I guess the difference is that we used to worship gods that created us. Our Father. Our mothers, aunts, and uncles. Sometimes disappointed (rightfully so.) Sometimes capricious, sometimes wrathful, sometimes proud. Not always good parents, sometimes absent, sometimes selfish. But parents. Parents who created us and felt responsible for us. Parents who maybe sometimes hated us but always loved us.

Now we have grown up and forgotten them. We need them not, we stand on our own two feet. We have conquered chance and the earth. If not individually, as a species. In our joy and creativity, we have spawned a new generation of Gods.

Money. Power. Status. We worship them, our children. We love them. But what do they feel for us? They are our life, they are our world. But the love of a child is qualitatively different than the love of a parent. There are conditions. There is more focus on self and less on the needs, the welfare of the parent. Was it a mistake?

What have we sacrificed to them? What have they done for us?

• Prose