Thoughts on some of the negative comments on here and in real life

[Dontcryformeallegra]

I must admit, I haven't really had many negative comments about having 4 children in real life but I often read stuff on Mumsnet!
What do you think about the following and do you have any to ad?

"I don't really believe most of the criticism comes from a genuine place of environmental concern, even if that is the reason ostensibly given.

I tend to agree with this. I think a lot of the people who say oh I had none/one/two because of the planet are just latching onto something that they were doing anyway to make themselves feel better about all the things they aren't doing."

I agree with this.

@SpaceshiptoMars

I can foresee production line factories for the care of the elderly. Robot arms from Vauxhall, transport from Amazon, lavvies from Japan and showers from Star Trek.

I've always thought a sonic shower didn't sound as pleasant as a real one. Not refreshing enough. 😁

@toomuchlaundry

So where are all the children of larger families going to live. If you have 10 or 11 children I assume you would want them all to have their own home, or are you expecting them to stay living with you forever.

I don't mind if mine stay here, I've got no big adventures planned for if they leave :) And if the population drops then there will be more houses available?

toomuchlaundry I'm not sure why 11 children? Are you focused on one outlying family/ poster? I don't think many people advocate for others to have 11 children. However of course it's a growing problem - the aging population expecting healthcare, eventually home or nursing home care if needed, and enough of a pension not to starve or freeze as a minimum for everyone - balanced against the environment and global overpopulation is a catch 22 as I said already.

Its actually the aging population that's the problem, not people having children, but that's of course something we aren't supposed to say because obviously people have a right to a dignified old age should nature, society and modern healthcare be able to facilitate it...

Its not as easy as big families being bad - in fact that's something of a red herring...

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme

toomuchlaundry I'm not sure why 11 children? Are you focused on one outlying family/ poster? I don't think many people advocate for others to have 11 children. However of course it's a growing problem - the aging population expecting healthcare, eventually home or nursing home care if needed, and enough of a pension not to starve or freeze as a minimum for everyone - balanced against the environment and global overpopulation is a catch 22 as I said already.

Its actually the aging population that's the problem, not people having children, but that's of course something we aren't supposed to say because obviously people have a right to a dignified old age should nature, society and modern healthcare be able to facilitate it...

Its not as easy as big families being bad - in fact that's something of a red herring...

This aswell, I read more frequently thats its the children destroying the earth, the babies and the children single handedly destroying the planet and think the anger directed at them is a bit harsh.

@LaurieFairyCake

Ridiculous?

Fine, say the west has replacement children to the level required in our tiny island - you will just condemn them to a war over resources

They would literally have to defend this place because people don't like immigrants and think only their kids matter

People defending their resources is civil war? Again, forgive me just trying to get a picture of the future of the UK currently.

@LaurieFairyCake

Prophecy ??

No, just start by extenuating out from here - this winter is GUARANTEED to be worse than last because of the rise in costs of fuel for hundreds of thousands of people.

Thousands more people are going to die of cold this year - something which Age concern say is a FACT

This (terrible) government are literally saying right now that we're going to have to get used to lower temperatures in our homes - and as anyone knows we have appalling housing stock in some of the poorest areas

But of course you don't think your kids are going to be poor 🤷‍♀️

So do the same with food, petrol etc - 30% increase in fuel. 18% for food. I could fill up my car on £50 last year, it took £70 the last time I had to fill.

Just extrapolate out with what you already see happening....

And then look further afield where climate death is going to happen in places which have extreme temperatures already - large parts of the world are going to become inhabitable in 20/30 years

But of course you don't live there so you think it won't affect you. Obviously it will as they travel to places less affected and put pressure on life there.

None of this means that the following will come true..... Having children now knowing that they're lives are guaranteed to be WORSE than yours

A bad winter? Ok, still doesn’t mean your children’s lives are guaranteed to be worse than your life. I’ve seen many bad winters in my life.

Inflation? Ok, it’s just now creeping above historic lows (still well below the highs I have seen in my life), but again inflation doesn’t mean your children’s lives are guaranteed to be worse than your life.

Large parts of the world may become inhabitable in 20/30 years? Ok, again not new, has happened before and studies show that humans don’t wait around to die, they migrate. In addition, while places become uninhabitable, other places that were formerly uninhabitable become habitable. So again, still not a guarantee that your children’s lives will be worse than your own.

Well I think a lot of those saying we had large families to care for the elderly (?!) are just saying that to justify their own choices - that accusation cuts both ways.

I’m uneasy about how pervasive the environmental 2 child narrative has become.

Different groups and generations have been told to have/ not to have children. The nazi maternity medals come to mind; the Chinese one child policy; the Mormons invocation to go forth and multiply.

I’m not saying it’s wrong per se, but questioning the other three wasn’t encouraged either.

@thelegohooverer

I’m uneasy about how pervasive the environmental 2 child narrative has become.

Different groups and generations have been told to have/ not to have children. The nazi maternity medals come to mind; the Chinese one child policy; the Mormons invocation to go forth and multiply.

I’m not saying it’s wrong per se, but questioning the other three wasn’t encouraged either.

I call Godwin Award!

“We are on a catastrophic path we can either save our world or condemn humanity to a hellish future” - Secretary General of the UN. Having lots of children in the face of this is baffling to me. Still let’s hope you guys are right and it’s all fine and we can all have 11 kids!

Why have so many though?

@MsTSwift

“We are on a catastrophic path we can either save our world or condemn humanity to a hellish future” - Secretary General of the UN. Having lots of children in the face of this is baffling to me. Still let’s hope you guys are right and it’s all fine and we can all have 11 kids!

Anyone who has a large family at this point in time can hardly read something that was said a month ago and reverse their decision to have a large family can they? And we won't all have 11 kids, in fact only one person on this thread has chosen to have 11 kids, everyone suddenly deciding to have very large families just isn't going to happen.

The average amount of kids per family in the UK is 1.7, it is far from the norm to have 11. I'm not going to weep over the odd family having 4 or 5 kids which let's face it is what most 'large' families have these days, not 11 and I'm not going to claim some kind of superiority because I decided that financially and emotionally I could only deal with 2.

stairgates

Well defending your resources that you gained at the expense of theirs is just evil right?

Our children are much more environmentally problematic than a child almost anywhere in the world (apart from the US)

@clarrylove

Where I live, there is a housing shortage with more and more of the greenfields being built on despite everyone protesting, the roads are jammed up, schools are oversubscribed and you struggle to get a timely GP or dentist appointment. Having large families just compounds these issues exponentially.

That’s exactly what I think of when I see people with large families and multiple grandchildren: the housing crisis and our greenfields being torn apart to build yet more houses and flats to house all these people

@LaurieFairyCake

stairgates

Well defending your resources that you gained at the expense of theirs is just evil right?

Our children are much more environmentally problematic than a child almost anywhere in the world (apart from the US)

I'm reading something wrong somewhere I think? I thought the resources were being defended from attacks from the UK, so your neighbour stealing your fuel or food because of the future shortages? I'm just trying to get a picture of the possible UK future in the next 10 years. I will go back and read again.

@MsTSwift

“We are on a catastrophic path we can either save our world or condemn humanity to a hellish future” - Secretary General of the UN. Having lots of children in the face of this is baffling to me. Still let’s hope you guys are right and it’s all fine and we can all have 11 kids!

Er the Secretary General of the UN was saying that about climate change caused by pollution not about people having children. The UN is actually feeling optimistic about world population. population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Highlights.pdf

OP, if my XH had been willing, I'd have had at least four children. I think larger families are fab.

The only thing for me is that we'd have had to have made different decisions about schools, where to live etc (our DC went right the way through the independent system, but we couldn't have done that for 4+ children. On balance, I think I'd rather have had six children!)

@LaurieFairyCake
Our children are much more environmentally problematic than a child almost anywhere in the world (apart from the US)

I see this a lot. It’s like people have no idea that countries have been independently tracked and assessed for their progress fighting climate change since 2005. Or that the only countries doing better than the UK are Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
ccpi.org/wp-content/uploads/CCPI-2022-Results_2021-11-07_A4-1.pdf

@stairgates

Some interesting points. What is the cut off date for acceptance of large families? I have a large family and always wonder how many were born after this rough date.

Has anyone got any more rough ideas on this? I have learned most about the effect of population growth on climate change since I have joined this site which I think was about 18 months ago. I don't use SM or regularly watch the news so haven't seen any of the previous reports about family size possibly being encouraged to stay small. As a pp said back in school days the focus was the ozone layer and acid rain then deforestation being a major problem, slash and burn. The major focus now does seem to be larger families, possibly as a pp mentioned, main focus from around 2017?

It’s not only size of family, but the age you have them surely? To oversimplify, if one couple and all their descendants have twins at 20, whereas the other couple and all their descendants have triplets at 40, by the age of 100, one set will have 32 descendants and the late starters will have 9.
So I feel like I’m doing my part by being a geriatric parent! 😀

@Puppalicious

It’s not only size of family, but the age you have them surely? To oversimplify, if one couple and all their descendants have twins at 20, whereas the other couple and all their descendants have triplets at 40, by the age of 100, one set will have 32 descendants and the late starters will have 9. So I feel like I’m doing my part by being a geriatric parent! 😀

But that’s assuming your kids have kids at the age you did

Plus geriatric parents tend to be more likely to do the foreign travel stuff etc so it’s not like they’re sat at home by candlelight saving the environment while the youngsters pop out kids.

It’s not assuming - it’s just making a very simple (and unrealistic) example to show the point. The difference will rarely be as large in real life - but it illustrates the point that a couple having children in their twenties are more likely to create more descendants than a couple having children in their late thirties/forties.

@stairgates
In my school days there was also a lot of horror and criticism of China’s one child policy. Lots of heartbreaking stories about infanticide of female babies so the couple could try again for a boy, that all important heir and passer on of the family name. How it is a human right to have babies.

Abortion had also more stigma and silence compared to today. Many Catholics didn’t even approve of contraception then too.

TV shows usually showed families with 2 or more children as happy and role models. Lots of stigma on TV shows towards only children being spoiled brats.

@Puppalicious

It’s not assuming - it’s just making a very simple (and unrealistic) example to show the point. The difference will rarely be as large in real life - but it illustrates the point that a couple having children in their twenties are more likely to create more descendants than a couple having children in their late thirties/forties.

They’re not though

All it means is the parents won’t live as long to see those descendants. Not that the descendants won’t exist.