Modern Family - season 3, ep 24 - Call Me Baby - May 23, 2012

Dying is not a failure to be a good father. Some people’s fathers die when they are young. It’s part of the tapestry of human experience.

My father was not old and died when I was young- I didn’t particularly blame him for that. Based on his age when I was born (39) it was reasonable he would live to see me grown. However, having a child when the odds- whether due to age or illness or your line of work- do not favor you being there to raise him/her to adulthood shows a definite lack of concern, basically saying “well, not my problem”. (This is why Christopher Reeve and his wife elected not to have another child, incidentally, which turned out to be a good thing since she also died early; Robert Duvall also said that he told the young women he dated after he was in his mid-50s that he had no interest in having children he wouldn’t live to see to young adulthood at the most if he lived that long.)