How do you raise a child in a doomed world?
Roy Scranton is a professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
He bemoaned a world that his daughter is born into. He wrote that "in our selfishness (referring to himself and his partner)" we have "doomed our daughter to live on a dystopian planet, and I could see no way to shield her from the future."
This is a future that climate change has created - a world of vast, irreversible and unsalvagable destruction.
In fact, Prof Scranton cried twice when his daughter was born.
"First for joy, when after 27 hours of labour the little feral being we'd made came yowling into the world."
The second time he cried was for sorrow.
She was born into "a world of extinction and catastrophe, a world in which harmony with nature had long been foreclosed."
Like he said, a dystopian planet.
The foreclosure seems imminent and unavoidable.
He wrote: "Barring a miracle, the next 20 years are going to see increasingly chaotic systemic transformation in global biological adaptation and a wild spectrum of human political and economic responses, including scapegoating and war."
For those pinning for a miracle, whether religious ones or a technological breakthrough that would launch us off to colonise another habitable planet like earth, the weary and wary professor said:-
"...geographer and environment scientist...argue that the most effective steps any of us can take to decrease carbon emissions are to eat a plant-based diet, avoid flying, live car-free and have one fewer child - the last having the most significant impact by far."
But here is his sincere groaning for a lost world:-
"The main problem with this proposal isn't with the ideas of teaching thrift, flying less or going vegetarian, which are all well and good, but rather with the social model such recommendations rely on: the idea that we can save the world through individual consumer choices. We cannot."
He added: "Society is not simply an aggregate of millions or billions of individual choices but a complex, recursive dynamic in which choices are made within institutions and ideologies that change over time as these choices feed back into the structures that frame what we consider possible."
The good professor's lamentation is for a world that has been set on a direction that we have decided quite unwittingly for our children and their children's children.
It is a world of adaptation with choices that have brought us to wherever that had given us a semblance of safety, security, convenience, glory and pride.
But it is not a direction that sees the context and the future of what our collective choices have wrought, which is towards a certain doom and gloom.
Although we had realised this not too late decades ago when we first stumbled upon a suffering earth by carbon build-up, yet none of us, even the best leaders amongst us, seemed to have the political and social will to change course and fight for a future that our children can live in and be proud of.
Professor Scranton wrote: "In all the most important ways, it's already too late. Our children will not face the choices we face. They won't have the opportunities we now have for action. They'll confront a range of outcomes whose limits were determined by the choices we made."
Lesson...? Bear with me...
Two nights ago, my 7-yr-old daughter did a sweet thing. Before we slept, she offered to tuck me in.
She said that it has to be perfect, that is, the comforter has to stretch out to the perimeter of our bed. That, to her, was perfect.
Then, she reminded me sternly that I am to keep it that way when I wake up the next morning. That is, to arrange the comforter in the same way, spreading out to the perimeter of the bed.
The next morning (Sunday morning), I woke up and did not do as I was told the night before. I left the comforter in a mess. It was not neatly spread out. I got a earful last night from her.
Undaunted, she tucked me in again, yes, neatly spreading the comforter to the edges of the bed. And then, she pointed at me and said to not forget what I had promised her. I said okay.
This morning, I woke up and the first thing I did was to arrange it as she had commanded. The comforter was neat and tidy, spread out with her sleeping in the middle like a princess.
After my morning routine, buying the papers, I returned home to wake her up and found her all dressed and ready for school.
But, the comforter was all messed up. It was not perfect as she had taught me to do the night before.
So, I turned to her and cheekily reprimanded her. In her sleepiness, she looked up at me and gave me a wide smile.
How is this relevant, mike?
It is not entirely relevant to a lost world in some future she will be living and making a living in. But then again, that may be her future or it may not be.
Who has the crystal ball to truly and accurately foretell anyway, right?
However, I see the relevance in my little exchange with my daughter in the present moment - not some distant future. I see it as all we have as her father and she as my child in the time we have here and now.
While I have my anxieties about a future beyond my control, I also remind myself that I have to make every moment count in the present that I nevertheless have control.
They are not going to be big moments of celebration, but small, significant ones no less that results in the launching of a simple smile, a tease, a tear and a hope.
I trust that the building block of our relationship is in what I can do now with her, to deepen the love and joy, to build resilience along the way, and less on worrying about a future, whether predetermined or otherwise.
Let me end with another encounter. This time is my wife telling me the story.
Every morning, my wife and I would drive joy, my 7-yr-old, to school. We would put her down in front of the school gate and I would drive off further down, make a u-turn, fetch my wife where I alighted her with joy, and drive for breakfast. Joy would by then walk into school.
When my wife came into the car, she told me that there was this boy who stood at the school gate, refusing to enter the school.
I asked her why. She said she thought about that too, and so she asked the boy. "Why don't you go into school? What or who are you waiting for?"
He said: "No, no, I cannot enter. I'm waiting for daddy."
My wife squinted and said: "But he had dropped you off and expect you to walk to school."
"No, no, he's coming back. He will u-turn and I can wave at him. He'll wave back."
And sure enough, a car came around, and the boy waved back enthusiastically. I can imagine his joy. I too can imagine his father smiling back.
That's my point about relationship, a bond that endears most in the present moment.
It is build up in the present moment, with every priceless smile, a transforming leap of a heartbeat and a warmth glow in our child's face when we engage with them fully in the present moment.
Now, I really do not know what the future holds for our children. Humanity has shown that they can be both destructive and resourceful, wanton and yet resilient. My fingers are crossed, with hope and trepidation.
But for the present moment, the greatest gift is still about building up a little life we are responsible for and sharing moments with her or him in a way that they will keep in their tiny hearts for good, that is, a storage of vibrant memories that will define our relationship, fortify our hope and prayers for them.
Indeed, while the future is uncertain, the present is not because we can make it special, memorable and enduring, and even transforming to allow them to face their own future with hope and overcoming love. Cheerz.
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