Hi all,

I posted a similar thread around the Oct 7 events, but it's come up again. My partner and I were just watching youtube late at night, and we saw a PBS video about "parts of america being most affected by climate change" or what not, and we assumed it would be more of a ranking of best cities in terms of climate change (we enjoy daydreaming about moving to certain cities etc), but this video was a tad more doomer than expected, where they showed how in like 30 years half the country would basically be uninhabitable with a half the year with 100+ degree days, and a lot with 125+ degree days etc.

Now seeing these quite grim projections didn't really phase me, I mean I'm a member here so I'm well aware how in general the world has been about climate change. But they had a bit of a mild panic/shock because they are still liberal enough where they just assume 'the good guys will win'/'we just need the democrats in office/kamala to win and we're fine'....they then had a moment of worrying about personal responsibility like we should all be really careful with recycling, not buy from Amazon etc...which is good to do but I also explained how us as individuals have pretty much no power to do anything as long as companies and governments don't care.

I guess my main issue/anxiety about this kinda stuff is that with them, we've been together 5 years and planning on getting engaged before the end of 2024. But I just get this nagging feeling of 'is it going to be a shock to them if we can't ever buy a house (that's one of their biggest dreams) or similar stuff based on how the world works, since they basically block out all bad/sad news' ...I do have avoidant tendencies in terms of attachment styles so I do kinda look/second guess on big decisions involving relationships, but it still feels a bit like I should almost sit them down and run them through the true possibilities of how shitty things can get in terms of never retiring/owning a house/climate change etc, but then I feel guilty for almost searching for a reason to find something bad about our relationship.

Sorry if it's quasi-venting, just a bit of late night ramblings.

So I would say I want to have kids, but it's very dependent on being able to have certain standards adhered to- aka I wouldn't just have kids no matter what if the biological clock was ticking etc. So with that said, I have question(s)/thoughts about those who have kids or plan on having them:

As someone who does value things like urbanism/strong social safety nets /all the things that I assume people on the actual left care about, it seems like it's virtually impossible in the US at least to raise a family in an actual urban area, where you at most own a car but it's not used on a regular basis, and still have good public education available that isn't obsenely expensive. To use an example, Chicago is one of the few cities that isn't craaazy expensive and you don't need a car depending on what neighborhood you live in, but it's well known that unless you go private school or a child tests into/wins a lottery to go to one of the amazing public schools, the general "school you go to because that's based on your address" are all objectively bad/somewhat dangerous. Obviously there are histories of corruption/racism and the like that has caused this issue in Chicago, but I don't think I'm wrong that I'd want to send my kid to a bad school just to prove a point. But on the other hand,, I do feel like it's just wrong to endorse the continued brokenness of needing to go private or get lucky to get a good education.

So basically, I wonder what is everyone's plan? My partner is currently in the process of getting EU citizenship, but that's most likely years away to being finalized. Is there any hope in the US to not have to make huge concessions when it comes to having children? Sometimes I wonder if even having two children is too much in terms of $$, but my partner is an only child and we both agree that if possible two would be best, as they were very affected negatively by being an only child, to the extent if I was ever single again I might legitimately hesitate to date an only child again. I guess I just would want to have somewhat of a plan/goal to be at so my partner and I could figure out when would be the time to have kids.

It just sometimes seems hopeless at least in the near future to raise kids in the US, and I'm hoping that's not the case, and if it is I'd love to be able to try to work towards whatever steps needed (whether moving to X country or X state etc) in order to make that a reality.

First, apologies if this should go in a different community, it just seemed like this probably made the most sense-mods please move it if it should be someone else.

So I've been seeing my new therapist for a couple of months now, and overall I do like him/seems like a good fit. He recently asked if I had ever done meditation/mindfulness etc, as he wanted to do more than just being 99% similar to a friend you would just air your greivances/problems/thoughts out loud which sometimes therapy feels like, which I also like as I do appreciate actually tactics/methods of improvement and such.

Anyways, he sent me a free trial of Waking Up, which unbeknown to me is created by Sam Harris. Like most here, I am not a fan of him at all, but I figured I'd at least check out the app. There's a 28 day "intro" course which is basically teaching you the principles of meditation/mindfulness, and I'm about halfway through and so far I would say I've benefited from it. I mentioned my concerns to my therapist, who understood my concerns (I know my therapist is pro palestine based on my ramblings/rants about the situation, so he's not a full blown Sam Harris fan/neoliberal etc) and he suggested that as long as it seems to be working for me I should stick with it, and did point out that if there is any legitimate background/knowledge that Sam Harris does know it would be meditation more so than his fraudulent neuroscience/political activities/"expertise".

I've personally kind of for now been like "as long as one of his lessons doesn't obviously show his flawed thinking/views outside of meditation I'll stick with it for now" since I have no idea if there's better resources/alternatives out there, but does anyone have thoughts/suggestions of better resources/apps and what not?

Thanks!

Like they agree with me in terms of being "team Palestine", and understands my analogies of the initial Hamas attack being like if slaves in the 1800s had tried to stage an uprising etc but still "you can't tell me terrorism is good because it's never good", even when I explain to them how non-violent protest actually working (like when schools taught us about MLK JR/civil rights etc) is propaganda...fun times.