"You can't be honest with yourself about what you want and think about the climate crisis at the same time—you might as well plant your feet in cement," therapist Ann Davidman tells me in her airy Oakland office. A sixty-something who bills herself as a baby-decision "clarity counselor," Davidman has made a career out of using writing prompts and guided visualizations to help people like me figure out whether they want to have kids. I'm on her couch this sunny summer afternoon because, like increasing numbers of millennials and Generation Zers, I'm worried that if I procreate, I will contribute to melting ice caps, rising seas, and extreme weather. Worse, I might create brand-new victims of climate change—people who never asked to be part of this human-made mess. I've never been a hard yes or no on the baby question, and now that I'm 34, this indecision, not unlike my egg reserve, is getting old.
Complicating factors abound: I recently found myself single after ending a nearly decade-long relationship. For me, being back in the dating pool means spending long days at my day job chronicling all the planetary destruction, then going out afterward to meet dudes—potential fathers of the consumption machines I'm increasingly terrified to have—for drinks or hikes, during which I do my best to come off as a chill, carefree person who might be fun to reproduce with, and soon. I need all the help this silver-haired clarity counselor can give me.
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