The global fertility rate is below replacement for the first time ever in recorded history and it's worth noting how epochal it is. You should have children if you can. It's one of the richest and most fundamental parts of the human experience. It makes you more human and completes you in a way nothing else does. By doing so you unlock a part of the human experience or side of reality that is impossible to experience otherwise and it's that which makes you more than you were before. It's impossible to explain this to childless people because you have been them but they have not been you and they don't know what they don't know, but every parent knows this and has experienced the change and knows what it is I am talking about; I've never spoken to one who hasn't. I am sometimes hesitant to write in such language about it because I know many people don't have children and some wish they did, and I am sorry for that, but we have endured so much anti-natal messaging for years it's fair to speak honestly about the importance of having children, what it says when people don't, and why it's not just another choice to make. There is a deep sadness in a world with fewer children. There is something sad in older parents with no grandchildren. You can feel it. They gave a lot of their time, they gave their lives, to their children, they believed in the future to some degree (all parents do deep down), and when their own children don't do the same there is something sad about it. It's a like a referendum on them and a referendum on life and family. If you don't want more of it it's hard not to feel like you don't like it and all parents want their children to like life and family. All parents would rather their children grow up and experience having children so then they can see what they saw and so they can experience that totality of the human experience for themselves and when they don't it feels like a failure. They don't always say it, they might lie about it, they might not know how to describe it, but something like this is there, you can tell. The family reunion of no children is sad. It's like the story is behind everyone. They remember a lot. Talk about people who have passed away but there is nothing in front of anyone. It's the end of the line and even if no one says it, there is a let down. It makes anyone sad to feel like they are the last ones at the party and that's how it feels when there are no children around. Young children make older people feel happier because they don't want to be the end. To know there is life after them here makes what they did feel a little more meaningful. The reason why the global birthrate is the lowest in recorded history is because of selfishness. Yeah, there are other reasons, but that's the big one. It is objectively easier to not have children. Parents sacrifice many things for their families and the rewards aren't monetary or selfish or temporal or anything logical, that's why it's hard to explain. But with the ability for people to choose not to have children many opt to have an easier, more carefree life of fewer responsibilities and less investment in the future. And that's fine, but that's exactly what it is, and that carries implications. Our time might be uniquely selfish but on this front I think probably many of ancestors, if given the opportunities that we have today, might choose pretty similar things. They just didn't have the options we have. Who knows whether they were willingly selfless or selfless against their protestations, nevertheless, they did continue and that's why we are here. If you have children they aren't going to inherit the future like royalty. They aren't going to single handedly repopulate the earth - though there will statistically be more of them and your/their ways in the future the more you have. And they will exist after you are gone and hopefully they will have their own. And raising them is beautiful and stressful and joyful and hard and meaningful and biological and spiritual and tiring and one of the most important and fundamental experiences life has to offer us here on earth. Ultimately having children is about believing in life and believing in the future and believing in sacrificing today for tomorrow and that so few are being born today is a sad indictment of our childless epoch.

Had a wonderful visit with @lifeworlding at Trillium Woods Coffee this morning. They are selling copies of my book “Modern Lives” this summer and was thrilled to drop some off this Sunday. If you are up north on Little Traverse Bay this summer or fall (for color tours) you’ve got to stop at Trillium Woods. A lovely beacon of caffeinated civilization in the glorious and beautiful deep north. Fantastic place with fantastic people.