Member-only story
Featured
The Climate Dilemma: Should I Have Children in a Future of Unprecedented Extremes?
Our greatest act of hope, or our deepest act of betrayal?
My niece Emma is four years old. And she’s everything. We live over 2,000 kilometers apart, but it doesn’t matter. She yells my name with the joy of a thousand sunrises every time we FaceTime. Within seconds, she’s reminding me of our lake house adventures — the way we fished off the boat together, the cheese biscuits we baked (and mostly ate) before we even left shore, the ridiculous songs about the trout we were going to catch that we improvised while drifting through Patagonian waters.
I didn’t know love could feel like this — fierce, gentle, grounding. And that’s the part of me that wants to give her a cousin. A new co-conspirator for games and tree-climbing, for whispered secrets and summer hideouts. I picture Emma showing them how to cheat at Uno, or how to sneak spoonfuls of dulce de leche before dinner without getting caught, making secret codes and passing on the silly rituals that bind generations, just like her father and me.
It’s a daydream so vivid I can almost hear their laughter.
But, for a while now, I’ve been having this mixture of feelings when spending quality time with Emma. Something much harder to talk about.
