energy-rich food, and are soluble in organic solvents but not in water, put into action or service in the organized physical substance of an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent to give support to a stage in the process of growing, the act of repairing, and continuing natural or biological activities or functions concerned with or necessary to the maintenance of life and to provide usable power that is needed.

We are riveters so that our children can be scriveners and their children can prefer not to.

We are people who have capital especially invested in business so that our sons or daughters of human parents can have capital especially invested in business and their sons or daughters of human parents can have capital especially invested in business.

We were reactionaries so that our daughters cannot be plantation owners and their daughters cannot be executives.

We were not mathematicians so that our children will not have been natural historians and their married and unmarried children might or might not have the liberty to inhale and exhale eighteenth century naval architectures, chips of French porcelain, and philosophical geographers of the revolution.

† Qtd. in http://occupywallst.org/forum/i-am-a-revolutionary-so-my-son-can-be-a-farmer-so-/. This phrase, which is often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, appears to be a vernacular paraphrase and condensation of a passage John Adams wrote to Abigail in 1780: “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”