Dear Charlotte:

I read your recent post before brunch, thought about my reply to you during brunch, and while cleaning after brunch, and this is my best effort at this time to provide a responsible and thorough reply:

1. Your choice to have a second child, or not, is a very personal choice. You will be the person living with the consequences of your choice, not me nor anyone else who may reply to you. Please keep this in mind.

2. If you choose to have a second child, you will regret your choice at times. If you choose to not have a second child, you will regret your choice at times. No matter what you choose, regret will follow. So, after you choose this or that, when you feel regret- please remind yourself that your regret does not indicate that you made the wrong choice.

If pregnant again, I imagine that you will regret the choice when feeling sick, when your son is not doing well, when you hear about the next mass shooting, and at other times. If you choose to not have another child, I imagine that you will regret it when you see a happy older mother with a toddler, or worse- with two young children, and when you hear someone say that your son must be lonely for being an only son, and at other times.

3. I need to give you my long-held position on having children (I don’t remember if I already shared it with you): by the time I was 20 (and not married or in a relationship), I made a lifetime choice to never bring a child (or children) into the world. My reason: I experienced a lot of emotional pain in the two decades prior to my decision, and didn’t want to bring a child into the world to experience anything close to the pain I experienced. I figured that if I was going to raise a child, better I adopt a child who .. already had the misfortune to being here.

If other members reply to you, better ask them to elaborate on their personal position on bringing children into the world, not just on having a second child. Then consider their advice in light of their pre-existing position (their long-held position before reading your story).

I will add to this point, that I grew up and lived until my mid twenties in a country that suffered instability, terrorism and war. I did not change my position when I moved to the U.S., even though at the time climate change was not big in the news, and mass shootings were rare, if they existed at all, and the U.S. democracy was strong and stable.

4. You mentioned Trump no longer being president. Unfortunately (!!!) he is The Power behind the Republican Party and (1) the Republicans may be back to being the majority in congress in 2022, (2) Trump or someone like him may become president in 2024, moving the U.S. toward autocracy, and allowing climate change and mass shootings to worsen with no interruption.

5. Climate change is not looking good in the U.K either (you mentioned living there as an option), and the  right wing rise is happening in Europe as well.

6. It is true that the world was never really great for children, but the current reality of climate change and the newer reality of the pandemic (and possibility of future pandemics) exists now in a way it never did: masses of people flying across the world in the last decades provide effective vehicles for dangerous  viruses to spread into a pandemic.

7. You were sick in your first pregnancy, likely to be sick in the second and that’s enough to increase your anxiety, and an increased anxiety will harm your ability to parent your first child well.

In summary: I think that having a second child is not a good idea.

anita