I Almost Didn’t Have a Child. Here’s Why I Did.

Yet another smart, thoughtful woman in her late 20s told me this week that she’s not sure she’ll ever have kids. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because she’s scared. Scared of the world they’d be born into. Scared of bringing life into what she perceives is a burning house.

I hear this more and more. And every time, my heart both aches and deeply understands. Just to be clear – choice is sacred. The right to not have a child is just as vital as the right to have one. But when the decision is tangled up in climate grief and existential dread, something precious is getting lost in the smoke.

Dear late 20s, early 30s woman: I see you. I was you.

Back in my mid-30s, I wrestled with the same questions. I was torn between terror and my deep longing to be a mother. Would it be cruel to bring a child into this mess? Would I regret it? Would they?

I remember one night, lying awake, staring at the ceiling, tears pooling in my ears. I was overwhelmed by the news, the tipping points, the injustices stacking up. What kind of mother would I be, I wondered, bringing life into a world this uncertain?

Now I’m 50. I have one daughter. And she is my joy. My mirror. My hope.

Back then, I didn’t realise that children aren’t naïve hopes for a better world  – they are the world, arriving to shape what’s next. They are our hope, embodied. They are how the future comes. They’re the gritty, curious, soul-expanding generation – laughing in the face of despair, picking up the paintbrush, grabbing your hand with a knowing smile that quietly grants you access to their vast and unfolding potential.

Yes, the world feels in a precarious position. And these kids have a lot to grapple with. But that’s not new. I was born into Cold War anxiety, plastic everything, landfills for days, and magazines that told me how to make my thighs disappear. I learned to be courageous, to stand up and create collective impact, to become a systems thinker, to honour and revere nature… albeit intellectually.

My daughter was born into a polycrisis. She is learning to bust through capitalism by repairing, reusing, making, and closing loops. She is learning that being human is not a transaction – it is a sacred invitation back into nature. She is learning to imagine a vastly different expression of our species. She does not have to save the world – that is not my expectation of her. She just has to live wholeheartedly within it. As the world reveals itself to her, she will reveal the contents of her heart to the world, in no uncertain terms.

Her tenderness is not weakness – it’s a force and a power that might have been overlooked in us, but it is a quality we can nurture and promote to contribute to the world we are changing. 

Yes. It is true that she may personally endure great suffering. My parents' generation and my own might be the first people to walk the earth to have created a life of extreme comfort (for those in the global north). But we have learned in just two generations how unsustainable that is for our planet. So it seems there is a degree of natural uncertainty and struggle that is inherent in the human condition. Rather than stop breeding, perhaps we need to soften to that truth. To learn to hold more, to learn to find inner resilience when the world around us offers no such promise, and to live into the truths it can deliver on  – wonder, curiosity, growth, joy, peace  – experienced moment to moment.

When I think of Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti  – places where grief outpaces breath  – I feel the weight of global sorrow. But I also feel a call to live wisely with the freedoms I do have. Because while I may not live under direct bombardment or food scarcity, the frontline of collapse still runs through me. Through all of us.

I hold a poppy-painted stone from Gallipoli in my palm each morning  – a reminder gifted to my daughter from my father of the wars our ancestors fought. We don’t wear uniforms. But don’t be fooled. We’re in a battle too. This one is quieter, but no less fierce. It’s a war of wills and worlds. A war of ideology and belief. Of truth and trust. Of climate and capital. Of attention and distraction. Of futures imagined and futures denied.

This war is being fought in classrooms, in courtrooms, in comment sections. In boardrooms and ballots. On screens and in the hearts of our young. And while the weapons are different, the stakes feel just as high.

My daughter’s dreams and her bright, questioning heart are needed in this war.

To remind us what we’re fighting for: the possibility of tenderness. Of freedom without domination. Of a future where breath is easy and belonging is not up for debate.

This stone I hold is not just a memory. It’s a reminder that peace is not the absence of struggle, but the result of people who refuse to look away. Who bring their art, their questions, their fierce love into the fight. Who does that best? Children. (Tweenagers seem particularly endowed with fierce love…)

So no, we are not in a state of famine. But the front line of the Capitalist West’s battle runs through each of us. And because we are free in ways our Palestinian and Ukrainian brothers and sisters are not, we must wield that freedom wisely. We must invest in our arsenal of hope, dreams, love, and the unshakable belief that something better – something fairer – is always possible.

And so yes, of course I worry. But I also don’t. Alongside the grief, something else stirred. Not optimism, but a pulse. A flicker, a question: what if love is still a reasonable risk, well worth taking?

This generation is not here to fit in. They’re here to reimagine the whole thing. To work on what previous generations fumbled. To make art and sense out of the ashes. And whether or not you choose to have a child, your creative energy is still vital. The world is hungry for your questions, your wild ideas, your experiments in love.

This is the long arc of change and progress. It is an intergenerational project we are all participating in.

So if you are on that painful edge of hope, trying to decide if it’s safe, if it’s right, if it’s even ethical  – don’t stop there. Look deeper. Ask not only: What am I afraid of bringing a child into? But also: What kind of world might they bring into being?

Maybe you’ll choose not to have kids. That choice is whole and valid. And I hold you and that tough decision in my heart. But if the reason is fear, let’s pause. Fear is not always the wisest voice in the room.

Hope isn’t blind. But it does ask you to squint toward possibility, even when everything looks blurry.

So I wonder  – can you name the hardest edge of your hope right now? Where does your fear live  – in your body, your parliament, the planet, your future? What tenderness do you need to stand at the edge and not look away?

Dear one, you don’t owe the world a child.

But you do owe yourself a truth that isn’t flattened by fear.

With love,
Your Big Sis from another Ms,

Megan
xxx

P.S. You may not have kids, or may be through that period in your life  – but you might know a woman grappling with these deep, hard decisions. Please consider sharing this with her. x