To think that my choices of sustainable commuting, eating a plant based diet, and working on our City’s zero waste program likely pale in comparison to the impact of not having a baby is nothing short of devastating.  Does it make me a bad environmentalist to honor my maternal instincts?

Sent on by
Sierra Deimling
Send Your Own Message

Dear Potential Future Kiddo,

You’re one of the things I have known I’ve wanted, viscerally in my gut, since I was a little girl myself.  I may be lacking a significant number of traditional feminine traits, such as a willingness to brush my hair or cook a proper meal, but the instinct to create life burns through my blood like the increasingly prevalent Montana wildfire. The desire to make a little Sierra isn’t driven by logic or reason- it’s as primal as my need for water and sunshine.

Unfortunately, I’m also an environmentalist. 

Four years of my undergraduate program as an Environmental Studies student were spent being hounded with lessons on our planet’s encroaching carrying capacity and climate crisis driven by an exponentially exploding population.  If I want to reduce my ecological footprint as much as possible, perhaps the most powerful tool I have at my disposal is to abstain from having children. 

I’ll spare both of us from attempting to articulate just how much that pains me.

To think that my choices of sustainable commuting, eating a plant based diet, and working on our City’s zero waste program likely pale in comparison to the impact of not having a baby is nothing short of devastating.  Does it make me a bad environmentalist to honor my maternal instincts?

Potential Future Kiddo of mine, I hope you’re reading this.  I hope our administration wakes up and listens to our demands, desperate cries, and pleas for change.  I hope I can make the decision to have you without the guilt of our planet’s longevity on my shoulders.  

I hope you’re born into a community powered by renewables.  A community where you can safely bike to school and don’t think twice about tossing your PB&J crust into a compost bin.  A community that has appropriately responded to the horror that is our current climate crisis. I hope to sit beside you on the plastic-free banks of the Clark Fork River as you experience the dumbfounding awe that is the stillness of a Great Blue Heron for the first time. 

I will never stop fighting to make this vision a reality.  Hope to see you one day, Potential Future Kiddo. 

Love,

Potential Future Mama

Share on:
 
Send Your Own Message

More Messages to the Future

 

Dear Nieces and Nephews,

I tried.

 

To my dearest Gabriel,

What gives me hope is what is yet to come, what you will experience in your lifetime.

 

Dear Tomorrow-My letter to the future 2030

I am most sorry we could not work through our differences, and see through the greed, get organized, and do more so that you could have a better life in your 2030 future.

 

Querido amanhã,

Em fim, espero que você receba essa mensagem, e entenda o quão pequenos nos somos e como é importante preservar o planeta terra.

 

A love letter to my son

I hope this year is a real turning point and by the time you’re a teenager, your life is powered almost entirely by clean energy like solar and wind.

 

Dear Lucy,

The clock ticks, time passes, and the earth and all of its inhabitants move closer to dangerous boundaries we can dimly discern but cannot see clearly.

 

Dear Tomorrow,

Awareness is key. Learning about this issue can seem like a small effort compared to other actions, but it’s the most important.

 

My dear Honeys,

I think every parent believes that their child’s future is worth protecting – because I know the power of this force in me and what I am willing to do.

 

Dear Madeleine,

First of all I hope we succeeded in our dream that yours is a better world than the world of 2021. Today, the forests are burning, the sea levels are rising and wild weather is everywhere. But we are working hard and I’m confident we will succeed.

 

Caro Giovanni,

Dobbiamo aiutare nel conservare il bello che c’è nel nostro pianeta.

 

To My Friends, Family and Future Grandchildren,

I realize my reflection of the past, current and future state of the environment paints a grim and pessimistic picture, but I feel optimistic in our ability to turn planet Earth’s fate around if we all work together and commit to making a change.

 

Dear Tomorrow,

I feel optimistic for you, tomorrow. I can feel a shift happening already.

View All Messages

Send Your Own Message