What I Am Telling My Kids at the End of the World

My loves,

I will not lie to you. You deserve the truth, even when it is heavy. Especially when it is heavy.

The world you were born into is not the world I was born into. When I was a child, the forests were thicker, the air was cleaner, the seas were fuller. There were more birds in the sky, more fish in the water, more certainty in the seasons. The world was, in many ways, more alive. And we, in many ways, failed to protect it.

We did not mean to fail you. We were taught a story, one about endless growth, progress without limits, and human lives measured by how much we accumulate rather than how well we belong. We were told that technology would fix everything, that more was always better, that someone else would take care of the mess. And for too long, we believed it.

But now the veil has lifted. The old story is dying. The world as we knew it is ending, not just the trees and the rivers, but the myths that kept us trapped in a way of life that was never truly ours. This is what I need you to know.

We are not just watching the end of something. We are standing at the beginning of something else.

A New Story for a New Earth

You, my loves, were not born into a dying world. You were born at the turning of an age. You were born in the space between stories. And while that space can feel uncertain and sometimes frightening, it is also where possibility lives.

The old world was built on the illusion that we were separate: from nature, from one another, from ourselves. That illusion is crumbling, and in its place, something truer is taking root. We are remembering. Remembering that we are part of the earth, not its masters. Remembering that wealth is not what we hoard, but what we share. Remembering that there have always been other ways to live, ways our ancestors carried, ways Indigenous peoples have safeguarded, ways that are still waiting to be reclaimed.

And here is the most important thing I can tell you.

You are not just inheriting this world. You are helping to shape it.

What Comes Next is Ours to Imagine

Yes, the forests are thinning, but seeds are still being planted.

Yes, the oceans are rising, but so are the voices of those who will not let them rise in silence.

Yes, the world will never be as it was before, but perhaps, if we are brave, it can be something else.

Your childhood may not be filled with the same abundance of species that mine was. But it will be filled with something I never had: the chance to build a world beyond the illusion of more. A world where communities are stronger, where people remember how to live with the land instead of just on it. A world where the measure of a life is not what we consume, but what we tend.

You, my loves, are the leaders of this new earth. Not in the way the old world defined leadership, with titles and power and control, but in the way that truly matters. You will lead by how you care for each other. By how you care for the land. By how you refuse to accept the old myths, and instead, begin writing new ones.

And we, your parents, your elders, those of us who woke up too late but still in time, will be right here with you. Learning, unlearning, dreaming, and doing the work alongside you.

This is not the end.

This is the great remembering.

This is the return.

This is the beginning.

And I am so grateful you are here to see it.