If You Pull the Lever...

My fourteen-year-old daughter came into the kitchen excited to give an account of her school day, her eagerness a gift I don’t always receive with the gratitude it deserves. Unlike my oldest son who was always “fine” through school, my girls often insist that I live through every middle and high school moment with them. Some days, that’s a lot. This day, however, the sharing turned into something I may never stop thinking about.

In her class, the teacher collects and keeps student-created question prompts. Most are the “would you rather” style, or similar, meant to provoke deep thinking and bigger discussion. Each day he selects one, and allows the students to tackle them first in small groups, and then widen to the classroom.

Today, hers was the random draw. She had framed an end-of-the-world scenario, where you have to choose: You can save the entire world, but the cost is your family. Or, you can save your family, but the rest of the world is gone. One or the other disappears forever.

First, whose kid is this? That has to be the darkest thing I’ve ever heard come from this bubbly red-head who still chooses to buy stuffed animals with her allowance.

The discussion apparently went deep pretty fast. Her teacher mentioned research suggesting that adults often choose the one over the many. He referenced the infamous ethical hypothetical, the trolley dilemma. Do you stand by when you know four people will be hit, or make the call, pull the lever yourself, to divert the trolley toward a singleton? I hadn’t thought about that mind challenge since I was a student myself, so what her teacher said about adults choosing differently makes a lot of sense to me hearing it now.

My daughter went on to say that the class was closely split in decision outcomes, with slightly more students leaning, by the end of the discussion, toward sacrificing their family to save the world. I guess at least we can say our future generation seems noble. 

What she did not offer was an explanation of why or how she formed that question, and I silently begged myself not to ask. I’m not sure if I was respecting the development of her agency, or just fearful of the answer. But my curiosity was too heavy not to ask of her choice.

She forwarded with a low giggle then shyly said, “I chose to save the world.”

“You what?!” I snapped back, overcome with laughter, more at her behavior.

I’m not sure why I was so surprised, but it wasn't disappointment. Honestly, I was more intrigued than anything. She wasn’t being cold, she was being fourteen. This girl is thoughtful and earnest in that very specific teenage way where solutions to all issues feel possible. This, I knew, needed my full attention and participation.

I started by reminding her that “family” wasn't just the people in our house. We have family from the east to west coast in America, on multiple islands of Japan, and potentially spread even further than we know. Generations of branches everywhere, some she hasn’t even met. She said that had also come up in class, so the teacher simplified it to “first cousins only” to keep the decision-making manageable.

I met his intent to simplify with out-loud math, and explained to her that even with just first cousins, we’re talking about dozens of people. And most of them have families of their own. That would mean mothers and fathers disappearing, kids losing parents, whole family trees cut off at the roots. She became quiet at this idea, thoughtful when realizing how big “family” actually is. Certainly, a budding concept for her, as we have never lived close to our own.

She went on to tell me some of the discussion questions produced by her classmates. One that interested her was, Would your family know you made the decision? I found it abruptly fascinating that this young group would identify the potential for survivor’s guilt. But my daughter felt this question was useless, given her decision. “It wouldn’t matter,” she said, “because they’d be gone. They’re not going to care when they’re in heaven.”

Despite my fleeting, melodramatic urge to question the moral compass that led her to eliminate her entire family, I couldn’t ignore that she was actually on the right track handling the end. In a Christian household, abstract concepts tend to dissolve when stood next to eternal truth. We simply don’t see the end of the world the same way a philosophical thought experiment might. In that sense, I was proud that she made a choice based on knowing her family would be safe, and her heart would know comfort.

Then the part I had hoped wouldn’t happen, happened. She asked me what I would choose.

I set my dish towel down, leaned across the counter, exhaled, and confessed that I would choose to keep my family.

Her immediate reaction lit up with the joy of snapping in new puzzle pieces.

“Ah-ha!,” she announced, “My teacher was right!” She was expecting all along that my “adult” answer would align with the teacher that she trusted. And I wondered then, if, as adults, especially as parents, our emotional attachments become more … or, differently … rooted. It is much harder to think like the philosopher I thought I was in college, now that grown-up responsibilities hold me captive, and reacting as a parent overrides everything.

The understanding that her and I would choose differently settled into her. She dimmed a little.

“It’s not just because I’m an adult,” I told her. “We don’t just know the answer.”

And I scrambled in that moment to truly think about why; to gather the concepts from beyond my motherly instinct. It wouldn’t have been fair for me to argue my side based on emotions that she has yet to experience.  

I revealed the thoughts as they came to me, her eager for me to participate.

“I have to consider the situation I would be in if I’m being presented this option,” I started. “It sounds like we would be nearing the end of the world, and in that state, I would be presented with a choice to save the world, but I lose my family … let’s just say it’s only the family under this roof.” She nodded in agreement and I steadied myself to balance the line between creating a teachable moment and simply participating in her world where she requested my presence. “As a Christian, I don’t believe I will ever be called by God to save the whole world. That’s Jesus’s work, not mine. If the world is ending, my instinct will not be to become a savior. My instinct will be to be to show up fully present where my responsibility actually is - the little corner of existence carved out and entrusted to me. My family. If the last days are coming, I want to spend it with the people I love.”

She sat with that for a bit as I silently prayed I did not crush her trust in her own principles. In real time, I watched it occur to her that this wasn’t something you could solve by picking the “right” answer from an ethics flowchart. A person’s lived experience would bend the outcome, whether they wanted it to or not, leaving the answer faultlessly unpredictable to bystanders.

“Well … if it were just us,” she mused, “we could grow food, right? Have a garden, take care of ourselves…”

Another fear had manifested - she doubted herself. Not wanting her to think she needed to find a better version of her original answer, I came back gently with another layer.

“But there are no more babies,” I said. “Reproduction stops. Whoever is in your family … that’s it.”

“If it’s just us,” she said, a whiplash of tone change, “then eventually someone watches everyone else die.”

“Yes,” I answered, “and then that person has to die all alone. Probably the youngest. That would be your brother.”

Suddenly we were both looking at her little brother - who is brilliant, autistic, and already carries more vulnerability in this world than most people realize. It would be a lie if I said my husband and I have not already wrestled with the reality that one day we won’t be here to care for him. The idea of a world where he might be the last one left, and alone at the end … even though it was an abstract hypothetical, it hit hard. And it reframed everything.

This was no longer just about “saving” or “sacrificing.” It had morphed into the burden of responsibility. And back to what her young classmates already brought up so maturely … is the cost of survival bearable?

From the this or that question at hand, what kind of ending would actually be merciful?

We ended up both landing in the same place, the only place we could: thank God we don’t have to make that choice.

But my spunky teen never grows weary of throwing surprises my way. Somber worries dissolved, a smile stretched across her face in animated revelation as she announced, “You should write a book about this, Mom! Like, about someone who has to choose, and what happens after.”

Bless that girl and her confidence in my fiction writing.

I laughed before breaking the news that there are actually a lot of post-apocalyptic stories already out there explaining this same idea. Stories about no babies being born, humanity fading out, and what it means to be the last generation. She looked very grown up taking in this knowledge, learning before my eyes that this was not about what might happen ahead of us, but what has already been grappled with behind us. Awkward growth, to the beat of a little disappointment. And the conversation still had one more twist to go.

We looked at her brother again, and I shifted from mom to fiction story teller. She loves this.

“What if,” I started, eyes wide, “the whole world disappeared except for us … and your brother, the youngest child left, was a mastermind the world had never seen before, and he walked into the abandoned fertility clinics where embryos were stored, and the three of us women left here could carry babies that aren’t genetically ours?”

And in one plot twist, the kid we were imagining as the last, loneliest person alive, became the hero who restarts everything.

Oh, that story line would have to get weird, yes. Philosophical thought experiments always do. But what looked like inevitable loss had transformed into a theory of perseverance. And we needed to allow the most fragile of us to be the hero.

I hope my daughter better understands now that these scenarios are rarely able to wrap up cleanly. Discussing the ideas and paths with peers and family, however, is meant to reveal what we value, what we fear, and where our sense of responsibility lives at that snapshot in time - knowing what you know, and trusting God with the ability that you can.

I do know that I am grateful this was just a classroom discussion and a safe kitchen counter conversation. And I’m grateful for a teenager who’s willing to think seriously about impossible questions, and to open her mind when the world gets more complicated than it first looked. That will take her far.

And maybe one day, I will write that book she suggested. Or maybe she will. Or we’ll both just keep having these conversations, and that will be the real happy ending.

Written 11 February 2026