I think about the world my child would inhabit—Ellen Pierson

I want to have a baby.  I can imagine that baby growing into a toddler, a child, a teenager, and finally an adult.  I think about the names I might choose for my son or daughter, the books and stories I would share with him or her, and the things we would do together. 

I contemplate quite seriously how I would decorate my baby’s room, where he or she would go to school, and how I could budget for child care, and start saving to pay for college.  

But I also think about the world my child would inhabit.  While I still have hope for the future, I’m convinced that the odds on averting disaster are long.  When I learn of recent flooding or drought or wildfire or record heat waves, my stomach sinks.  Climate change is happening now.  Without drastic changes, parts of the world will cease to be habitable before the year my child might graduate from high school.  By the time he or she would face old age, Manhattan and Miami may be under water.  

The pictures in my mind’s eye of caring for my child and the ones of an apocalyptic future are not easy to reconcile. I try to tell myself that things must have seemed bleak during the Depression, during the war, during the Cold War. No one’s future security has ever been assured at the time of birth.  It makes sense, but it seems like rationalizing.  

I still don’t know what happens next.  What happens when your emotional choice and your rational choice are opposites?  Will I be haunted by some mixture of guilt and regret no matter what?  My would-be child will never know to thank me for sparing him or her existence.  My hypothetical child will most likely forgive me.  Who do I answer to?