To think that it is not socially/environmentally irresponsible to want a large family?

[stillstanding]

I am one of four children. My parents were both one of four and most of aunts and uncles had large families too. I therefore grew in up in a fairly rumbustious home with loads of people coming and going and I loved it and I always hoped that I too would have a large family.

DH and I are now discussing how many children we would like to have and it turns out we are not exactly on the same page as he would prefer that we only had two DCs.

His main argument is that it is socially and environmentally irresponsible to have more than two children. He feels that the planet is overburdened as it is and there is no need to overload it any further. He's comfortable with two DCs because it's "two in two out" but that any more would be selfish of us.

I suspect that his main drivers are his own background (he comes from a rather calm family of 2 DCs where no one talks over you at the dinner table) and the financial toll. He is probably targeting the whole social/environmental irresponsibility angle because the environment is something I have become increasingly concerned about in recent years. He says that there is no point in me being militant about recycling, for example, and then having four children.

Ultimately I suspect that the financial aspect is going to be the deciding factor in this decision but I wondered if any of you had considered this issue?

maybe nature is taking care of it - what with all the chemicals in water, infertility is on the rise.

Gateau, I'd actively protest on the streets if they tried to bring in any policy about how many kids you're allowed to have.

The state can't and shouldn't control individual reproductive choices. It wouldn't work anyway, and would be a step in entirely the wrong direction if we were to try that.

However, I do think we should open up the debate, and make it officially clear that ideally, smaller families are best for sustainability. Perhaps with incentives? I don't know if that's workable or not.

At the moment, there is much hand wringing in this area. I read the left-liberal Guardian, and it's a hot potato there becuase it catches the left between two ideologies: ie, how do we save the planet, and not offend other cultures who tend to have much bigger families than ours? etc etc.

We need to at least grasp the nettle of debate and stop being so scared to say out loud that we can't sustain this level of worldwide population growth.

Ah yes but we're not a normal (norm?? for nmc) family

To be entirely fair think it is ne of the very few issues that are sacred and needs to be decided by heart and parent alone.

Its definitely not something to be decided by the state; far more important things to be worried about in this society of ours (Peachy currently very shaky after discovering the AAA group on facebook yesterday, calling for all people with ASD to be gotten rid of. If this, with the racist stuff, is where society is heading then those of us with a brain need more kids not fewer)

Bear in mind that I'm not pointing at any one person and saying that they shouldn't have kids. I'm just looking at the simple adding up. If everyone in the world has two kids the population stays the same. Actually it's a bit more than 2 since not all have kids. Let's say it's 2 and a half on average.

If the average is more than that then the population rises. The current population level is straining the resources of the planet. If we are very careful we may yet survive, but if the population doubles, trebles, quadruples then we won't.

If everyone had two then gradually the population would fall (it would take a very long time) and there would be enough to go around.

At some point way in the future you could encourage 2 and a half kids again to keep the population stable at whatever point you decided was 'enough'

But Morris, there are many people in the world who will never have children, or who don't want children. There will also be many deaths through illness, accident, etc. It all balances out eventually, because not every family is going to want six kids.

If you have a single person who flies once a month, has the heating on all year round, drives everywhere and consumes a lot of disposable goods, they might use the same resources as three resourceful people put together.

'Obviously it is a massive issue and needs to be addressed but I am not sure the answer is to have lots of children, which would surely be a short term solution as then when those children grow up, we will need even more to care for them etc etc. Don't we need to address the spiralling population figures now before they get out of control (assuming they are not already)? '

Forgive me, but i thought that some sources actually predict the generation which we are raising will be the first not to outlive their parents, due to poor diet / obesity etc etc etc

So the truth is that society and humankind is at a completely new point which has not been experienced before in all aspects- ecological, health, etc- and predictions at this moment are complete guesswork?

Interesting debate. It has made me think a lot more about this, that's for sure.

birthrate has fallen ,life expectancy is rising, not enough kids.if everyone educates their kids and brings them up eco-friendly there shouldnt b a problem. anyway most of the damage has been done by older generations who didnt understand what their actions did/caused to the enviroment.2 different issues.does your dh recycle buy secondhand and energy save?

Add to the fact that the planet is in natural disaster overdrive at the moment with increases in flooding, drought, tsunami, hurricanes and the weather patterns are predicted to worsen significantly, then my having 4 children is not a huge environmental concern I fear.

The fact that if the ice caps keep melting at the rate they do and the atlantic conveyor belt switches off means we'll all be fucked, whether you're driving a gas guzzler or not.

The birthrate in Britain has RISEN this last year.

We are digging up fields to build more houses and can no longer see the stars at night because there are so many lights everywhere.

If you were living in Australia or in the wilds of the US, I'd say go ahead. But Britain is horribly overcrowded. The more children we have, the more houses we need.

I feel your pain, though. I would have liked more than two children but we decided for all these reasons that two was enough.

What upset me was their pictures- they all looked so very normal- like anyone you might meet when what theya re actually saying is @I would like to kill 2 of your children'

Anyway

from the research released this week it would seem that becoming a veggie (and thus lessening beef cow herds) is the ay forwards by far, rather than family limiting

But peachy suppose we all halved our impact on the enviromment and then all had 10 kids. Surely that can't go on forever can it.

DH and I are EXACTLY like you, stillstanding: he says having children is bad for the planet; I say yes I know, but I still want them. As lots of people here have said, though, I think DH's concerns are 'dressed' in environmental terms, rather than being absolutely heartfelt.

What I find hard is that I DO agree with him, logically. Here's an example of the problem as I see it. We asked 'close' relatives to our wedding - siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and first cousins. In my family there were 55. In DH's family there were 8. And this wasn't because of premature death...

There is simply NO WAY that the 55 are EVER going to live as frugally as the 8 (and I can assure you, the 8 aren't exactly environmentally conscious).

Actually the thing that worries me about having lots of children is the fact that I do think the next 50 years are going to see terrible resource wars, terrible suffering, and most likely famine and plague. And I'm not sure I want to have lots of my children going through that.

Teeny, I don't agree that one person can live as sustainably as three.

All three will need schooling, food, heat, medical care, clean water, and in a lifetime will use up far more resources than it's possible for most people to save by trying to live a cleaner lifestyle.

Cutting down on flying, doing your recycling etc is a step in the right direction but cannot possibly cancel out entire lifetimes' worth of living, eating and responsible travel.

It does balance out in a way, with increasing childlessness, and people dying young etc, but the ones who do survive are tending to do so for longer and at vastly greater cost to resources ie we're sustaining an ageing, ill old population.

By the nature of old age, many of them are living alone in houses too big for them, and are more likely to require medical care etc.

Does anyone here agree that the basic environmental problem we have is TOO MANY PEOPLE IN MOST PARTS OF THE WORLD?

Cos if you agree with that, then the issue MUST be how we reduce the population...

But Onager that is so far fetched and distant from reality its ridiculous: how many famillies of 10 fdo you actually know? In my generation I know in RL of none at all.

Anything above 4 is very unusual, then if you average it out- well a snashot of my family

3 sisters, one BIL

sisters total 7 children between them, BIL has none

an average I think you will agree of less than 2 a head, and none of us unusual in that

sorky, surely you can see the link between individuals not thinking that their own choices and lifestyles matter, and the weather getting worse?

The two are directly linked!

Sorry if I have misunderstood your post but are you really saying 'we're all fucked anyway so let's have lots of kids and sod the consequences'

It will be worse again for your kids and their kids and so on.

over one million private houses sitting "empty" builders are doing it 4 the profit not to house people (kind heartidness, not)different issue sweetie!how many make eco homes?family size noyhing to do with it ,most large familys live in homes smaller than their needs anyway ,so this is irrelivent

Yeah it's no good just thinking in terms of one country since we are all sharing the same planet. Anyway many wars will be about a country running short of something and taking it from someone else.

lebensraum

Peachy that was an example to make the point. The population is increasing. Do you believe that with recyling there is no upper limit to the numbers we can sustain?

we have 4 children and want more. For what its worth we recycle, trying to grow veggies, dont fly, hardly drive anywhere, etc etc etc

I don't think large families are the problem, I think splintered families are where Mum and Dad are seperated and thus there's 2 homes etc etc etc

Hatricktreat. The idea is that a stable or gradually falling population won't need a resource war and your great grandchildren (if it's that far off even) won't have to die because we left it too late to do something about it.