My problem is that I want kids.

Except, I know it’s stupid. The insurmountable student loan debt that’s currently a yoke around my neck is half of what it would cost to raise my ideal two children to just 18 years old. Climate change is going to destroy our way of life in the next 30 years, I’d be bringing them into a world on the brink of collapse. Society will break down when famine/disease start going unchecked, this is what I want them to experience? All so, what? I can have a little buddy that looks up to me and thinks I’m great for a few years? All so I can get my little kodak moments in between miserable days filled with screaming, crying, no sleep, stress, financial hardship, troubled marriage, and no sex?

And here I am, suffering from major chronic depression/anxiety… Would I even be a good steward of these children? I know I’d like to think of myself as just a baby away from switching into “Dad mode,” but would it be enough? Would I be waking up early to get my kids breakfast and lunch together, or would I fall deep into depression and get up at 2PM like I’ve been doing? Will I even have the energy enough to play with my kids after work? What about building that tree-house, and doing school projects? What about after-school sports and parties and everything else? I am barely holding myself together, am I really going to be able to switch my whole personality like a light switch into becoming the kind of Dad these kids would need?

I would be trapping myself into a job I hate forever, just to have these children, which would also make retirement a fever dream.

So why the hell do I still want them? I just wish my head and my heart could be on the same page for this, and they are just not.