What Are Children For?

Having children is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make in your life. Increasingly, we aren’t making it at all.



Across the developed world, fewer and fewer people are becoming parents, and many see themselves as never doing so. We seek self-fulfilment; we want women to find meaning and self-worth outside the household; we wish to protect the planet from the ravages of human-caused climate change; we do what we can to protect others from senseless suffering. And what’s more, we’re told that perhaps our children’s lives won’t be worth living.



Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman find a way out of our inertia. Our individual decision to have children is a profound philosophical question: how do we justify the goodness of our lives today? What Are Children For? is a call to take the decision of parenthood seriously, and take it into our own hands.