Futuristic letter to the agony Aunt

Dear Agony robot 

I am the parent of a 28 year old girl who has chosen to stay on Earth. She is highly qualified, intellectually sound and unnecessarily witty. She is beautiful too. Well not as beautiful as her mother but that really isn’t her fault. I ruined her appearance with my contribution of facial features. My daughter is a working woman. She is doing well for herself but my only grouse is that she refuses to leave Earth. Every time I bring up the topic, she quotes Tolkien and says

“As long as there’s some good on Earth, it is worth fighting for.”

I am aware that it’s a modified version of the original quote. I am also aware of the perilous consequences of letting little girls read books. Her head is filled with dangerous ideas like saving Earth and fighting for justice. She is young. She still believes that good prevails over evil. Maybe I shouldn’t have encouraged her to read Harry Potter and maybe I should have hooked her on to George R. R. Martin instead. My bad.

My son, on the other hand, is much more reasonable and pragmatic. He moved to Mars 6 years ago and has not returned since. He enjoys the freedom and the standard of living. He says Earth doesn’t have a good environment anymore. The only thing he misses about Earth is the blue sky. Mars as you may have heard, no doubt, is doing exceptionally well. Except for stray planet-ist incidents which happen around the red neck areas of the planet, life is generally peaceful. He is living the Mars dream. 

My neighbors give me grief about my daughter. Their children have moved to the moon. The moon is drawing people by the dozen. The moon however experiences raging winters for 11 months in a year. No wonder their immigration policies are so lax. 

My nieces and nephews are living on orbiting satellites. The pay is good but there is no freedom. They can’t step out, without a space suit, for obvious reasons. On the bright side, you don’t have to pay taxes if you live on a satellite. They come to Earth for Christmas. They are doing well. 

My daughter is the only one from her batch who is still here on Earth. Most of her friends became rocket-hostesses, plenty of them pursued satellite engineering or Planetary development or astronomy or rocket science. My daughter, on the other hand, studied environmental law. She is qualified to work on Earth only. What a waste..

After the nuclear war, opportunities on Earth have dwindled. The environment has gone for a toss. The climate and governments change faster than fashion did in the early nineties. The tectonic plates keep moving. Nothing is stable. It’s not the Earth we used to know. We live in perilous times. 

I’ve tried to coax my daughter to settle for a boy from a different planet. But she refuses. She says she cannot possibly leave me and her whole life behind just so that she can get citizenship of a different planet. She calls it a suicide mission. She  obviously doesn’t understand the gravity of her decisions now. She says that if she decides to marry, she will marry an alien only. Would you believe that? 

I am at my wits end and do not know how to convince her. Please help.

Regards

Distressed Dad 

Earth, 27th May, 2075