To think that if the Grimwades had really wanted to ‘go green’, they could perhaps have had fewer children?

[Rainallnight]

Have just seen this ‘Going Green with the Grimwades’ programme on Channel 5. They have six kids are are telling other people about the importance of recycling and reducing waste.

I usually think of family size as a personal matter, but this is all a bit too ironic for me.

AIBU?

I have had to stop myself saying this every time I see this programme.

They do seem like a lovely family though

Yes, yes, yes, yes!! I posted about this myself a few weeks ago. I couldn't agree more!!

Oh sorry, missed that, didn’t mean to duplicate!

@Nowthereistwo They do seem nice. I just think they probably score fairly low on self-awareness.

Yeah these are like the people who suddenly "wake up" to green issues and say stuff like "as much as I love my children, knowing what I know now, if I could turn back time I would choose not to".

I mean it's a bit convenient when you've already had three

The Grimwades can piss off. They have had 6 consumers who will devour energy and products all of their lives and will probably have loads of kids themselves. They are the problem.

I don't know this show but it strikes me as an unpleasant attitude to think of children as just environmentally unfriendly consumers. Presumably the parents believe that their children will be a net benefit both to them personally through the joy they bring, and more broadly through their contributions to society, and that's enough to offset their environmental impact.

Yanbu. I can't watch it, the hypocrisy is too much for me.

Never seen it, have they got pets? If so then everything is hippocritical, the envirironmental impact of pets is huge.

Ha! I think this every time this programme comes on!

"We reduce our energy use by washing at 30!"
Maybe you wouldn't need to do 4 loads a day if you hadn't just smashed out your 6th child.

don't know who they are, but yes I would tell anyone with 6 kids, or pets, or driving giant unnecessary cars to feck off if they tried to lecture me about the environment.

Their children will be paying your pension!

@CoalCraft

I don't know this show but it strikes me as an unpleasant attitude to think of children as just environmentally unfriendly consumers. Presumably the parents believe that their children will be a net benefit both to them personally through the joy they bring, and more broadly through their contributions to society, and that's enough to offset their environmental impact.

But surely that's how most of us feel about our children? So the argument still stands

Their children will be paying your pension!

I doubt it - I’m paying for my own pension while I work. I am fully expecting there to be almost no state pension by the time I hit the ever increasing pension age.

@Oysterbabe

"We reduce our energy use by washing at 30!" Maybe you wouldn't need to do 4 loads a day if you hadn't just smashed out your 6th child.

And washing at 30 is pretty standard I thought? I do towels and sheets at 60 in winter, 30 if they are going out in the sun.

I dont know this family. But I've strangly had a few similar things pop up on my time line lately.

I dont know if uts just the way stuff is photographed or written but some of the whole "being green" thing seems to mean just being a bit dirty/lazy. Not using plates to save water on washing up or not bathing more than once a week or something.

Most of us recycle these days dont we? And walking when you can or using a bus rather than a gas guzzling massive car is pretty standard no?

What is it with all these standard things like washing at 30 and using hand me downs and/or picking up.a few bargains in a charity shop somehow revolutionary of its on face book or YouTube

Yep. No amount of recycling will counter balance the six consumers they've produced. Not by a long shot.

Wow this thread is horrible. Yes 6 kids is not good, environmentally, but at least they’re being raised with awareness of their impact and so will have a lower carbon footprint than the 2 kids of families who don’t give a shit and have every gadget going.
If they have kids of their own, they’ll probably pass this ethos on to them and like many children of large families, probably have fewer or no kids themselves.
Meanwhile isn’t the birth rate in the U.K. below replacement level?
I think people just hate being told the truth and will cling to any excuse not to change their lifestyles.

@AgentJohnson

Their children will be paying your pension!

Great! Do you think they could contact my employers and let them know, so they can stop taking monthly pension deductions from my salary?

I have the same thought whenever it's on. I also struggle, very unreasonably with their 'R's as whenever I see the 'refuse' one I instantly think of rubbish rather than not having something! To be honest the whole thing feels very contrived like washing your car with paddling pool water and making puppets out of hole-y socks but then I'm not the target audience am I!

Totally agree, it’s ridiculous hypocrisy. If you’re genuinely committed to saving the planet, population size is the single biggest issue and each generation magnified it (I.e. if you have 6, even if each only has a more normal number you have single handedly put more strain in the environment than if you had 4 foreign holidays a year!!)

Absolute joke

@Oysterbabe

"We reduce our energy use by washing at 30!" Maybe you wouldn't need to do 4 loads a day if you hadn't just smashed out your 6th child.

Never seen it, but that reminds me of a talk about green issue we were given as a group of young mums by someone that had just "realised" how to be green. They were either totally clueless that the audience was living a considerably lower wage, in a considerably smaller house, with at least a couple of children than the (happily retired) speaker or things that were normal common sense. These were the highlights:

1. Never use the tumbledrier. Just hang the clothes up in your spare room and close the door so they're not untidy.
2. Only fill the kettle halfway up.
3. They were thinking that when they got their next car (new every 2 years) they would look into electric
4. Not leaving the back door open for the dog to go in and out of any time which meant they didn't need the heating on all the time.
5. Buying organic
6. Only changing their wardrobe every two years rather than every season.
7. Using the back of old letters for things like shopping lists.
8. Switching lights off when not in the room.

I personally think we did well not to laugh.

@AgentJohnson

Their children will be paying your pension!

I very much doubt that the state pension will be about when I hit 68 - I'm 41 now. I've had a private pension since I was 25 to mitigate this situation.

And if we're playing the zero sum game, as a CFBC higher-rate tax payer, I'm paying for other people's children's education - which, incidentally, I do not begrudge one bit, because I believe that an educated society is a good thing.

Your private pension will be worth nothing if there are no young people to work for the companies your pension holds shares in. I don't know why so many people on this parenting site decide to be so critical of parents. If you want the birth rate to drop speak to the religions that don't agree with contraception or education for women. Those are the big issues that will reduce the birthrate and make women delay parenthood. And don't say 'it's OK for me to go on 4 foreign holidays because I don't have children', it's not an either or situation and children are more needed than your foreign trips .