Having a child is the worst thing you can do for the environment

[saveourtrees]

I disagree with this wholeheartedly. My family of 7 (I will not apologise for my children's lives) create less waste than my brother and his girlfriend. In fact we take in their pet waste and food waste for composting.
Virtually all of our clothes, toys, boardgames, furniture is secondhand. A couple of white goods (does oven count as white goods?)
we grow our some of own food, process and preserve, batchcook and freeze, hardly ever use the heating (hot water bottles and blankets), bake, make dinners from scratch etc.
I knit (using wool from the charity shop), sew badly to fix holes in clothes.
we don't buy cards or wrapping paper, we do absolutely everything we can.

We still make about 1.5 black bags full of rubbish a week though, solely from food packaging. We just don't have enough to stretch to a zero waste bulk shop in the city center. But one day, when I go back to work I think we could probably manage it.

So why am I feeling guilty for having children? If it wasn't for my children I probably wouldn't have even cared as much about the environment and the state of the world. A big drive for me changing from a typical consumer to a more conscious one was the birth of my first child. Suddenly when people asked 'what world are we leaving for our children?' they were talking about my children.

I think the eco conscious people not reproducing to ''save the planet'' is stupid. If the people who care, who would teach their children to mend and say no to fast fashion, eat less meat, don't holiday abroad, etc. .. if they don't have children but the avid consumers do then isn't that worse? There will be less eco friendly grownups in 20/ 30 years but just as many grown-ups who weren't taught by their parents how to be eco friendly

I don't know, but don't come onto mumsnet and tell mums they shouldn't have had their children. That really is horrible.

@saveourtrees - I agree with @fallofgiants. Tonight's episode of Analysis is fascinating and might make you feel better. It's certainly made me realise that these issues are really complex and of course we still need to have babies!

@MsTSwift
I agree. My teens are fairly green, but I agree in general many young people aren’t committing to green lifestyles. it frustrates me how these activists think they are “driving change” and how they claim “no one has listened, no one has done anything for the planet ever” and “your generation is leaving us a mess woe is me/we are so doomed” they show up at protests, and then leave disposable drink cups and food wrappers littering everywhere. They travel hundreds of miles or more! Confident that the trip is necessary to “save the planet” when theyre actually emitting unnecessary CO2 to attend a street party and back slapping virtue signalling exercise.

When imho, the mess we inherited was a lot worse than how it is now and going green is a multi-generational effort that has already been going on for seventy years. Yes, the torch is passing to the next generation but it irritates me when they pretend they’re the first to care and push for change.

The moment you went for the absurd hyperbole of screeching you won’t apologise for your children’s lives it was clear you’re never going to see this objectively.

I completely accept having children wasn’t good for the environment. Nor is the fact I drive a car or fly in planes. I’m only vegetarian, not vegan. We have a pet. There have even been times in my life when I’ve used single use plastic.

It’s perfectly possible to see yourself with a little more clarity and be alright about it.

If we don’t have any children the human race will become extinct-although admittedly carbon emissions etc. will be almost zero when that happens-just a shame no one will be left to see it !

@kathmacc

If we don’t have any children the human race will become extinct-although admittedly carbon emissions etc. will be almost zero when that happens-just a shame no one will be left to see it !

The animals might enjoy it?

Ghengis Khan is supposed to be a common ancestor of 20million people today...so do we rage at him for being an eco-destroyer

Of course not - he certainly did his bit in terms of reducing the population as well.

Someone with no children who flies weekly for work and drives everywhere, eats a lot of red meat etc probably has a higher carbon footprint than someone with one or more children who is vegetarian and doesn't fly/drive.

I appreciated this post, for points but also fecund which I haven’t heard for a while. Seems a pungent word

I first came across"fecund" doing a crossword. The clue was "fertilised" and I had letters fc_d. Bought the next day's paper to see the answer and learned fecund.

@kathmacc

If we don’t have any children the human race will become extinct-although admittedly carbon emissions etc. will be almost zero when that happens-just a shame no one will be left to see it !

Big difference between one and none. The problem is that even two isn't many in a lot of countries. I reckon we could reduce the human population by 75% and still be thriving. That'd still be many millions of people.

@NoDecentHandlesLeft

Someone with no children who flies weekly for work and drives everywhere, eats a lot of red meat etc probably has a higher carbon footprint than someone with one or more children who is vegetarian and doesn't fly/drive.

And someone with no children who is vegetarian and doesn't fly/drive will have an even more proportionately lower footprint than someone with one or more children who flies weekly for work and drives everywhere, eats a lot of red meat etc.

You children will have carbon footprints too. And exist because of your choices. When someone who hasn't had children dies their carbon footprint ends yours will continue till the last of your descendents dies.

@NoDecentHandlesLeft

Someone with no children who flies weekly for work and drives everywhere, eats a lot of red meat etc probably has a higher carbon footprint than someone with one or more children who is vegetarian and doesn't fly/drive.

At the moment maybe.

But those children will grow up and create two new carbon footprints.

@NoDecentHandlesLeft

Someone with no children who flies weekly for work and drives everywhere, eats a lot of red meat etc probably has a higher carbon footprint than someone with one or more children who is vegetarian and doesn't fly/drive.

Yawn. This "argument" is regularly trotted out on threads like this. The assumption that child free people do all of this is getting boring.

This "argument" is regularly trotted out on threads like this. The assumption that child free people do all of this is getting boring.
Or the assumption people with DC never do these things? 🤪 Plenty of parents fly for work, drive everywhere and eat red meat.

Exactly @EmeraldShamrock.

@EmeraldShamrock

This "argument" is regularly trotted out on threads like this. The assumption that child free people do all of this is getting boring. Or the assumption people with DC never do these things? 🤪 Plenty of parents fly for work, drive everywhere and eat red meat.

Anecdotally, I don't know any parents who are non-drivers. I think it's something you're more likely to need to do if you have children to ferry about.

I gave up flying nearly 20 years ago.

I do eat red meat from time to time, but certainly not for every meal - last week I had it once; once or twice a week is fairly typical for me. I don't see any reason why being a parent or not should have an influence on red meat consumption.

Your kids are already here theres no point feeling guilty about it. Theres no denying that having multiple children isnt bad for the environment, but you can lessen the impact by making them all as environmentally aware as possible.

I'm not environmentally perfect, I try but make mistakes and make decisions based on convenience or just purely because I feel like treating myself. But I dont try to justify it or make excuses that it's not environmentally bad.

So no point trying to defend the decision to have multiple children as not being environmentally bad. I'm not 'childphobic' I want and like children. I just think everyone would have a better chance of a more secure future if resources were spread out accross fewer children.

It isn't just about environmental resources, every person is another person taking up health services, school places, waiting lists. CAMHS for example is stretched, as are school places.

I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, as I said they are here and we are allowed to make decisions based on what we want. Honestly in real life would I care or judge someone for having multiple children? Probably not (unless it directly impacted me) but you asked on a public forum whether or not having multiple children is objectively bad for the environment, and I believe it is.

Though, still not worth feeling guilty over. Just like I'm not going to feel guilty for going on a foreign holiday.

@EmeraldShamrock

This "argument" is regularly trotted out on threads like this. The assumption that child free people do all of this is getting boring. Or the assumption people with DC never do these things? 🤪 Plenty of parents fly for work, drive everywhere and eat red meat.

My point- which I should have made clearer- was it's all relative. OP's carbon footprint may or may not be as much as someone who has one or no children. So taking one single aspect of someones life and judging their environmental impact is pointless.

You do know the environmental issues don’t boil down to how many bags of waste you have a week

And it’s very interesting you make no mention of how you travel, which makes me think large car for the 7 of you

Ans who is to say your 5 children, or 6 if no partner in the 7 will follow what you do? It may just turn out the 5/6 being pissed off they have to make do and mend and decide when they earn their own money they won’t bother.

You want all these kids, then fine, but dont get uppity when people point out that having kids is one if the worst things for the environment

@coachmylife

Btw it is utter rubbish that we contribute only 1% to world emissions - we import almost everything we consume, and NONE of that is counted in ‘our’ emissions. We badly need consumption-related figures, not just production ones.

The consumption-based figures can be found among the options here:

ourworldindata.org/co2

For what it's worth, the UK's consumption-based CO2 emissions are 1.5% despite only having 0.35% of the world's habitable land.

But you're hardly alone in that. Turn back the clock 40 years, and being eco-friendly was seen as something rather cranky and new-age. Look at how Prince Charles used to be regarded as a tree-hugging weirdo. I'm no fan of his, but it's to his credit that he was banging the eco drum long before it became fashionable.

It was a lot more realistic though. The environmental movement today seems to be focused on using tech to allow us to live the same way we are already, whereas in the 80s and 90s it was very up-front about the fact that lifestyles would have to change considerably.

OP, I think you are taking this too personally, if I may say so. For instance, I fly long haul maybe once a year. I have to because my mother and my sister both live in other countries not reachable by train. As does DS' brother. I admit this is terrible for the environment. I just can't do much about it right now. Other than that, I do not eat meat, do not have a car, and make everything from scratch. But that long haul air travel!

And not to pick on anyone, but this is a really good example. When my grandparents were young, and to some extent even my parents, this just wouldn't happen. If people moved to another country, they considered that they would not see their friends and relatives very often, maybe never. After marrying my grandfather and coming to Canada in 1950, my grandmother returned home to England three times before she died in 2000. That was very typical.

We are having fewer children now, but our expectations have grown as a result. And it is not easy to confound those, or go against the social expectations around us.

People who keep saying, we need to reduce family size - you do realize that the native population in the UK is declining already, right? If people continue to do what they are doing, including a few having big families, it will continue to decline. Those kids may be less likely to be accustomed to consumer lifestyles, as well.

And no, families that have seven kids they are not likely to see them all go out and have that many again. That's what it means to say that the population is declining.

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@MsTSwift
I agree. My teens are fairly green, but I agree in general many young people aren’t committing to green lifestyles. it frustrates me how these activists think they are “driving change” and how they claim “no one has listened, no one has done anything for the planet ever” and “your generation is leaving us a mess woe is me/we are so doomed” they show up at protests, and then leave disposable drink cups and food wrappers littering everywhere. They travel hundreds of miles or more! Confident that the trip is necessary to “save the planet” when theyre actually emitting unnecessary CO2 to attend a street party and back slapping virtue signalling exercise.

When imho, the mess we inherited was a lot worse than how it is now and going green is a multi-generational effort that has already been going on for seventy years. Yes, the torch is passing to the next generation but it irritates me when they pretend they’re the first to care and push for change.[/quote]
Any studies I've seen suggest older people are much more likely to try and live sustainable lifestyles.

It wasn't my generation that fell in love with fast fashion, after all.

I think you shouldn’t feel guilty at all however justifying having seven because you realised you could be more environmentally conscious after 1 just sounds like a poor excuse. You clearly wanted seven, you weren’t doing it for the planet. Which is absolutely fine. But, it is what it is. I agree with others saying it’s just like saying yes I fly a lot but I cycle to work. You could still cycle and fly less. In your case you could have had less kids and live responsibly too. One doesn’t cancel out the other. I’m not into policing others lives or environmental choices but you’ve kind of put yourself in an odd position here to attract criticism.