Just give.

It’s been a little hard to think about much else these past two days besides the cloud of concrete dust and misery that has befallen Haiti.

But this is a Dad blog, not a disaster blog (except when it is). So what lessons are there here for parents? The Motherlode, always a first responder of sorts, offered heartfelt post about keeping one’s perspective. She was mostly on-target, although I could have done without this sentence:

Helicopter parenting is a frivolous phrase when the helicopters are real and have a much more urgent mission.

Yes, and Legos are so meaningless when so many buildings in Haiti crumbled like Lego blocks.

My thinking is more along the lines of what Matt said (no, not the thing about him getting laid): my mind has been wandering directly to the most morbid thoughts of what it must be like to have your child lost in the rubble.

It’s not just that I love my children so much that I am haunted by the idea of losing them (although that’s true). It’s more that when I had children, I think I sort of joined the human race for the first time. Reproducing is so elemental, and being a parent such a common bond, that I find it hard to have the same ironic distance from the suffering of others. My fatalism has also faded a bit. I am flesh and blood. I care, for better or worse.

I’m not saying this a universal thing: Mother Theresa never had children, and lots of parents remain self-interested pricks. And since I’ve become a parent, I have less time and money to do good for others and am now mainly just overcrowding the planet with my children. So maybe it’s a lose-lose: I worry about the world more since I had kids, and the world is worse off because I had kids.

Here’s a chance for us all to make up for the fact that our children are causing global warming: donate to Haiti. There seem to be different schools about which is the best group to donate to. The tech-savants are texting their cash to Yéle (yes, I know the Christian Science Monitor said that wasn’t the best bet, but Wyclef Jean was pulling bodies out of the rubble, for Chrissakes. I’ve never seen Bono do that).

Intellectuals seemed to be going for Tracy Kidder’s plea in the Times to support Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health, who put up a new website to handle the catastrophe. I had an editor’s lunch with Farmer once at TIME, and as much as one can fall in love over shrink-wrapped tuna sandwiches, I fell in love with him. He is a nerd-god with the heart of the Amida Buddha.

My money went to Unicef this time, though. Mainly because it always goes there. They know what they are doing, and Ann Veneman would pull bodies out of the rubble too if she had the chance.

I may well give to the Haiti Foundation of Hope as well. They’re not necessarily an immediate-response group, but I’m friends with the people who run it, and they do amazing work. It is likely the only Christian group I have ever donated too. But given the feeble-minded sophistry coming out of the 700 Club this week, it could be a powerful statement to give money to what you might call the Good Christians.

Of course, it doesn’t matter. Just give to anyone. In the name of all that is decent, in the name of that $200 stroller you’re thinking of buying when an umbrella stroller does just fine, just give.

Did I mention Haiti has beautiful music? Konpa Direk is almost like Haitian Latin music. Nemours  Jean Baptiste is its best practitioner. Something about him–and his music–reminds me of the best of the old Cuban orchestral music.