As a Chinese adoptee whose life was determined by one policy that violated the reproductive rights of women, I now make parallels to the ethical questions I have to consider as a young woman and a climate educator. My birth mother was forced to give me up because of the One Child Policy and the preference of males in the family over females. For me, this created a loss of culture, loss of family, and loss of identity. But for my birth mother, this created a sacrifice that I can only think of as a radical act of love.

When I was born, there were about 2.5 billion people on this planet. In the span of my lifetime (I am now 70), that number has tripled. That is astounding. When I entered reproductive age, I made the decision that if I could do nothing else, I could at least not contribute to that astronomical growth.

I am an almost 21 year old non-binary person from the UK. Ever since I was a child I have always known that I wanted to be a parent. In my ideal world, I would have children in about eight to ten years’ time. I desperately want to be a parent and feel a strong urge to care for and raise children but the world seems so hostile towards them and I can’t imagine a future where they would be safe

I considered having kids, and I didn’t realise how much I had notions of a future with future generations until I really grieved the decision not to have them.

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 am 43 years old. My husband and I have been married for six years. We live in the UK. I know he wants kids and would make an amazing father. I have always been a bit ambivalent about kids for many reasons, yet I probably would have done it, at least for the sake of my partner. However, for the last few years I have felt a crushing sense of climate anxiety which has put me off the idea of kids. I sway between hope/ activism and doom/ despair.

For most of my life, I have felt fairly ambivalent about having children. However, now that I am 30 and married, I have gradually begun to feel the pull of having children. My friends are starting to have kids or talk about wanting kids soon. And it’s just hard to imagine not having kids when that experience seems to be such a big and important part of life. Entering this stage of life has brought increased doubt, uncertainty, confusion, and sadness around my reproductive choices.

Every time a family member or friend announces they are expecting a baby, I am overwhelmed with sadness and helplessness. I know I am meant to say congratulations, but I don’t feel happy.

I would love to have a baby, but I am struggling to justify bringing a new person into a world that faces climate change and overpopulation.

I am a 42 year old woman who decided not to have children in large part because I don’t see a viable future for them. I work in a field involved in protecting wildlife, but most days it feels as if I am rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. 

I am in my sixties now. I made the choice not to have children in my teens due to what I saw happening in the world.

My sister and I made a pact at a very young age that we would never have children, at the time, we did so in solidarity to break the cycle of domestic/child abuse that was occurring in our family.  

Video testimony

Ignore the distractions, focus on what’s important. We are facing an unprecedented global threat that needs priority above all the “distraction” the world throws at us.  I have always been conscious of how my decision to have children will add to the already pressing burden on nature and the environment, with species going extinct every day.

I am 38 years old and have made the decision to remain child-free. I’m not having children for environmental reasons. I’m worried about what the future holds for our planet with climate change. My partner and I have been together for 16 years. He also doesn’t want children. If he did we would not have got married.

I am now 65. I never married, nor had children. My sister is 60 and she never had children either. Both of us decided in our teens that we never wanted to have children. We were raised in Louisville, Kentucky and are college educated. Our adoptive parents had “time” to enjoy their married lives for 11 years before adopting me in 1951 and my sister in 1956.

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

I am 61 and never had children. In fact, I worked hard during my productive years to make sure I didn’t get pregnant. I have always believed that I did not need to add another human being to Mother Earth.