Whether you should bring children into this world

Now and then I hear a couple discussing whether they want to bring children into this world. The world isn’t becoming safer, quite the opposite, and you can understand a couple’s reluctance to have children in these uncertain times.

The thought of our children being exposed to the terrible things in this world is scary but our children also bring so much unanticipated light into our world too. I just read “Margaret Mead’s Beautiful Letter of Advice to Her Younger Sister on Starting a Family in an Uncertain World” on Brain Pickings and this piece of advice seems like great advice for couples in this dilemma:

We can’t know, anymore than the parents of the 1890s knew, what the future of twenty-five years from now holds. Which isn’t an argument for your having children, if you don’t want them, and if Bill doesn’t want them… But don’t dramatize too heavily the evil to come, even as a dark cloud against which the present looks so golden. You may stampede yourself into a position on politics which has actually nothing to do with them at all, but is simply an enriching personal device for living more intensely and doing better work.

Be sure to read the full post, though.