SLATE CARE & FEEDING FEARS FOR THE NEILSEN RATINGS OF THE FUTURE:
Does Climate Change Mean
I Shouldn’t Have Kids?
A young person wants to be a parent. Does humanity’s grim future change that?
Dear Care and Feeding
I am a 21-year-old college student who desperately wants to be a parent within the next five to eight years of my life. I am reasonably certain I can achieve this—I have a good job lined up after graduation, I’ve been dating the same person since we were 17, and I have an incredible family support system within an hour of the city I’ll be living in. While I could change my mind, right now the picture of this domestic future makes me happier than I can say.
However, I can’t stop thinking about climate change. I’m terrified that I’m going to do all this, have a kid in the next five or six years, and then things will start to get really bad when the kid is still young. This is obviously terrifying; no young kid could have the psychological or tangible skills to cope with that, and I’m not sure I would either. It’s all I’ve been thinking about for weeks. I’m sure you get emails like this all the time (though probably from actual parents), and I know there’s no real answer, but how does one make this choice? Is it ever the right one?
—Rising Doubts
Dear Rising,
Yeah. I hear you. The recent U.N. report on just how fucked we are has been an emotional and philosophical game-changer for many people, it seems. It was the No. 1 topic of conversation for my kids this weekend, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think, Wow bros. My bad for bringing you here just in time for this.
I’m not going to try to sell you on having kids. The doubts you have and the reasons you cite for not wanting to are legitimate. So instead I’m going to advise you to wait... When society has been reduced to a burning wasteland populated by roaming tribes who dart in and out of caves made from overturned 18-wheelers, wouldn’t it be nice to know that you can care for one of those kids who doesn’t have a tribe to belong to? Doesn’t the thought of it just globally warm … your heart?
Sorry.
