To do, or not to do? Millions ask this question daily, contemplating whether to bring more humans into the world.
It’s scary to read how the world population has exploded over the past hundred years. A century back, there were two to three billion of us. Now we’re approaching eight billion. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s contributed to this: agricultural advances, improved medical care, and industrialization have all made life healthier, more sustainable, and more comfortable.
Back to the question: To do, or not to do? If you turn this question on me… hmmm, difficult to answer. I have two kids. They weren’t conceived to necessitate a union between my wife and me; that was already there. Also, I didn’t need to address family or societal expectations.
Actually, if everyone were having babies, my contrarian self wouldn’t do so on principle.
For me, it came about through an ontological awakening. Three years before my son was born, I felt a tug in my genes and mind, telling me that having children was right for me. I already knew the magnitude of the responsibility this would require: the sleepless nights, the persistent distraction, any smidgen of freedom reduced to a fast-disappearing myth.
I was clued in, but still I went ahead and mixed the requisite magic.
With child-rearing responsibilities in mind, it seems crazy that people would want to have kids. It’s like hitting the Reset Button on your social life, your dreams… heck, everything. And yet people continue to have children at a rate of two people added to the population roster EVERY SECOND.
Woah. The heat of this realization could be temporarily quelled if off-planet colonization became a thing. For now, though, unbridled procreation continues on Planet Earth, which raises the question: What kind of world will our children inherit in ten, twenty, or fifty years? Will we still have a world?
It’s a slippery slope, and I believe that’s where our answer lies.
Life is a grand joker, delivering time and again despite the inherent hardships and confusion. Whether you’re born into royalty or poverty, suffering remains a great equalizer, and it’s via this pain that Joy arises. Yes, despite persistent anxiety about how much quality time we might have, individually or collectively, we all know what a trip life is, and to experience it is infinitely better than not. And that’s why – despite hurtling through time and space quicker and less confidently than ever – we’ll continue having kids, doing what we can to propagate the beautiful madness.
I might not be the most qualified person to advise on having kids, but I will say that they’re an unquantifiable joy that blesses beyond measure.
Go ahead, do it. And do so with love.