3+ children is an eco-crime??

[morocco]

am a bit depressed to find out that all my recycling/washable nappies/eco lightbulbs etc is all in vain cos i've gone and had one kid too many.story here
sigh
it's all probably true of course but I'm getting a bit sick of reading all this guilt trip eco crime stuff.
anyway, if you've stopped at 2 or less, now is the time to feel eco smug

I find that hard to believe.
If we all used exactly the same amount of resources then maybe, but I can't see how it can be measured.

Surely we need people to be having more kids to pay our pensions??

Surely a 3rd or 4th child has a smaller footprint than the first child (reusing clothes/equipment/toys)? So what would be ecologically sound would be for some families to have 3 or 4 children and others to have none at all. Then all the childless adults could live in student style accomodation and share washing machines/fridges etc. I vote for the authors of that article to lead the way.

We'll all be thanking you for having that third child Morocco when we come to pensionable age are part of an aging population problem.

bran
exactly, i'd always felt smug at my contribution to the pension pot but now see error of my ways
noone likes kids anymore do they?

im an eco-criminal

Guilty as charged.

Shoot me now.

yep, eco-crim mastermind here. twirls moustache

Think I'll turn the veg patch into an oil refinery and get that landing strip done in the front garden, sod the compost. In for a penny...

My heart sank - try and live as greenie-ish life as I can but have one dd and so loving being a mum would love another (and possibly even another) I am one of three. But would feel bad about having 3 I think. How does everyone else square this with their consciences (unfortunately mine is overdeveloped!).

Perhaps by bringing the kids we have up to be thoughtful about things rather than flying to Magaluf every weekend and buying patio heaters etc

Also I thought the birthrate in UK and Western Europe was going down?

I don't remotely feel the need to feel guilty about my kids. Our 'footprint' isn't very big at all, we have one car which only Dh really uses, we don't fly, or have a dishwasher, I buy locally and my kids all wear hand-me-downs. My eldest two are keen gardeners and very savvy about reduce, reuse and recycle, as in "No, Mum, we can't buy that, that plastic isn't recyclable".

I would have thought we should look more carefully at the totally irrational world we have built if having children becomes an eco-crime because of it.
Children seem to be balanced against the over-riding need to eat fruit out of season, have ludicrous transport and travel and leisure habits built on finite resources, no coherency over re-cycling and waste, etc etc and ad nauseam etc!

"a condom for 35p"?

well that just shows the kind of extravagant lifestyle they are living then, doesn't it?

plus its hardly the most eco method of birth control, is it? think of the birds...

I have a child that plans to be an environmental lawyer...whatever that means

Does that give me a get out of jail free card for having the other 2?

Too bleedin' right. If I hadn't had four kids, someone else could have used my carbon credits to import strawberries in December. I'm so inconsiderate.

I was also amazed at the amount of people that said "You already have one of each...why do you want another one?"

As MD said, they'll be paying for my pension (well maybe not due to SN but thats not something you plan is it?)

FWIW I reckon the more kids you are in possesion of, the less likely you are to be trekking round the world on a polluting aeroplance three times a year. More likely, as we do, to spend weekends in a tent with no electricity (gree!!) eating local food and walking coz its free.

I agree Peachy - can't afford to be anything pther than eco-friendly.

Here, here Peachy!

at comitting an eco crime for having 4 DC, ...perhaps I shouldn't have bothered ordering that Mooncup after all, recycling everything I can and trying to raise little LWs. My green credentials will just never be good enough now

Mn is hardly representativeof societyasa whole, we can all come on here and say "i have 6 childen and lentil weave"

the harsh reality is that personal responsability is something that far far too many people lack.

Of course more people = more use of resources. It is quite simple. They may very well contribute to society as they get older, but that is just a viscious circle.

I too am an eco criminal in this sense, but i refuse to say " how very dare they, don't they know i have a herb garden and recycle!"

becuse of course more people = more waste & more resources.

I thought that the point was 2 kids would replace 2 parents as adults in the end. Therefore not increasing the human population. So it don't matter how green you are, whether you walk or drive a gas guzzler, 3 kids = 1 more footprint than was there before. Makes sense. But it scuppers any pretence I had to green credentials . But I suppose it helps if you live the greenest life you can with your 3 (or more) little environmental terrorists.

I know that my 3 use less in the way of resources than most families of 2 children, and I'm pretty sure that will continue.

My bigger eco-crime is living abroad and flying home twice a year, or encouraging others to fly out.

I think it does matter how green you are. 2 whacking big seven league boots size footprints are going to have a lot more impact than 3 small footprints.

But long term you can't guarantee that your offspring are going to be green. You might bring them up to be green as grass but 20 years down the line they could decide that they don't care. And a impeccably green person is still less green than no person at all ifswim.

Well that's very slight consolation for DH making me stop at two - I'd have carried on to four if I'd had my way!!