Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

Stone frames parenthood not as a lifestyle choice but as an irreversible emotional transformation. The “momentous” decision is less about logistics than about consenting to permanent vulnerability: once a child exists, a parent’s deepest hopes and fears are no longer contained within the self. The metaphor of the heart “walking around outside your body” captures the way love externalizes one’s sense of safety and identity—your well-being becomes bound to another person’s fragile, independent life. The line’s enduring appeal comes from its precision: it articulates the paradox of parenting as both profound joy and chronic exposure to worry, risk, and longing.