One of the many things that makes humans unusual among all the life on our planet is our desire to make things better for our children.
For other species there is little concern beyond survival and procreation because they don’t really have much control over anything beyond that. They’re born into the Earth’s natural systems and are simply part of nature. They affect the physical environment in limited ways, building homes of various kinds like nests or underground dens, but if the environment is inhospitable, there is not much they can do about it.
A fish born into a small evaporating pond in the midst of a drought doesn’t start drilling a well to replenish the depleting water. They struggle to survive and if they are lucky, they reproduce and their offspring do the same thing.
Humans are different. For better or for worse, we take a more active role in creating our environment. We’re born into a human world that was built within and on top of the natural environment by our ancestors. Generation after generation has built this physical world so tailored to our human needs that we can easily forget that we are indeed still part of nature.
Parents building a better world for their children.
Whether we are struggling to survive or living in relative comfort, we find meaning in working to create opportunities for our children that we didn’t have. That might take the form of working two jobs to fund our kid’s college education or working to feed hungry children in developing nations.
We’re not limited to wanting to help our biological offspring; we are wired to care about all of humanity’s children. They are literally our future as a species.
