At This Rate, I’ll Never Be Able to Start a Second Family

Fatherhood. One of the great joys of a man’s life, second only to secret fatherhood. Unfortunately, due to the high cost of living, I fear I may never get the chance to start a second family.

What does it say about our current economic climate that a hardworking individual like myself can’t maintain multiple households a few towns apart? Did our Founding Fathers—many of whom had secret children of their own—not declare the pursuit of happiness an unalienable right? Frankly, it’s unconstitutional that rampant inflation is keeping me from achieving paternal inflation.

I have to work multiple jobs as it is just to feed and clothe one family. There’s not a chance in hell I’ll be able to support a second set of children anytime soon, let alone send them to college. Especially since they’d have to go out of state, just to be safe. Don’t need them all ending up in the same media studies class and striking up a conversation about their strikingly similar dads.

Think of all the great secret-fatherhood moments I’ll never get to experience. Like coaching my son’s little league team all the way to the state championship, where, as fate would have it, he ends up facing off against my other son’s team, forcing me to do a Mrs. Doubtfire routine the whole game by switching uniforms / facial hair between innings (I’d have to sport a fake goatee with my second family, of course).

It doesn’t help that my father keeps reminding me that by the time he was my age, he already had five children by two different women. But back then, you could easily afford a pair of starter homes on a modest middle-class salary, whereas I can barely make rent on a single one-bedroom apartment. How can I be expected to live two separate lives when my only hope of separating my two families is by putting a partition down the middle of my kitchenette?

At this rate, I may only ever know the pleasure of coming home from work and being greeted by my wife and adoring children, without ever knowing the pleasure of pretending to be away on a business trip so I can sneak off and spend quality time with my other wife and adoring children. That’s just not right.

Life has no meaning if you can’t share it with loved ones, and it has no excitement if you can’t spend all your waking hours crafting and maintaining an elaborate web of lies to ensure those loved ones never cross paths in my lifetime. (They can get to know each other when they argue over the rights to my assets—if I even have any.)

It’s no wonder fewer people are choosing to have kids. It’s only a matter of time before the traditional two-family structure dies out altogether. Honestly, I don’t know if I would even want to bring secret children into this world. With how things are going, it just wouldn’t feel responsible.