I know lots of cro magnons go around saying stuff like this, but in my case it’s true – Dad, you embarrass me every time you knuckle-walk into a room. You don’t even get it! It’s like you think it’s still the Middle Paleolithic Era or something.

Do you remember the other day? I was hanging out at the cave with some friends from the tribe. We decided to paint some animals on my bedroom wall with ochre from the dirt outside. We were listening to Ooga Bugga play a flute he carved out of a bison shin, and talking. So, suddenly you burst in. You don’t even have the self-awareness to knock, and then you started grunting and shrieking things like, “YOU LOUD! NO DO!” without any linking verbs or detailed explanation. We just don’t speak the same language! I mean, I would love to have a conversation with you at my level, but all you ever do is gesture and grunt and say really basic things. Ugh, forget any capacity for symbolism or judgment.

And my bedroom walls? You just don’t get it. Representative art is, like, totally lost on you. And you think my music is just noise?!? Ugh. Noise?!?! Whatever. You’re just too old. It’s like, I’m sorry Dad. I get that you’re 29 and all, but please try to understand that it’s a new era and my friends and I happen to like abstract thought and basic artistic expression! It’s not my fault that when you were my age you were working too hard crossing land bridges from Africa and searching for herds of mammoth to bother learning how to make tools. It’s like, don’t blame me that your generation never stratified the labor process or develop art and tool-making.

And you know what, Dad? I don’t want to be nomadic and hunt like you did. I mean, don’t get me wrong – I appreciate how hard you worked when you were my age. But that was 14 years ago – it was another time. You should really be happy that his son has the opportunity to specialize in a specific trade. And you know what, Dad? I want to be an artist. I want to paint on cave walls and the sides of cliffs to express ideas like what animals are nearby. I want to carve crude representations of pregnant females to serve basic religious functions.

That’s who I am, Dad. Is that so hard to understand? Maybe you didn’t have any choice besides following packs of animals and bringing them back to share with the tribe, but I don’t have to do that just because you did. We have about ten different choices, now. We are living in an age with an rudimentary form of labor division. Get with the times! You can’t stop it!

In a year or so, when I have my own son, I am going to encourage him to be the cro magnon he wants to be. Maybe by the time he is my age, he’ll have a dozen more specializations to choose from. And you know what, Dad? I am going to be the type of father who has complex social interactions with my son. I am going to be the type of father who is intellectually capable of analogy, wisdom and ethical judgment.

I am going to encourage my son to follow his dreams, whether he wants to go fishing with spears, or prepare raw meat over fire. And, sure – maybe he won’t like bison shin bone flute music, either – but whatever bone he does carve instruments out of, I sure won’t tell him it’s just noise.

Of course, you won’t live to know him. Your level of emotional sophistication may stop short of the feelings of pride, love and empathy, but I hope you can find it in your heart to let me make my own choices. Dad, you’ll be 30 in a few months and probably don’t have much time left. We’ve had our differences, but I love you. When your own father died on a hunt, you did not have a sufficiently developed sense of familial bonds to dissuade you from leaving his body there for animals to eat. But in a few months or so when you die, I’m going to bury you with an amulet I carved to honor you. But for now, I am 14 years old – I am a sexually mature man, and I have a solid 15 years ahead of me. I’ve got to start living.

–Natalie Shure

Photo by Dark Botxy