TO BREED OR NOT TO BREED.

AuthorFarsad, Negin
PositionHaving a baby during the covid-19 pandemic

With the pandemic running out of steam in the United States, a bunch of really aggravating existential questions are now hovering in the air, just above your vaccine jab. Chief among them is: Should you pop out a baby?

Its a serious question.

Should you have kids when the world is an uncertain mess and climate change is a probable catastrophe and god-knows-who will be President in four years? Forget all of that. Why would you have a baby when people can't stop posting mean things online?

Its not just me who is feeling this angst. The birthrate in the United States and other countries has dipped considerably during the past year. So the thing everyone was doing at home that they called "making sourdough loaves" was... actually making sourdough loaves. They were putting literal buns in the oven!

Of course, during the bun-making phase of the pandemic, I was busy dealing with an actual baby. I was in constant shock about the free time people talked about. How they were cooking and writing novels and organizing their closets. I had no time for anything like that. Maybe that's reason enough to not have a kid: If the next pandemic strikes, you want to make sure you have enough free time to turn your apartment into a bakery and master origami classroom.

But, in fact, the time I spent with my baby during a pandemic made me less angsty. I couldn't ponder life's bigger questions because I was busy cleaning up life's bigger poops. My progeny learned how to walk during the pandemic.

She learned how to almost stick her finger into an electrical outlet during the pandemic. I couldn't be hopeless because I had to be certain that she had a future--and the opportunity to discover yet more dangerous electrical outlets!

Some people say, "I can't picture bringing a child into this world when I know their future lives can't be as good as mine." And by that they mean having more money and stuff.

But our parents are the ones who did the things that brought us climate change. They discovered mass-produced processed foods that resulted in diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, and the need for elastic waistbands. They lived unsustainably, and their level of consumption was clearly terrible for our well-being and for the Earth. Having a baby...

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