Having Kids When There's Never a Good Time to Have Kids

reflections on becoming a dad

Audio voiceover available here for paid subs!

There’s never been a good time to have kids.

An optimal time to bring a baby into the world is an optical illusion.

But we’ve had them anyways.

In the documentarian Daniel Roher’s The AI Doc, he gathers some of the top experts in tech to ask them this basic question: is AI going to doom the world into oblivion?¹

He’s not just amiably wondering out loud; there’s a deeper (and personally relatable, for this writer) impetus behind his curiosity. His wife’s pregnant. So the not-so-subtle paranoia he invites the viewer into is: Will there even be a world left for our kid grow up into?

This paranoia is pretty common. It’s the kind of anxiety that creates questions about whether having kids is even worth it—which leads to The Los Angeles Times articles like “It’s Almost Shameful to Want to Have Children.”

The journalist behind that particular article interviewed a plethora of Gen Z and Millennials to get their take on having children in light of impending global disasters. One girl answered: “I know that things aren’t going to get better. So why would I want to put a child through that? Even when my sister gave birth to my nephew, I was like, Why? They’re gonna go through so much.”²

She’s not alone; according to the most recent Pew data, 44% of 18-49 year olds say they’re never going to have kids.³

And aside from “just not wanting to,” the overwhelming reason for “why” is because people are terrified about the state of the world. Thus not having kids is a kind of mercy.

In one of the darker ends of this conversation, the philosopher Matti Häyry even argues that because of climate change, the best gift we can give our kids is non-existence (i.e., it’s virtuous to not procreate).⁴

Now, I’m inclined to believe most concerns about the state of the world are valid (though, in many cases, they’re greatly exaggerated). We’re not living in a new Eden. But everytime I see something like this, I can’t help but think: there’s never been a perfect time to have kids. But right now is not, comparatively, the worst.

Purely from a medical standpoint, it’s never been safer to have kids.

In the 19^th century, the child mortality rate in the U.S. was 462.9 deaths per 1,000 births. According to the CDC’s most recent data, that number is now at 5.5 out of 1,000.⁵ Meaning, a 98.8% decrease.

not my favorite graph but it’s the best I could find

Even beyond the medical angle, we have substantial evidence to suggest that the vast majority of doomsday predictions made by some of the world’s leading experts never pan out.⁶ This isn’t to suggest that climate change or economic concern shouldn’t be taken seriously; in fact, it’s the opposite: because we take these concerns seriously, we’ve been able to avert innumerable natural, political, and economic disasters.⁷

Yet, even in spite of how many steps on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that we can easily provide our kids today, we’re more skeptical of having kids today than at any other point in history.

I just got through The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck based the novel on factual accounts of real migrant workers moving westward during the dust bowl. Most places, wages were 15 cents an hour in exchange for grueling sun-up-to-sun-down labor. And even though 15 cents was enough to feed the parents, it wasn’t enough to feed the kids. Which is to say: it wasn’t a good time to have kids.

And yet: they were really excited to have kids.

They talked about Rose of Sharon’s pregnancy like it was a gift, and lamented when the baby was stillborn.⁸

Taking it back to Bible times, they had an even higher view of procreation. Some scholars even argue that barrenness was one of the worst evils that could fall upon a woman.⁹

Keep in mind that this is way before all of the medical luxuries that help create a safe birthing process. There was none of that. And yet, they recognized childbearing as something that was such a deep blessing that being deprived of it was a unique injustice.¹⁰ It was such a blessing that Hannah even offered to devote her son Samuel’s life to the Lord if she was simply able to bear him (1 Samuel 1-3).

And yeah, AI is scary. So is lots of other stuff. But also, it’s categorically superior to the birthing environment of whatever was going on here:

Anyways, I’m of a small camp of people who are optimistic that things are generally going to be okay in the long run. I’m often (usually graciously) told that I’m naive and it’s better to assume the absolute worse. This is deemed the “smart” position.

John Stuart Mill noticed this too: “It is not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, who is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.”¹¹

Maybe I’m just more depressively inclined, but I don’t function very well when I believe the forecast is an entropic spiral into oblivion. I prefer the philosophy of hoping and praying that things will generally be okay and then making my decisions accordingly.

And maybe I’m totally off and things go DEFCON 5 (or 1? Is lower worse than higher?). And that will be genuinely horrible. But I’d rather not let the possibility of bad dictate the possibility of good.

The logic C.S. Lewis uses to shape his reasoning for continuing to learn even during wartime feels relevant here:

Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of cries, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes.¹²

I know the world isn’t perfect, but I also doubt a perfectly “suitable moment” will ever come.

The authors of Scripture wrote about children as if they were a blessing—an inherent good. So even if this world is marred and drenched in a horrible amount of bad, bringing something good into the world isn’t going to increase its bad. It can’t.

It’s endlessly more beautiful, good, and gracious to exist than it is to not. This world is abundant; it can handle another child. Life is a gift.

So anyways, as you probably picked up on, my wife and I are having a baby:

And for us personally, it’s a little easier to recognize this as a “good gift” (James 1:17). It’s been a difficult road. Similarly for many of our friends and acquaintances, fertility didn’t come easy. Of both of our adult lives, this journey has easily been the most harrowing. For those in on the lingo, our daughter is a double rainbow baby.

To put it like Brittany Allen did in one of the most affecting books I’ve read in ages, I’ve already had kids; I’ve just never met them.¹³

But I’m sure I’ll meet them someday.

Because we have so many friends and online wellwishers who are reading this and still struggling with infertility, please know that God sees you. I know it’s cliche. But it’s true. His compassion for your pain is limitless; you are and will remain in our prayers.

Also: we’re definitely terrified in many ways. In one sense, it’s because, as Andrew Solomon wrote “Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger.” Are we even mature enough to handle entering this permanent relationship?

In another sense, and despite optimistic forecasting, we really don’t know what’s going to happen. Life for her might really be harder than life was for us.

But regardless of all the challenges she’ll face, we’re thankful. And sometimes, I’m even thankful that the world she’s coming into isn’t perfect. Neither of us ascribe to the belief that a life without resistance, hardship, let down is what makes for a flourishing life. We need every note on the scale of human emotion in order to stumble into a textured, beautiful life.

In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1877 short story titled “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,” he writes about a man who dreams about an alternative version of Earth, where everything is mostly the same, but it’s missing one thing: suffering. At first, the man feels like he’s stumbled into heaven on earth. But it soon sours into meaningless misery. Without any sense of pain, the love that his soul is designed to crave isn’t given enough oxygen to breathe:

“I long, I thirst, this very instant, to kiss with tears the earth that I have left, and I don’t want, I won’t accept life on any other!”¹⁴

So even though philosophers like David Benatar argue that reproducing is immoral simply because you’re going to expose your kids to unavoidable suffering, we can feel confident that this isn’t true in the slightest.¹⁵ The less-than-ideal state of the world freaks us out, but a frictionless environment isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; without the bitter the sweet isn’t as sweet.

Lastly, I also can’t help but mention how unproductive it feels to have a baby. I like to hustle and work and create. And this is necessarily going to slow that down a tad (a lot, really). I’d wager that this is a subtle fear around a lot of modern childbearing paranoia.

And paranoid I was. Not even about the normal things, like having less time to see friends or go to the gym or wallow in introverted brooding.

But plenty more eccentric pre-father jitters popped up, such as: I need to start working on the great American novel.

“What if the next 8 months are the only chance I ever get to become Gen Z’s Hemingway?” is a real thought I had.

Now, please know: I’ve never aspired to write the great American novel, let alone a novel, before this. But this inexplicable paranoia arose in me that told me I had to, right now—because, come November, I’ll never get the chance to cook that manuscript.

And yes, it’s probably one of the more selfish fears I’ve had in a long time. This bit about the novel is the most extreme example; but it’s bubbled up in a lot of other productivity-related ways: What if I don’t have time to do what I’m supposed to do? What if I can’t write anymore? Or read? Or finish my PhD?

What if I can’t do what I’m called to do?

All those fears evaporated around the 10-week mark.

We were at the fertility clinic getting an ultrasound. I didn’t know any of the details beforehand, but the nurse said that we were gonna try to hear the heartbeat.

Which brought in a sick, trauma nostalgia for both of us. We’d been through this routine twice before and heard crickets. So we held our breaths.

And within a second of hearing our baby’s heartbeat, I knew that this was exactly what I was called to. This was the main gig.

Having less time to write won’t imply the giving up of my vocation even a fraction. I knew from that moment in time that I was actually stepping into the most important calling I’ve ever had.

It’s hard to stay cynical when you see a baby’s heartbeat.

I realized, and am continuing to realize, that so much of what I think matters in life (productivity, excelling, doing good work) isn’t really life.

This is life.

And I love life, thank you.

I also loved this reflection on becoming a dad by Josh Radnor that just came out yesterday. Highly recommend.

1. I highly recommend this documentary. It’s on Peacock. I certainly don’t agree with all of it, but it’s helpful for building a rational substantiation for affirming life in an epoch where everything feels pessimistic and fallen.

2. I first came across this article in O. Alan Noble, To Live Well (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 2026), 43-44.

3. Anna Brown, “Growing Share of Childless Adults in U.S. Don’t Expect to Ever Have Children,” Pew Research Center, November 19, 2021; see also S. Rufus, “How Fear Stopped Me From Having Kids,” Psychology Today, July 29, 2025.

4. Matti Häyry, “If You Must Give Them a Gift, Then Give Them the Gift of Nonexistence,” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 33, no. 1 (2024): 48–59.

5. Jiaquan Xu, Sherry L. Murphy, Kenneth D. Kochanek, and Elizabeth Arias, “Mortality in the United States, 2024.” NCHS Data Brief, no. 548 (January 2026). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

6. Victor Zarnowitz, “Has Macro-Forecasting Failed?” NBER Working Paper no. 3867 (1991), National Bureau of Economic Research; Charles F. Doran, “Why Forecasts Fail: The Limits and Potential of Forecasting in International Relations and Economics,” International Studies Review 1, no. 2 (1999): 11–41; see also two of my favorite books on this topic: The Rational Optimist and Factfulness.

7. See for example Bas Heerma van Voss, “The Prevention Cycle: State Investments in Preventing System Risks over Time,” European Journal of Risk Regulation 14 no. 4 (2023): 656-673; Rolf Lidskog and Daniel Sjödin, “Unintended Consequences and Risk(y) Thinking: The Shaping of Consequences and Responsibilities in Relation to Environmental Disasters,” Sustainability 10, no. 8 (2018): 2906.

8. Sorry for the spoiler, but, ya know, it’s been a century.

9. I can’t remember who said it, but I know one OT scholar at one point definitively listed these two as the worst things that could happen to a woman in that time and culture. I thought it was Sandra Richter, but couldn’t find anything on short notice. Check out these for more: Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories (New York: Schocken Books, 2002); Carol Meyers, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

10. Whenever I drift into fertility and procreation territory, I always get skittish knowing that Protestantism’s own fertility expert Haley Baumeister will probably read this. So I hope I haven’t put my foot in my mouth too much throughout this article. Let it be known that I am deferential to her opinion in what I would guess is 100% of matters pertaining to this topic.

11. John Stuart Mill, “Speech on Perfectability,” Spoken in 1828, at the Debating Society.

12. C.S. Lewis, “Learning in Wartime,” in The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 1980), 49-50.

13. Brittany Lee Allen, Lost Gifts (Ada, MI: Lexham Press, 2025).

14. I’m thankful for Arthur Brooks for pointing me to this story.

15. David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 30.