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Two things I have heard this week have drawn into real question my desire to have children.
Firstly i'll define that desire, it's not a real want, not like I feel a want in me, it is just an unchosen inevitability that I embrace and loosely plan for without real attachment to. But still, loosely, winding, wend towards.

Or it has been.

The way we live on the earth is unsustainable. This is no longer deniable or questionable.
Plan fucking B dudes. This isn't working. It isn't working, and it's never going to and it's all going to fall down and the time to act is nigh.

A clever person I know pointed out that if the generation approaching child bearing age, would globally decide to be one children families, we would half the population, and the overburdening of the worlds limited resources would ease, and possibly those remaining single child people, would be able to live a decent existence.
Of course it rings of communism and facism and marxism (no i don't know anything about marxism but it was bad wasn't it?), and noone would buy it. But actually, we're not really in a position to be choosy.. are we?

Secondly I was watching that programme Wasted last night, so bored, it's a reality show where they go to peoples houses and show them how they're wasting money and resources, and damaging the environment, and get them to shape up and save money.
It's terrifying.
It's terrifying to know that everything you do is harming the planet.
A comment was made about water, that in fifty years, drinking water will be so scarce, 'scientists predict' wars will be fought over it.
The way today they are fought over oil.
I can't imagine the terribleness of there not being enough water.
I feel desperate just thinking of it.
And no way do I want to have children only to land them with that kind of life sentence.

My teenage years were plagued with an undercurrent of anxiety, about loans I couldn't pay back, certainly that, but also about the planet. Greenpeace, whales, dolphins, rainforests, mcdonalds, terrible things were happening, and I knew, but I didn't think I was really expected to do anything, not me, uppermiddleclass semi bohemian white bread suburban teen. not me. I cared, but what I mostly had to accomplish was coolness. Thinness. And coolness.

But certainly in adulthood (i stand on it's doorway and nonchalantly scraping the mud of childhood from my boots) that once undercurrent, has risen to a chorus, a constant drone, an OVERcurrent, actually, it's the theme, of my now existence.
Not just anxiety, but real fear, real sadness too, desperate frustrated anger, worry, guilt, lots of guilt. Hopelessness. Frustration. Anxiety. and then tiredness. Which leads to inactivity and apathy. Which is depressing.

New world order. Running out of water.

When I think of the end of the world, whatever that means, whatever I feel, is tinged with resignation, and relief.

So anyway, thats pretty much saying it ahy, but it's true isn't it? Like fleas on a cat, you just need to look, it's there, all there, eating away and spreading daily.

I met a bartender one night who said he and his partner, wife maybe, had consciously decided never to have children. He also explained that they got alot of flack for it. I said, fair enough, but I thought, god really?!

And now, yesterday, I've had a shift in consciousness and I see it.
It's like a global responsibility, mixed with love and compassion for your unshed progeny.

What this then means, and this is perhaps the more impacting realisation, is that I'm done.
I'm fine. I don't need more money that I have. I don't need a house, though I'd like one and will still get one. I don't need to build a fortress and harbour reserves. I don't need stronger materials for my nest. And I don't (hallelujah!!!) need a relationship that will last forever.
I can have relationships and they can end, which is what they do, and there are no dire stakes. No must bes. No definates.
That is saturated with relief.

I remember my mum telling me how she hit a wall at one point in her life as a mother, and felt terrible for bringing US into the world, the cold hard doomed world.
And at times I have thought: Yeah, well?

Then tonight over a wine my dearest most wonderful friend who is newly engaged and facing all sorts of realities I've only heard of, about weddings and lifetimes, said, yeah and heres me, facing the person I KNOW i'm going to have children with, KNOWING i'm going to have children, looking at bunks with draws in furniture shops and feeling really excited!!!!

and yeah, thats cool too.
Thats cool too.
Maybe this is a phase everyone goes through in their late twenties.
What do you think?