Why I'm Not Afraid to Bring More Children Into a Broken world

by Alexandra Davis, an attorney who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband and two sons. This article is reprinted in part with permission from The Public Discourse. Please visit their website to finish reading (link after the first few paragraphs!)

“Will you have more kids?”

I’m a mother of two, and this is a question I often field from friends and strangers alike. But my answer isn’t relevant. What matters is what the question implies.

Among my millennial peer group, particularly in secular circles, there’s reluctance to bring children into “this world”—a world that, to millennials who until recently have lived generally free from significant sociopolitical upheaval as adults, now feels exceptionally tumultuous. We are approaching year three of a lingering global pandemic, facing unmatched levels of animus across the political divide, and grappling with renewed fears about the long-term dangers of climate change. At the core of this hesitation to procreate is a reigning sense of moral responsibility--a responsibility not to have more kids. To whom exactly we are responsible is unclear. To the children themselves? To society? To the earth? To all the above?

I don’t know, but one fact is plain: My generation feels obligated to constrain our footprint in the name of some vague notion of social justice.

I reject this.

This is not a judgment on those who long to have children but can’t, or on those who choose to have only one or two due to personal limitations—not everyone can (or wants to) have seven. Rather, this is a reflection on why any family planning philosophy that hinges on “the state of things” springs from deeply flawed logic.

...keep reading at: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2022/01/79787/

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