There’s a strange divide showing up in this generation, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Many highly educated, informed young adults are hesitating—sometimes outright refusing—to bring children into the world. They talk about climate change, political instability, economic collapse, mental health crises, school violence, and a future that feels increasingly unpredictable. They worry about whether they can protect a child, afford a child, or justify creating a life in a world that feels like it’s unraveling. For them, awareness becomes hesitation. Knowledge becomes fear. Responsibility becomes paralysis.
On the other side of the spectrum, you often see people with far less education or exposure to global issues having children with far less concern. Some do so young. Some do so without long-term planning. And yet many of them form stable relationships, get married, and raise families without obsessing over the state of the world. They don’t spend nights doom-scrolling or debating existential ethics. They live locally, think practically, and focus on what’s in front of them.
So what’s really happening here?
It’s not intelligence versus stupidity. It’s overthinking versus instinct.
Educated generations are trained to analyze every risk, forecast every outcome, and shoulder the weight of global problems they can’t control. They feel responsible not just for their own lives, but for the future of humanity. Less educated individuals often operate from a simpler framework: People have always had children. Life has always been hard. You figure it out as you go.
One group asks, “Is it fair to bring a child into this world?”
The other asks, “How do we build a life together?”
Ironically, the people who worry the most about being good parents may be the ones least likely to become them. And the people who don’t agonize over the future often end up creating the very stability—family, routine, purpose—that the anxious ones are searching for.
The truth is, the world has always been “crazy.” Wars, plagues, poverty, and uncertainty aren’t new. What’s new is our constant exposure to every global disaster in real time. Awareness without grounding breeds fear. Simplicity without awareness can breed resilience.
Maybe the question isn’t who is smarter or who cares more.
Maybe it’s whether we’ve confused knowing too much with being wise, and whether courage sometimes looks less like certainty and more like choosing to build something meaningful anyway.
Because humanity has never survived by waiting for the world to be safe.
It survived because people kept showing up, loving each other, and raising children—despite the chaos.
INCLUSIVES 
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