Tread lightly is a motto I live by and one I am trying to instill in my two young children.

I speak to them often about being gentle to the earth and we try as a family to make choices that do more good than harm - to the environment and to the people around us. So when I sit here considering if we should have a third child, it seems completely unreasonable for us to do so.

I didn’t plan it like this, it just so happened that the day before I was supposed to get my abortion was the last day of school, so my second grader needed to be picked up at 12:30, sticky with Oreos and popsicles from the end-of-the-year party, but my almost 5 year old was still booked in pre-school till 3:30.

Video Testimony

I was born in 1955 into a navy family in Nova Scotia, and into a world of unquestioned optimism where the the beacon of progress brightening the future with promises of bounty for all. The industrial revolution had matured, the green revolution was promising more than enough food, and the average family in my world was five children. Nobody worried about the consequences of our actions - the world was an infinite sink capable of absorbing the detritus of everything we consumed.

I have a daughter and I am constantly asked when baby #2 is coming

My name is Tim, and as an orphan from the sixties I never wanted kids! Coincidentally I got adopted at age 5 into an all white family with 6 older sisters , so my entire childhood was hyper aware of the feminine mystique!

Video Testimony

Video Testimony

As a mother of three, I can’t help wondering what future my children can expect to have. Climate change, ocean acidification, deforestation, and species extinction will radically alter the planet they inherit. Still, I don’t regret becoming a mother.