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?

I'm guilty of that. Because I'm not using my central heating I kind of think I'm entitled to put on my little heater to warm my feet while I work. And buy a new jumper.

Because I have 'just' two children I probably overindulge them in ways I wouldn't/couldn't if I had the three or four I really craved.

Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, c'est moi.

MZ, on the education point, do you mean educating women on contraception etc so that they have a choice re how many children they have or something else?

I'm very well educated but am still in a quandary ...

I'm sitting on the fence on this issue, though it was something we considered when having children. But from the OP's perspective, I'd have the two children you both want and then have another think. I know loads of people who originally wanted 4 children but then, after two, found that that was more than enough and stopped at that point. It's quite likely that after a couple of children you might either both want more or neither of you want more.

As for the UK needing a larger population that is something that gets said by bankers and politicians sometimes, but is insane.

It's like a pyramid selling scheme and those are illegal for good reason.

It works like this. If you want a comfortable retirement you need a lot of people to be working and paying taxes while you enjoy your pension. The more the better.

If we can keep the birthrate high then we can all be wealthy in retirement.

But at some point we will have to stop because there will be no room and the huge retiree population will then only be financed by a smaller younger generation and they will be knackered. They will look back at us in disgust because we set them up for that disaster.

It only works out if you can keep increasing the population forever and you can't.

No, educating them generally so that they can, if they wish, choose to enter careers. And so they can read the instructions on the medicine their children get and understand the need for vacinating children.

we'll probably have to agree to disagree. I have to go now.

insist that my children will all grow up to further drain resources and live consumerist lifestyles is rubbish>>

If someone has four kids instead of two then the 'extra two' must consume some resources throughout their life that they wouldn't have did they not exist. Then they have kids and that is 'extra' too no matter how careful they are.

stillstanding, I think I may be like you ie highly educated but ambivalent. For me, it's whether to have kids at all. I'm currently childless but am considering ttc.

I think that generally speaking, the more educated you are the fewer kids you have - that's here and world wide. Though I suppose there's the factor of well educated people who earn lots of moola and can afford to have a big family if they want it.

Also, the more educated you are the later you leave it to have kids. I heard that 39% of university educated women in Germany will never have kids!!

It is a bit scary I suppose if all the graduates either stop having kids, or have small families. But in general I think we should educate women not just about contraception etc, but in all ways, so that they can have aspirations beyond parenthood - with parenthood as an option of course.

Many very young women who have children in this country do so becuase they can't think of anything else to do. I say many, not all.

I just posted in the nappies section about a Times report last week, that says the washing of re-usable nappies is actually more of a drain than the the landfills used for the disposables... not to debate that here, but it is an example of where people can bend over backwards trying to do the right thing when it can turn out to be the contrary.

Like when we were all told to eat margarine, it's sooo good for you, then a few years later that it's full of crap and you should avoid it and put flippin nut oils on your bread instead etc etc etc...

Working in the media I see over and over again where hysteria can be caused by messages/reports to the public which really have entirely different agendas and purposes.

In relation to the OP and subsequent talk of rationing children in families that would want more, I'd just like to say I wish all the children in the world were just plain WANTED. A better world it would be.

Maybe people who want more than 2 should adopt then. There is no downside to that and a wonderful upside for the child.

Does anyone have any idea how many children are without parents or family at all? I don't have clue, but I bet it's a lot.

That report by Proctor and Gamble you mean?

The one where everybody washed their nappies at 90% and then tumble dried them?

We're overusing the world's resources. This isn't a kneee jerk response to one report, or a faddy approach to living.

It is happening all around us, and no amount of fudging who exactly is responsible for exactly how much consumption is going to erase the fact that our enviroment is in trouble and we're all in some way responsible. This isn't hysteria, it's a fact.

I am suprised some of you are stuill buying proctor and gamble (yeh yeh i know its hard not to) but they have been environmentally corrupt for years. They tested on animals well into the 90s (most probably still do for all I know)

i cant imagine my husband saying 'oh lord above dear we cant have that third unplanned one because of the environment'

Having large families is an eco-crime

Apologies if someone else has posted this. Have just skimmed thread. Not saying it's my opinion but it's certainly to be taken into consideration.

TBH, OP it sounds like your dh just doesn't want any more dcs and is using this as an argument he knows will resonate. As far as can see most of us want to replicate the family we had. I'm one of two, so is dh and we always agreed that was right, but friends of mine from three or four are adamant that's the right number.

Ime, however, when there is a clash on this, the dws tend to win - have seen friends get their way again and again! Whether that's advisable for your marriage is another argument. Good luck.

YANBU as you are right

but despite my nappy washing, bike riding, allotment growing lifestyle I am still having another one!

Onager - GPWM!

MorrisZapp - yup, that one. The point wasn't that i thought it was true, but that people believe these things en masse. In fact a story like that could be responsible for a few thousand more deciding to landfill which is terrible, obv...

I just meant that whilst people are herded this way and that by social/environmental responsibility, a part of me was just looking at it from a different angle and wishing that people would love and look after the children they do have.

Actually, not sure about it being P&G?

Oh I'll just post it here too:

From The Sunday Times
October 19, 2008

Blow to image of ?green? reusable nappy by Marie Woolf, Whitehall Editor

A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the £50,000 nappy research project and to adopt a ?defensive? stance towards its conclusions.

The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach to laundering them.

To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does not exceed 60C.

The conclusions will upset proponents of real nappies who have claimed they can help save the planet.

Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the government is so concerned by the ?negative laundry options? outlined in the report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any publicity.

The report found that while disposable nappies used over 2½ years would have a global warming , impact of 550kg of CO2 reusable nappies produced 570kg of CO2 on average. But if parents used tumble dryers and washed the reusable nappies at 90C, the impact could spiral to . 993kg of CO2 A Defra spokesman said the government was shelving plans for future research on nappies.
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Is that to do with P&G?

Too many posts to read through but the basic arguement that large (more than 1 or 2 children) families are environmentally irresponsible is sound. There are too many people on the planet therefore we need to stop having so many babies. If people can't possibly be happy of fulfilled unless they have lots of children why on earth not adopt? There are millions of babies and children in the world who desperately need loving homes.

ARGH! If anyone is interested in reading the actual report about reusable nappies please have a look in the nappies etc topic -I've linked to it several times in several threads. I'm sure the majority of people in here have the intelligence to understand the report and not have to rely on some rather dubious reporting .

Just back for a very quick second.

If you are concerned about being socially irresponsible etc then the best stance surely would be to choose not to have children at all.

Further overburdening the planets resources with even 2 children seems to be selfish whichever way you look at it. By having more than 1 you are at least maintaining the track we're on, not reducing overall.
Clearly I care not a jot despite the way we live, oh well.

Sorry, maybe it wasn't P&G. But it still uses ludicrous criteria - ie washing at 90% and tumble drying. That was the reason the gvt didn't want the results publicised.

You're right in that all you really have to do is publish a headline 'Disposables better for environment than reusables' and millions will swallow this unquestioningly.

But my point was that in general, we're over using the planet, and all this finger pointing about exactly how we're doing it is a red herring. It's happening and we're fiddling while Rome burns.

I don't have children sorky, and the environment is an issue in the decision whether to have them.

Not just from the pov that my kids will damage the environment, but thinking about what kind of a future would I be bringing them into.

I'd be lying if I said this was my only or even my prime concern - it isn't. But it is a factor, and I think it will be increasingly for people who are deciding whether or not to start a family.

But I don't agree that simply stopping the entire population from having kids is the answer - we do need to have kids.

we will all die anyway if no-one has kids

I don't understand how adoption works here. It seems so...harsh.