Last month, Washington Post opinion columnist Alexandra Petri wrote a piece to her unborn child before her parental leave.
In “Hello, baby: Here is what I need to tell you about the world,” she writes about all the things she loves about living in this moment in time, big and small, like going on walks, that catchy summer pop song and watching the seasons change. She also mentions changes that she doesn’t love, such as the unreliability of artificial intelligence and the uncertainty of our political climate.
Petri writes, “So I feel apologetic, now, for the feeling I have that things used to be better.”
I think that sentiment is something a lot of people are feeling at the moment, regardless of political affiliation. When you grow old enough, most people tend to believe the idea that things used to be better. They were better before AI, before deep polarization, before inflation, the pandemic, social media, smartphones, even the internet. And the older you are, the longer your list gets.
Like Petri, I am a millennial who was raised in the '90s, part of one of the last generations to remember what life was like before the internet and social media. I didn’t have access to all of the world’s content in my pocket before I could read. I didn’t have the temptation of AI software like ChatGPT to help me answer my homework questions. As great as these advances are, it’s something I know a lot of parents struggle with today, navigating a world their children will be exposed to what they never experienced.
In writing this column, I started to think about my own list of things I want to tell my unborn child about the world, who I am scheduled to meet next week.
I want to show my baby the things I love about living in this moment in time, big and small. I love hot cocoa on a cold winter day, playing games by candlelight when the power goes out, and finishing a great book.
And every day in my job, I am exposed to countless moments of good news from Ideastream's reporters and producers — such as a new bar that will prioritize women’s sports, or a Cleveland museum repatriating an ancient statue, or how our region’s food scene has really become a melting pot of cuisine.
I am reminded that even though I feel that, in some ways, things used to be better, every day there is reason for joy and hope.
As Petri writes to her child, and it’s a sentiment I share, “Somewhere soon, we will be opening a window. It will be your window, and I hope you mostly like what you see when you look out of it. The rest we can work on.”
I know that one day soon, I will say to my baby: "I once thought things used to be better. But nothing could be better than being your mom."
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