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.

If everyone had as many children as OP, our population would be increasing even without immigration.

The vast majority don't want that many children but our population is growing because people are living longer, it's not just immigration & babies.

[quote ronfa]@HanukahMatata yes, poorer countries use no where near the same resources despite having larger families. [/quote]
@ronfa
I saw one graphic which showed all the countries where in one year an average household uses less electricity than a standard American fridge.
Rapid population growth is indeed a problem in those countries for many reasons but they aren't responsible for climate change and global environmental issues.

Here it is. Shocking.

It is shocking & I find it quite uncomfortable how people often judge those in other countries for having lots of children. It's completely logical in poorer countries that people need more children to help survive. Once countries become more prosperous & women have access to education birth rates naturally decline as we already see.

Plus the poorer countries are far more likely to be impacted by climate change.

@CecilyP

We’d have a shrinking population in most Western countries if not for immigration. You’d think this is an issue the Tories and Labour could actually agree upon.

That is quite true but when people are talking about overpopulation, they are generally thinking globally rather than locally. However in the U.K., we have this shrinking population because those women who have children tend to have between 1 and 3 and have them older. If everyone had as many children as OP, our population would be increasing even without immigration. If OP wanted a large family, fine, but to make out it doesn’t have an effect on the environment is wrong.

The point is this is unusual in Western countries and the odd outlier like OP won’t change overall fertility rates.

Truth is that we’d have a declining population without immigration. If you want carbon emissions to fall in highly industrialised countries, you should not support immigration.

So basically Japan.

[quote ronfa]@HanukahMatata yes, poorer countries use no where near the same resources despite having larger families. [/quote]
Land degradation is an issue though. Deforestation through inefficient agricultural practices, lack of alternative employment options and the like.

But that’s environmental and not really about carbon emissions.

Family of 7 and 2 dogs. We hardly fill our bin but next door, 1 child 2 adults, bin is over flowing and extra bags beside it.

@UsedUpUsername
Yes, I agree. That's why I was referring to global environment. I mean, maybe deforestation. But we can hardly complain. After all, where are all the European ancient forests?
But mainly rapid population growth is a problem for the countries themselves. If you're barely managing to provide basic education and heatlhcare, then if you need to also expand capacity at 2-3% just to accommodate population growth, you're constantly playing catch up to provide even just the minimum to have a healthy and educated population.

Very strange thread, trying to justify a need for 5 children, crammed into 2 bedrooms. Agree with PP that it’s your generational footprints that matter too - you can do what you want now, but you’ll also be sending 5 extra people out into the world to start using finite resources.

When you say you don’t think about the social or economic impact of what you do, I’d say with 5 children, that’s stating the obvious.

Not sure what the point of this thread is. You can’t change the number of children you have, and you can’t justify it either, to people who disagree with your outlook.

The thing is, if we all had 5 or more children, the planet would be in trouble. But we don't. Very, very few women make this choice. And lots of women have only 1 child or no children at all. So that's fine then.

But no, having 5 children is not an inherently environmentally friendly choice because if everyone did it, we'd be fucked.

But you realise OP that when all your children grow up they will all need a house each, they will all have a car, a mobile phone, a computer, washing machines, fridges, freezers, tv's etc and all those things use electricity even if they are second hand. They will all have to eat and heat their houses (a hot water bottle isn't going to cut it in January and February and constantly boiling the kettle to make a hot water bottle is still using electricity) and use hot water to wash - I'm assuming you all shower with hot water. And they may well all have children of their own.

If you'd had one child and that child had one child then that would be two extra people in the world. If you have 5 kids and they all had 5 kids that would be a total of 30 extra people in the world. If every one of the 66 million people in this country did that where would we be?

Just because you make some environmental choices doesn't mean they won't want holidays abroad with their families or a huge car - talking of which how do you get around in an environmentally friendly way? walk? Public transport?

You sound absolutely clueless about the impact people have on the world to me tbh.

And if your 5 children had only three children each that would be 15 grandchildren, and if they did the same it would be 45 great grandchildren. If your children and grandchildren followed your example you’d have 25 grandchildren and 125 great grandchildren……….
.

Doesn't sound much fun for your children OP. Cramped in 2 bedrooms, all second hand and make do and mend... Chances are they will resent this way of living once they hit their teens, and as adults may well seek to live in the opposite way to a childhood you foisted on them by having 5 you seemingly can't afford.

[quote HanukahMatata]@UsedUpUsername
Yes, I agree. That's why I was referring to global environment. I mean, maybe deforestation. But we can hardly complain. After all, where are all the European ancient forests?
But mainly rapid population growth is a problem for the countries themselves. If you're barely managing to provide basic education and heatlhcare, then if you need to also expand capacity at 2-3% just to accommodate population growth, you're constantly playing catch up to provide even just the minimum to have a healthy and educated population.[/quote]
Totally. But people get so hyperfocussed on carbon emissions that they sort of forget these points.

Population growth in poorer countries matters not so much in terms of carbon emissions but it can have major impact on the environment. Also on the ability to grow the economy as you point out

Putting environment aside OP

Why did you have so many children when you have a 3 bed 1 reception house?! This is what baffles me!!

As I say

Your way of living with the second hand and trying to be self sufficient

I do think you do this out of choice. But out of financial necessity

Actually there was a programme on R4 yesterday (maybe 'saving the planet'?) where they had disproved this, and said that owning a car is far worse eco-wise to having a child.

@gettingolderbutcooler

Actually there was a programme on R4 yesterday (maybe 'saving the planet'?) where they had disproved this, and said that owning a car is far worse eco-wise to having a child.

Surely depends on what type of car?

Completely agree! The reason I care so much is because of my kids! I've changed my lifestyle massively since having them. Their generation will be so much more conscious of the environment & will be the ones sorting out the shit show previous generations have left behind. We need them. & we need the people who think it's not their problem to die off already

You're kidding yourself, OP. You're only thinking in the short term. What about when all those kids you had grow up, meet their own partners, etc.? Are they all going to live in this frugal, second hand way?

I don't think it's right to tell people they shouldn't have had their children, but I also don't think it's right not to own your choices and acknowledge their impact.

I also don't think you should call people 'stupid' for choosing not to reproduce because of the environment. I could call you stupid for not considering being eco conscious or considering the environment until you had your own kids. Never read a newspaper in your life?

@idonthavetimeforyournonsense

Completely agree! The reason I care so much is because of my kids! I've changed my lifestyle massively since having them. Their generation will be so much more conscious of the environment & will be the ones sorting out the shit show previous generations have left behind. We need them. & we need the people who think it's not their problem to die off already

How have you changed your “lifestyle massively”?

"@UsedUpUsername
Yep. But much easier just to blame people for having children.
In developed countries, it's not population size, it's over consumption. Any kind of rapid population change, whether growth or decline, isn't great for any society. The occasional large family is not the reason for climate change

YANBU in that you don't HAVE to feel guilty, nobody has you at gunpoint.

YABU in that everything else you've said is nonsense.

Surely the issue is global carbon emissions, not UK carbon emissions? In which case immigration has no impact on this.

Yes that’s what I thought too. Also immigration might help two fold, make up reducing birth rate in richer countries but also poorer countries are going to be hit harder by climate change.