"WHY WOULD YOU BRING THREE KIDS INTO THIS WORLD?"
Probably not the answer you're looking for!
Jenny, I have only been scolded about this once, but I’ll never forget it. I was pregnant with Nico, and my then-husband and I ran into one of his former coworkers. (I feel like this happened at Costco, but my memory is an unreliable illustrator.) As we engaged in the obligatory pleasant catch-up, I happened to mention that I was incubating a third child. The guy’s face darkened. “Jesus,” he said, coldly. “Do you really need to have more kids right now?” I can’t remember precisely what he said after that, but the subtext was definitely the world is fucked and also, you are adding more people to the fuck-pile.
The thing is, no one needs to have a third kid. As I’ve written here before, I only had three because I am tenacious and I wanted a daughter that I could take to Bikini Kill shows. And as I’ve also written here, I am very glad I had Nico, who I would tell you is my best friend if that wasn’t inherently unfair to the other two. Anyway, the question wasn’t “Do you like your youngest kid even though he stubbornly continues to identify as male?” The question was, “Why would you have three children at all when the ice caps are melting, the oceans are warming, nations are at war, genociders are genociding, and Skynet is becoming a reality?
Jenny, I’ve seen other people write about this topic and inevitably they write about hope and optimism and raising good humans (gag) and the old saw about how maybe our “exceptional” (lol) generation of kids will be the ones to repair the world and usher in an epoch of peace. Oh, and there’s always something about how everyone is so busy reading the bad stuff that they don’t know about the good stuff, like how giant pandas are no longer endangered. I wish I could be that sanguine. The fact is, I become a parent for the same reasons many people do— because I felt biologically impelled to do so, because my progenitors did, because I was curious, because I had FOMO, because I wanted to experience what my own mother had described to me in rapturous terms. And because I am an impulsive and capricious person, I never thought to myself, “Hmm, am I dooming this new citizen of Earth to a dystopian future?” I was wearing ovary-colored glasses, Jenny, I don’t know what to say. The answer is that I did it because I did it, despite knowing what I know. And I’m a huge hypocrite, because now that I’m out of the fog of matrescence, I look at young women planning their families and I’m like, are you really going to have kids? Now?! Do you know how bad things are?
(I’d never say that, though, because I’m not a dick at Costco!!!)
Listen, I really love being a mother, and I’m happy I did it, and I observe my children enjoying moments of life, and I am happy for them. I have to believe that life is more gift than curse, even though the proportions are hard to control.
When we were eating breakfast in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, Rocco looked up from his plate of chilaquiles and said, “Mom, is is true we only have seven years left?” This is the reality of raising Gen Alpha; they’re very attuned to the climate crisis and they discuss the timeline with each other. I told him what I usually tell him which is that his generation is exceptional, and that they may be able to fix this, and that we should be hopeful and optimistic, and did he know that giant pandas are no longer endangered? Rocco seemed satisfied. He asked if he could get a milkshake.