I’m Terrified of the Future, but Plan to Have Kids Anyway
Step right up and give the apocalyptic roulette wheel a spin.
Choices abound!
Intolerable inequality? Nuclear armageddon? Catastrophic climate change? Depending on the news of the day, the odds-on favorite has been any one of these.
As the globe is slammed by simultaneous crises in the hazy aftermath of Covid, I can empathize with those that have given up hope for humanity. Truth be told, I’ve been there more times than I’d care to admit.
Maybe we’re just a cancer to the planet after all, and it’s simply a matter of time before Mother Nature excises her tumor.
Despite my periodic existential dread, I’ve despaired at the number of my peers who have resolved to not bring kids into this world. The planet already has too many humans, and climate change will make their children’s lives miserable, the argument goes. Many of them I know would be fantastic parents.
I’m not making a moral argument for or against having kids. Despite what the Supreme Court wants you to think, people should make that choice for themselves. (For the record, I also don’t subscribe to Elon’s strategy for repopulating the Earth.)
Instead, my despair arises from the rationale I’m hearing. Opting out of raising kids in order to focus on a career, retire early, or a million other reasons is perfectly valid.
But if one wants to become a parent deep down, and has decided against it due to the presumed grim future of the planet, that’s a damn shame, and an error in logic.
I’ve wrung my hands over this for some time. Is my head in the sand for holding a fleeting optimism that my kids will be better off than I am? Do I secretly have a selfish desire to become a dad, no matter how unnerving the future appears?
Maybe.
But I’m still convinced that raising kids in a loving family can only be a good thing for the planet.
Before you scream at my naiveté, consider how the world appeared to your ancestors.
The apocalypse has always been right around the corner
Way back in 1966, economist Paul Samuelson joked that “the stock market had predicted nine of the past five recessions.”
His sarcasm reflects the tendency for people to assume the end is near, and when they wake up the next day, assume that this time is different.
Remember Y2K? I don’t, I was a toddler. But I do remember 2008, 2012, and of course March 2020. Each time many were absolutely sure the world was coming to an end.
Yet here we are. Possibly in a simulation, but still breathing.
Calling a wrap on humankind has been going on for time immemorial. Can you imagine how close to the end people thought they were at the height of either of the World Wars?
Or the Black Death?
Or when Zayn left One Direction??
The point is, people are easily whipped up into a frenzy about the end of times. Nostradamus made a living out of it. And, because our egos place us at the center of the universe, the likelihood that the end will occur in our lifetimes seems too enticing to ignore.
But if you take a step back, as hard as it is to grasp, the world has never been better. Leading thinkers like Stephen Pinker point to lower homicide rates, infant mortality, human rights abuses, and other indicators that show how much humans have improved even since the recent past.
What about the threat of nuclear war? Or rising inequality? Or the deterioration of the planet? How could you possibly say things are better now?
No doubt there are new threats and sources of suffering that haven’t been seen before.
The point I’m trying to make here is, on a broad basis, things are better now than they have been at any other point in history.
So, if our ancestors looked at the world around them and determined that it was fit to support their progeny, who are we to say that this time is different? Have we really screwed up to such an extent that we should wind down humanity, and deal with the resulting consequences?
Imagine the life that your great-great grandmother led. Wherever her home country, she occupied a world with numerous incurable diseases, near-constant war, and an appalling treatment of people and the natural world. Do you wish she’d thought, “you know what, this world is worse for us being in it, and I’d rather end my lineage right here.”
What if that was Nelson Mandela’s great-grandma? Or Jonas Salk’s? Or Malala’s?
If you’re open to even a glimmer of hope for the race of Homo Sapiens, let it be because of these figures, and all the nameless others that have slowly but surely improved things for us modern people.
A shrinking population is a scary thought
Even if you think that people should hold less of an influence over the planet (I would say so), or that there should just be less of us in total (probably), a shrinking population portends disaster.
Although it’s come at a cost to the biosphere, the standard of living across the globe has been steadily rising for decades, largely as a result of population and economic growth. A stagnating or decreasing population would halt that progress—diseases that were on track to be eradicated would stick around, young people would be burdened by supporting older members of society, and the development of new technologies would slow to a crawl.
I’m no technological utopian, but strongly believe that new ideas and inventions will get us out of a lot of the messes we’ve created for ourselves, as they have in the past. Take that with a large grain of salt, because unwavering faith in technology as a savior for all of our issues (especially climate change) is a bad idea. Breakthrough tech takes a really long time to reach mass adoption.
If I were an economist, I’d favor the doughnut variety. I’m painfully aware of the fantasy that is endless economic growth, but am also convinced that entrepreneurship and new technologies should be encouraged. There are just too many inventors throughout history that have changed our lives for the better.
New tech like vertical farming and 3D printing opens the door to a planet that could sustainably house billions more humans. There isn’t a fixed number of people the Earth could support — it depends on our patterns of production and consumption, according to the United Nations.
Plus, if technical advances stopped happening, we’d be mired in our current messes forever. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch would continue floating for eons, suffocating life all around in its wake.
When I think about the pros and cons of an expanding population, it’s hard for me to justify continued human suffering as the price of “saving the planet.”
After all, isn’t solving climate change really more about saving us?
In the long run, Earth will survive human exploitation; as the legendary biologist Lynn Margulis said, “Gaia is a tough b*tch.” Biodiversity will recover from its abuses, eventually. Earth will survive climate change.
We, on the other hand, may not.
Resist the pull into Nihilism
Nihilism is a tempting belief to fall into in times like these. We may have pulled one too many beams from the delicate Jenga tower that is our environment, and the socio-economic system that it supports.
We’re all done for, we’re past the point of no return, may as well stop our lineages in their tracks.
As I’ve learned more about the dire state of our environment, I’ve teetered on the edge of this Nihilistic abyss, regularly wondering if a sustainable human future is already a lost cause.
But when I think about the planet that my ancestors in Austria occupied — one in which the First World War was unfolding and humanity seemed poised to destroy itself and much of its environment — I can’t imagine my expectations of the future are worse than theirs were.
Despite the challenges, they saw a world fit for offspring, and since then, many things have gotten better. CO2 concentrations may have not been as high, but human suffering was surely worse.
I can’t say for sure that my kids will have it better than I did, or that we can mold our ways of being into something resembling a sustainable system.
But we’ve made it this far.
We may not be Gaia, but humanity is a tough son of a you-know-what, too.
