I would never bring a child into this world but-

Grieving a future I chose to protect them from.

I would never bring a child into this world. And it’s not because I hate children or think parenting is a trap. It’s because I know too much. I’ve seen too much. I’ve felt too much. I have opened the curtains, lifted the rug, looked behind the door, and what I’ve found is enough to make me want to build walls around a child’s innocence and never let the world touch them. But walls won’t hold forever. They never do.

I don’t want to bring a child into a world where kindness is taught like a school subject but rarely practiced in public. Where hospitals are understaffed, and kindness is a viral video, not a daily practice. Where people film tragedy before offering help. Where rent costs more than salaries, and forests are replaced with concrete faster than anyone can protest, where water shortages are normal, where billionaires race to space while people die waiting for insulin, where adults forget how to say sorry. I don’t want to raise a child in a timeline where the news looks like fiction, where the planet is burning and politicians are smiling, where food is genetically engineered and compassion is algorithmically ignored, where everything is content. Even pain.

How do I look at a child and tell them the world they’re inheriting is cracked, gasping, and bruised? How do I teach them about hope when most people are just trying to survive? About joy when everything is monetized? About trust, when every system is a trick?

I can’t bring a child here. Not when breathing clean air is a privilege. Not when headlines about bombings read like daily weather updates. Not when people in power rewrite laws to protect themselves while the rest of us bleed in silence. Not when children grow up online, learning how to hate themselves before they even know who they are. Not when mental health is still whispered about like it’s shameful, not painful. Not when therapy is expensive, but trauma is free.

And there are some people who shouldn’t be parents, who become anyway, thoughtlessly, endlessly, generationally. They think parenting is feeding and schooling, not noticing. Not holding. Not listening when it’s inconvenient. They talk about sacrifice, but never once sacrificed their ego. They don’t create a home, just a place where love feels conditional, given only when the child is quiet, obedient, and impressive. These parents don’t notice the silent cries. They call it moodiness, laziness, disrespect. They dismiss tears like they’re tactics. They punish the child for flinching at their anger instead of wondering why the child flinched in the first place.

These parents don’t remember the way they said things, but their child does. Word for word. The sentence that made them go silent. The look that made them afraid to speak. The moment they stopped sharing because it was safer to keep it all in. A lot of children weren’t raised; they were silenced. Compared. Shamed. Measured against siblings, cousins, neighbors, expectations. They were told “you have everything” while growing up starving for affection.

And then there are also some parents who would sit on the floor and listen. Parents who would apologize, who would try, who would read parenting books, and ask their child how they feel every single day. Parents who would raise children with open hearts and open minds, and open hands.

But we love them too much to bring them here. That’s what hurts. That’s what tears something open in me. And I would never bring a child into this world. But-

Because, despite everything, I yearn. God, do I yearn.

There are nights I lie in bed and imagine her, this daughter I will never meet. I don’t know what her name would be. I don’t know what color her eyes would be. But I know the shape of her laugh. I know she’d draw on the walls when she’s three and apologize in the most sincere, dramatic way. I know she’d love stories, and I’d tell her how the stars got their names, how constellations are really just poetry etched into the sky. I’d sit with her on the porch while she eats strawberries and asks why people cry when they’re happy. I’d teach her that softness isn’t weakness.

And if I had a son, I’d raise him to never mistake silence for strength. I’d tell him real masculinity is knowing when to hold someone, not when to overpower them. I’d teach him to love in a way that doesn’t hurt, to speak with clarity, to unlearn all the things this world forces boys to swallow. I’d let him cry, and cry with him. I’d make sure he knew that “be a man” doesn’t mean “be numb.”

I imagine this child with the kind of love that leaves me speechless. And then I remember they don’t exist. And they never will. Because I would never bring a child into this world.

But that doesn’t stop me from loving them.

And that’s the curse, isn’t it? To love a ghost. To parent an absence. To walk through life carrying lullabies that will never be sung and bedtime stories with no one to hear them. I feel like I’m mourning someone who hasn’t even been born. I feel like there’s a pair of shoes sitting quietly on a shelf in my soul, waiting for footsteps that will never come. And yet I keep imagining them. I keep picturing her hair, his questions, their laughter.

I wonder what they’d be afraid of. I wonder what their favorite color would be. I wonder how they’d look at me when they’re proud of something, just bursting to share it, hoping I’d think it’s just as magical as they do. And I would. I would think everything they did was magic.

If I ever had them…

I would be the kind of parent who notices everything. The slight change in their voice. The way they retreat into silence. The tired eyes that say more than words ever could. I’d sit with them through every heartbreak like it was my own. I’d draw stars on their ceiling and let them stay home on the hard days. I wouldn’t ask them to be brave. I’d just ask them to be real. That’s all.

But I can’t bring them here because the world would try to take that magic from them. Piece by piece. Schoolyard by schoolyard. News channel by news channel. And it would kill me to watch that. It would kill me to know I handed them over to a planet that does not care if they thrive, only if they produce. I can’t do that. I won’t.

And yet… some nights I still hold them in my heart like they’re sleeping in the room next to mine. I imagine them knocking on my door just to say goodnight. I imagine the smell of their hair, the sound of their little feet on the floor. I imagine them saying “I love you” and meaning it with all the unfiltered sincerity only children know how to give. I imagine them existing, and I shatter a little.

And still, I love them.
Still, I write to them.
Still, I carry their names in my chest, even if I haven’t chosen them yet.
Still, I picture their faces not blurry, not abstract, but vivid, like they’re waiting just beyond the curtain of this life.
Still, I want them. Not someday. Not vaguely. I want them. My children. Mine.

And maybe that’s what makes this grief feel so impossible that it isn’t rooted in rejection. It’s rooted in love. I want to bring them here. I want to raise them. I want to watch them grow. I want to become the kind of father who walks beside them through every storm. I want to laugh with them in the kitchen, kneel beside them on the prayer mat, hold them when the world feels too heavy.

But I’m afraid. Not being a parent, I know I’d give everything. I’m afraid of the world I’d be handing them to. A world that doesn’t always protect soft things. A world where innocence is a target, not a treasure. A world where love might not be enough to keep them safe.

And so I wrestle with this truth:
I want them more than anything.
But I love them too much to bring them into a place that might not love them back.

That’s what breaks me. That’s what keeps me up some nights, imagining their laughter in a house that may never exist. I imagine their footsteps in a hallway that might stay quiet forever.

And still, I dream.
Of their voices. The way they’d look at me when they’re proud of something small.
Of the mangoes in the summer. The bedtime stories. The peaceful, ordinary moments.

And maybe one day, if the world softens, if I feel braver, I’ll bring them here.
Not out of fear.
But out of love.
Because I already know the kind of father I’d be.

And God, I want to be him.