Of all the advice I received or read about parenting, the tidbit that made me bridle most was the suggestion that I not give my then two-year-old son a lot of choice.  I rebelled instantly!  No choice?  Was this person crazy?  I’m a firm believer in choice; without it, life would be a gulag.

 

That’s easy and downright fun to believe until the moment when you ask your child whether he’d prefer the green bowl or the yellow bowl and he chooses yellow and then you realize the yellow bowl has gunk in it that didn’t get cleaned by the dishwasher, and you offer green instead.  Next thing you know, there’s a fight on your hands.  Equally bad: Two children get their choice of popsicles, but both want grape, and there’s only one left.  Wouldn’t things have been smoother if I’d simply handed each a cherry popsicle and ended any discussion from on high?

 

Right now, U.S. citizens face more choice than we can handle.  We have Presidential candidates slumming from state to state, floating popular (and populist) ideas that simplify every complex issue and often fly in the face of the obvious structures of government, and I refer here to the idea that it is Congress, not a President, that makes laws and past which all new laws must go.  Of course, the candidates could make the choice to campaign on real issues, simplify nothing, and never make claims they cannot possibly fulfill.  But then, so we’re told, they’d become instantly unelectable.

 

We adult citizens have the choice of what to drive and how far to commute to work.  We see that choice writ in black sticky oil every time we pull up to the gas pump, but we choose to think we still have the “freedom” to live where we wish, drive for as long as we wish, and pay pennies for what are essentially expensive commodities.  Food, for example.  Transport, for another.  We have become so complacent about air and auto travel, we now take it as a given––a right––rather than a choice for which we might have to make financial and lifestyle sacrifices.

 

There are moments when I yearn for less choice or just plain no choice.  Haven’t we all had the experience of having to ask a sales clerk at some store or other about the various choices displayed on their particular credit card reader?  I use a bank card that looks like a debit card but which my bank claims I must “run as a credit card,” a phrase that is patent nonsense, but for now, I’ll ignore this in favor of noting that ALL of the stores that I frequent have different readers, and I cannot possibly keep track of whether to hit ESCAPE or CLEAR or CANCEL or CREDIT in order to get my card to “read” or “run” properly.  That includes Schnuck’s and Buehler’s grocery stores, Lowe’s and Home Depot, CVS pharmacies, and any number of other places.  What would be so wrong with having one national standard?  

 

When my family goes out to eat, who gets to choose the location?  Almost without exception, it’s the adults who choose.  So apparently, when the unit of government is small enough, an autocracy is permissible––even desirable.  Does this call the sacred cow of Democracy into question?  Plato thought so.  Do I?

 

Well, probably not.  Democracy seems to be the best option going, but we grown-ups clearly don’t think consistently (as a nation) about choice.  Choice Issue Numer Uno: Pregnancy.  Reproductive rights is such a touchy issue that one can barely even use the term without establishing some sort of moral boundary across which other people will hurl abuse and maybe bombs.  Thus we entertain a slew of laws exist to restrict choice based on the greater good, the health of society as a whole: It is a punishable offense, for example, to exercise your right of free speech (read: choice) by standing up and yelling “Fire!” in a crowded auditorium.  

 

Liberals (a term that shifts so much in any given fifty-year period, it’s practically meaningless) tie themselves into Gordian knots as they agonize about doing anything fun or fattening, because, by golly, there are people in the world less fortunate, less well off, or just plain oppressed and starving.  And so there are.  And it’s no laughing matter.  But does that mean that those on the rich side of the tracks must abstain from all that is good in life?  Is it a moral choice to boycott luxury items like Krispy Kreme donuts and expensive artworks, in order that we mimic more closely the living standards of those below the poverty line?

 

Conservatives (another slippery term) scoff at the liberals’ dilemma.  The market will bear out, they say.  Or, in some cases, “If the poor wanted to be rich, they’d work harder and they’d stop being so poor.”  Of course, one way to achieve this might be a social safety net of some sort, maybe debt relief or some other “liberal” policy device.  Unthinkable, say conservatives; man must rise or fall on his own.  And women?  Well, women can stay home.  That’s a fine and traditional choice.

 

Everywhere, choice.  I was approached by a man on the street the other day as I was waiting for my barbershop to open.  He began by wishing me a good morning, then explained that his girlfriend had shot him in the foot.  He showed me his sandaled foot.  I saw calluses, but no obvious bullet wound.  In any event, he wasn’t limping.  He then went on to tell me that he’d just been in to Subway Sandwiches next door, and they’d refused to give him food.   He asked me if I’d give him food, or money to buy a sandwich.  I made a choice: I said no.  

 

Having lived in New York and Los Angeles and many large cities, I concluded this man was a scam artist attempting tried and true scam-strategies: Begin by eliciting pity, then ask for a handout.  It can be very effective: “My sister’s in the hospital across town, she may be dying, can I have twenty bucks for cab fare?”  That was a popular one on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the early nineties.

 

I didn’t enjoy my choice.  The man walked away, still not limping, and cursing my name.  It looked to me as if he could easily have applied for a job at Subway.  It also seemed to me that if his girlfriend really had shot him, then she hadn’t used a large-caliber weapon––a BB gun, perhaps?  Finally, I considered the strong possibility that this man was mentally ill and was incapable of holding a job for reasons effectively beyond his control.  Our city has decent services for the homeless, also for those who have temporarily lost their employment, but we do not, I feel, have adequate facilities for dealing with those whose minds work counter to society at large.  For a mentally ill person, scams on the street are not a choice, they are a necessity, just like air, water, and food.

 

My grandmother had dementia.  She didn’t ask for it; it came, like the Grinch’s Christmas, without her choosing.  I may eventually drift the same way.  In the meantime, I shall continue to question whether we ought, as a species and as a society, to continue to be allowed to make solo, selfish, and self-interested choices.  Economists will tell us ‘til the cows come home that this is the only way a stable, healthy economy ever really works.  Maybe.  Or, maybe, we need to learn restraint, to think in broader, longer-lens terms.  Drill the arctic?  Sure.  It’s only a choice.  Or maybe not.  Maybe there are larger ramifications.  Vote for Hilary Clinton?  Sure.  She’s only a choice.  It’s all short term if you happen to be a chunk of granite.  

 

This leaves the issue of the yellow bowl unsettled.  So which to choose, yellow bowl or green?  Oh, never mind.  I’ve chosen to school my youngest child at a building beyond walking distance from my home, so, off I go to the gas station where I shall continue to choose to pump hydrocarbons into the air and pay out-of-pocket for the privilege to do so.  And why not?  It’s my red-blooded American choice.

 

For now.