I wrote this about a decade ago when I was really high.

Answer to a Rhetorical Question

Well you see, a long time ago all the mommies and daddies were pretty much the same. Individual mommy-and-daddy pairs might be different from one another, but each set was matched precisely. There was always a man and a woman and they fit together, more or less. Much of the time. Don’t worry about that, sweetie. And the daddy went to work most days, or at times when they went to war daddies might be gone for quite a long time.

This is because the World of Men has always been a strange and magical realm. Among the people of this realm, the power of thought is absolute. If enough people agree that a thing is so, it becomes the truth. Men sometimes call this arrangement “democracy,” but only when it appears as a conscious, self-aware decision-making process. The truth is that men only invented democracy when enough of them believed they could. That is usually how their magic works.

Over time, old magics always pass away to make way for new magics. This must happen from time to time in the World of Men. For if they cling too long to one magic, they risk being overtaken by a greater magic which binds all the many realms. That is the magic which says a thing must live and grow until it dies.

The new magic takes hold first in the minds of men and women. They spread the magic amongst themselves, sharing it and testing it and fighting for it and believing in it so strongly that they inspire others. The more who believe, the stronger the magic.

Sometimes, men call the cycle of new magics replacing old “progress,” though at other times they may call it something else, something less optimistic. Adherents of the new magic and the old stand at odds and speak passionately.

A battle must sometimes be fought between the old magic and the new, but even if it triumphs the old magic can never be the same. These periodic struggles are a regrettable fact of life in the World of Men.

New magics spread slowly, and begin with the children. Yes, honey, children like you. You see, children are the source of magic in the world. As they grow into adults, they become the person they will be. Sometimes this happens quickly, and sometimes it happens slowly. And the children have mommies and daddies to help them learn how to take control of their magic, so that one day they can shape the future.

Now all mommies and daddies, the ones who are really mommies and daddies, are all the same inside. They’re mommies and daddies. But over time, as new magic replaced old, mommies and daddies started looking less alike on the outside.

The important thing to remember is that a real mommy and daddy are exactly what their children need them to be. Real mommies and daddies aren’t always perfect, but they love their children and always try to do right by them.

And as the children of the world grew more and more different from one another in an ever-increasing variety of skin tones, hair shades, eye colors, and personalities … why, they found they needed mommies and daddies in all shapes and sizes and descriptions.

That’s why sometimes your friends have mommies and daddies who aren’t like your mommy and daddy. That’s why some of your friends have mommies who speak one language and daddies who speak another. That’s why one of your friends has a mommy with dark skin and a daddy with light skin. That’s why another of your friends has two daddies and yet another has two mommies. That’s why your friend Susie has a daddy from the planet Calagulon-X and a mommy from Scranton, Ohio.

It’s a special kind of magic that makes mommies and daddies. Men call this magic “love,” and though they use the word for other things too this is its truest, most indomitable meaning. It’s the magic called love that makes mommies and daddies out of disparate, different people. On the inside, they become mommies and daddies because of that magic, and real mommies and daddies are exactly the people their children need them to be.

And as those children grow, their magic will spread and they will usher in the next new magic for their own children by believing it is so.