America's Favorite Pastime: The Blame Game

Using an expected inflation rate of 4% on average, it will cost $310,605 to raise a child in a middle-class home from birth to age 18. 

So say the experts who immerse themselves in such statistics. But nowhere can one find any dollar amount of what a child might owe his or her parent for doing so. I say, at the very least they might give a damn about that parent's welfare. Sadly, this is not always the case.

Take, for example, a story in today's Wall Street Journal about a man living in Portland, Oregon who has filed a wrongful-death suit against a California power company, claiming their downed power lines in a nearby canyon caused his father's death in the recent fires that devastated the city of Altadena.

The man, Xiaoyong Zhao, had tried and failed to reach his 84-year old father during the first day of the fires. The elder man, who did not speak or understand English and was unable to walk unassisted, lived alone in a house in Altadena. When the son couldn't reach his father he assumed he had gone to sleep. The next morning he flew to California and went to his father's house and found it totally burned to the ground. He also found his father's remains.

So many questions come to mind: Why didn't he fly to Altadena when he first heard of the fires that threatened his father's neighborhood? Why was his elderly father, language and mobility impaired, living alone in another state? What does one owe an aging parent, especially one living in a foreign land? And lastly, why sue anybody, especially the power company that asserts their power lines showed no sign of malfunction before the start of the fire? 

Obviously Mr. Zhao should sue himself. If he wins the case he can use the money to pay for the psychoanalysis he will need for the remainder of his life, trying to assuage his guilt and face his responsibility in his father's death.