The Imperfects · Hugh van Cuylenburg, Ryan Shelton & Josh van Cuylenburg

Bri Lee - Babies+Climate=Anxiety

March 22, 2026·1 hr 21 min·6 clips

Bri Lee says she never got to want kids freely — climate anxiety stole that choice before she could make it.

The guest starts with hope as something you practice. The cold open uses Seed to get into climate anxiety, values, and the question of having children in a world that feels unsafe. The ache is personal. She is not only asking whether she wants kids. She is grieving the freedom to make that choice without climate fear leaning on it. Action becomes a way through. Instead of waiting to feel better before doing anything, she says acting has helped her feel better across her life. The question grows from there. What does it mean to live well when the costs of human growth are hard to see up close? Love makes the whole thing messier. The guest describes ambition as easier to hold, because context, effort, timing, and exits can feel partly manageable. Love does not make that deal. It is uncertain and hard to control, yet looking back, it is often where the richest parts of life came from. That richness can still hurt. Even a great love may end in loss, because death sits underneath every plan. The host brings in Barbara Fredrickson, whose idea of love as micro moments of positive resonance gives the talk a more practical feel. Time and presence matter. Family holidays lead the host toward empty calendar space and the chance to actually be with people. Career can squeeze that out. The exchange does not fix climate dread or parenthood, but it does argue for hope earned through action and love that is available now. Small change counts. Changing the world for one person still changes their world.

As heard by us

A thoughtful, grounded listen on climate anxiety, parenthood, control and the kind of hope that comes from action.

Bri Lee turns climate anxiety into a bodily question: can you really choose parenthood freely when fear has already crowded the choice? Her novel Seed gives the discussion its frame, but the pull here is more personal than literary.

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Why you'd press play

When climate anxiety makes future plans feel heavy.

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