Should I bring children into this world?

So here we are, lost for answers on how to get ourselves out of the hot mess that we call 'this world'. Yet we built the cars and the cities, produced all the garbage and made the weapons we used to kill each other. It wasn't nature, or some outer worldly deity. And it certainly wasn't your 4 year old who came up with it.

It was us. It was you and me, with every slither of hate we carry and every piece of plastic we waste. Just like the war, 'this world' is not outside of us, it's the sum of all our beliefs and actions.

So instead of playing the victim and 'protecting' our children from the insurmountable horrors of being alive - the ignorance and audacity of it is just hilarious - I suggest we take responsibility instead and make an inventory of the ways in which we are contributing hate to this world and consciously decide to do otherwise:

Let's heal our fears, in order to not taint our children with them, and heal our beliefs, so we don't infuse new minds with the very ideas that created this world.

With every loving choice we make, we create a better world. Right now, right here. In our own homes and our own hearts. It's these micro changes, that can and will change our world.

So let's tell our children tales of love and connection, instead of division and separation. Not only by their bedside, but with our very actions. Let's talk to them about our similarities instead of our differences. Not only with our words, but with our hearts. Let's make them feel proud of their uniqueness. As well as explain to them other people's uniqueness. And our own uniqueness. And let's stop pretending that we know what's best for our children. Because, we clearly don't.
Let's allow our kids to teach us instead.

Let's allow our kids to be our compass out of this world of shame and judgement, and let's follow them into a world of softness and understanding. Let's show up for our (future) children and create new, loving structures for them instead of holding the old structures that don't work against them.

And most of all: let's allow our children to teach us about love.
For it is through them that we learn how to love.