There has never been a time in human history when one could bring children into a world that was guaranteed to be free from horror and suffering. A few hundred years ago kids had a 50-50 chance of seeing age 20. Many of us were born to parents who lived their entire young adulthoods under the specter of nuclear annihilation, and decided to bring a new generation along anyway. Have kids or don’t but base your decision on what you want for your life, not because the current level of doom is particularly remarkable.
I used to think about that before the Pandemic. When it hit us, I realized we have absolutely no control or forecast about the future. When things started to settle, we had our third child. The recent developments about Artificial Inteligence (ChatGPT and beyond) made me think again how everything is unpredictable. I don't have a clue about how the world will be next year. My kids are my way of saying "thank you" to the universe, the materialization of a hope in something greater than myself, something that I could not possibly understand.
There has never been a time in human history when one could bring children into a world that was guaranteed to be free from horror and suffering. A few hundred years ago kids had a 50-50 chance of seeing age 20. Many of us were born to parents who lived their entire young adulthoods under the specter of nuclear annihilation, and decided to bring a new generation along anyway. Have kids or don’t but base your decision on what you want for your life, not because the current level of doom is particularly remarkable.
Thank you for sharing this important topic. The intersection between early childhood education and climate is finally getting more press. I recently read this article about the work that Capita is doing. https://earlylearningnation.com/2022/11/elliot-haspel-is-building-bridges-between-early-childhood-and-climate-change/. Elliot often writes on the Early Learning Nation substack newsletter.
I used to think about that before the Pandemic. When it hit us, I realized we have absolutely no control or forecast about the future. When things started to settle, we had our third child. The recent developments about Artificial Inteligence (ChatGPT and beyond) made me think again how everything is unpredictable. I don't have a clue about how the world will be next year. My kids are my way of saying "thank you" to the universe, the materialization of a hope in something greater than myself, something that I could not possibly understand.
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