I’m genuinely puzzled by the people around me who don’t want kids. They have stable jobs, they get to travel, they give to charity, they go to restaurants and go out on the weekends. It seems so dull to me. I’ve been to a lot of parties, done a lot of traveling, and it’s fine. Good, even. But to have that be your highest purpose in life?

If you’re building a major company or becoming president or doing cancer research or are a schoolworker or social worker, then I can understand saying you don’t want kids because you’re doing other important things with your time. But to miss out on life’s greatest mystery and many of the extremes of human emotion, and to not experience spreading your selfhood across others in the deepest and fundamental way because you want to watch more netflix, enjoy happy hour and learn to surf… feels profoundly unimaginative and dull?