The Children Will Decide
There is this sentence: “The children will decide.”
I came across it through a song by the Orsons called “Jetzt” (2012). The line doesn’t appear there quite like that, and the song is aimed at something else entirely. But the sentence shows up in everyday life too, in those moments when things suddenly get very large: future. responsibility. history.
In my head, it looks like this:
I’m sitting inside my inner fortress. A kind of defensive structure built from reasons, experiences, and the knowledge of how things can go wrong. Everything is prepared: plans are laid out on the table, tools are sorted. There are ways out, doors I could walk through. I could begin.
And then this sentence arrives, from inside or outside:
“How will the children judge what you have done?”
My reaction usually looks like this:
The tools get hung back on the wall. The plans get stacked up neatly. And on the inner door goes a sign:
“Until Further Notice: CLOSED.”
Understandable, if you’re being honest. How am I supposed to create something that future generations will find worthwhile? What do I need to build so that someone in fifty years will say: yes, that was good, that made sense? In the face of that question, you might as well just lie back down. What is a single life against the demands of the future?
Climate crisis.
War.
Hatred that no longer asks for reasons.
Also true. But.
The children will judge it anyway. Whatever you do – or don’t do.
Whether I act or stay in bed, whether I write or stay silent, whether I build or break things: there will be traces. And someone, somewhere, at some point, will read them and think something about them. Judgment is not the result of my perfection. It is the normal condition of history.
So: here we go.
My favorite excuse at this point is: “But it’s hard.”
My favorite but. It’s soft, it sounds reasonable and mature. And it’s true: it is hard.
Hard means: it hurts, it’s risky, it can go wrong, you might not do the thing justice, you might look back later and think: that was naive. Hard does not mean: it’s impossible. But in my head, these two things often sit closer together than I’d like. Behind “hard” hides “better leave it alone.”
Over the years I have built an entire fortification out of reasons and experiences, an inner fortress explaining why I cannot act, not yet, not like this, not now.
It didn’t come from nowhere. It’s made of real injuries, of knowledge about everything that can go wrong. This fortress protects me. It has carried me for a long time. And it does not need to be torn down.
Somewhere in the inner system something is written that goes like this: either I stay in the fortress – safe, well-reasoned, with all the protective walls intact. Or I tear everything down and become the person who just acts.
But that’s not how it is.
When the time calls for it, I’m allowed to stay in the fortress. Doors shut, tools on the wall, the view outside only through the crack. Not today. Today it’s enough to know that there is something out there that could be done.
But when there is space, when there is air, when there is a little bit of strength – then I can open the door of this fortress just a crack.
I don’t have to betray it. I don’t have to blow it up. I can simply take one step outside.
For a concrete action. An attempt. A text. A conversation that doesn’t get stuck in the protective walls, but briefly makes contact with the world.
The fortress doesn’t resent me for this. It likes to act as though every step outside is an attack on its existence. As though it would collapse if I stepped out for a moment.
But in reality it stays where it is. It only loses its monopoly on deciding whether I act or not.
That’s how you can move into action. Not by tearing down your fears, but by letting them sit in their place for a moment while you do something outside.
That’s how you can create something that has value. Not because it’s perfect. Not because the children will like it. But because it was honest in the moment.
And now the part that immediately brings the motivation back down:
What I build can still be torn down by the next generation. And replaced by something better.
That is not a flaw in the system. That is the system.
The children who decide will not only judge what I have done. They will also build their own fortresses. Their own protective walls, their own reasons, their own fears. What I experienced as right can look entirely different to them. Maybe they will destroy something that was sacred to me. Maybe they will save something I considered unimportant.
Maybe they will look at my fortress the way I look at old city walls today. That made sense back then. Today we build differently.
And yet:
What was right for me does not stop being true in my life just because someone else builds on from here.
My right is not the final version of the world. It is the standpoint I can develop from within my own time. The children will evaluate it – yes. But they cannot decide whether it was true for me back then. Only I can do that.
Maybe that’s the crucial turn:
“The children will decide” is not a reason to do nothing at all.
It is a reminder that I am not building for eternity, but for a stretch of time. For this moment, this era, these possibilities.
And if someone comes one day and says:
“That was naive” or “That was wrong” or “That was a beginning” –
then they are deciding from inside their own fortress. Just like I am today.
So the question is less:
What will the children think?
But rather:
Can I live with myself if I attempt nothing at all, just because I’m afraid of their judgment?
The children will judge it anyway. Whether I stayed in the fortress or not.
The children do not decide how it really was. They only decide how it looks from where they stand. Just like I do today.
Then I can also begin.
Written on June 12, 2026 at 15:30. © 2026 Whisper7. All rights reserved.