tommorow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow
Me and jon have been thinking about adding to the family lately. first stop will most likely be a little lamb to add to the farmyard (formerly known as a garden), as long as its safe and humane to keep one in the space we have!
But after that we may move on to humans. we've been chatting with friends about the ethics of childbearing, and the dilemmas of it all. having a baby is a big ecological and ethical consideration for us. by having a baby (as in making one of our own via a special cuddle) we are doubling our carbon footprint, and bringing a person into a world that is not always a nice place.
But on the other hand, we could birth a little eco-warrior who leads the way for millions to follow with her wit and wisdom (mothers side) and prophetic legend tendencies (fathers side), oh, and she'd be stunning too.
we've been thinking more and more about adopting. we have friends that foster, and it is heartbreaking to hear stories about these little babies that are so badly treated. and it makes me want to adopt. there are loads of children on the earth already that need parents, is it better to adopt?
but then on the other hand, I physically long to be pregnant and have the whole mess of birth and all that jazz. I dont think having a baby is a bad thing at all, its just what is best for us?
At the moment, we're sold on having a natural child and then adopting, but then are we taking a risk on our first child by bringing in a potentially messed up second child into the family? or would an adopted child benefit from having extra one on one time before our second is born? or maybe its better to bring an adopted child into an already stable environment. see the dilemmas?!
obviously this is an immensley personal decision, and it may just be taken out of our hands (we're not that careful with contraception!) and theres no guarantee I'm not infertile, you never know till you try. But I'm interested to know what other people think. and, obviously, we cant make any big decisions without submitting them to the blogging community!
posted by jodes da princess @ 3:13 PM
14 Comments:
so are you for nature over nurture or a bit of both?
are you going to change actors after your first few children and be played by someone else?
I like the idea of having natural children and then adopting later on in life.
A question, if having a child really will double your carbon emissions then wouldn't it be better to not have any, dedicating all your time and efforts to furthering the cause?
yes without any doubt. not to mention the fact the earth's population is already high....causing more environmental problems.
who here would not have kids though? granted we thought about it, but to produce life, replicate oneself is a huge part of being human.
But how do you resolve that tension? and what would be the difference between that and just deciding that purchasing cheaper unethical products is worth it for the cost reduction?
It is a very difficult question. Lucky that we did it before we started thinking.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jon i think the questions are very similar. although i think if i reduced my impact so much and taught my children to do the same it would lessen the impact.
is it unethical to have a baby? its tough. and i think it would make us think twice about having lots of children.
another way to look at this question is it universal? or some jumped up white middle class decision. what would happen if we all stopped having children? would this work?
maybe the soloution is to lower our foot print and produce people who will do this too. yes we are using three times our planet (or so). but thats more to do with how much we consume, rather than over population. lets start there. and if thinking about kids in this way helps us reduce our impact, then its a healthy question. also very healthy, if this leads onto us, stopping at a certain number and tacking on the challenge of fostering or adoption instead.
i think having kids is a good thing. consumption is bad, and i hope having children doesn't become a part of that, and we have them for the right reasons (well thought out, and we take in consideration the other options, and consequences, and we deal with them responsibly)
Taking the "person=footprint" argument further, would it be better just to shoot the human race?
Isn't all this about reducing our impact on the earth, not taking ourselves (and future descendants) out of the equation?
it funny you say anna. cos at work we talking about how killing cows would solve sooo many problems...land back for the rain forests, they'll stop farting, the beef industry is so energy intensive, etc.
but then we realised cows are important for hindus. we would need the rain forest land to grow pulses to replace the lack of beef.
so in the end we decided killing people would be the answer. but who? well religions with diet requirements would have to go. I think we kept christians (cos all they eat is choc) and then non-believers.
bang! an environmental utopia.
Maybe there should be some kind of test to see who gets through to ecological utopia. A questionnaire? Like, how many times a day do you fart? Where do you stand on rainforests? Where do you buy your carrots? And then you could make people walk 5 miles, like a live-or-die bleep test. Survival of the fittest.
sounds like a great website feature?!
sounds like a great website feature?!
wow! go away for a day and bang, everyone replies.
In response to Jon, yes in cold practicality adopting and not having natural ones is probably ethically better.
but add emotions to that and...I WANNA BABY!!!
plus, assuming we dont go annas route and shoot everyone, there is a sociological benefit to having children.
although we are using up shit loads of carbon, we are actually an ageing population. in the olden days people would have more children because some wouldnt make it through childhood, and even the lucky ones died at about 50.
nowadays, we are all more and more invincible, but we will soon (in the next 20 years or so) reach the age where more people are of a pensionable age than those working can sustain. add to that the amount of elderly that need full time care, and we are crippled, economically and socially.
so by having littluns we actually provide a workforce for the future (albeit our offspring will be a non-capitalist live-off-the-land workforce - minus baby phyo).
Like jon said, if we can bring up kids that are evangelical about living ethically be they biologically ours or not then I think that will benefit society.
here endeth the lesson
I think it is important to consider ultimate end points in all of this. Were are we headed and what are we aiming for. As Anna said, if we really wanted to just save the planet then we'd shoot all the humans and the cows. But that would not result in my idea of 'heaven on earth'. I think it is a similar thing in relation to having children. If everybody avoided having children then we'd end up without a human race, again not my idea of utopia.
I find Cat's position refreshingly unique but wonder if part of what it is to be human is to reproduce and rear a child. Fair enough, there are reasons why you would choose not to, but I'm not convinced that it's just an expression of egocentricity.
Hi,
I see this is a bit of an old blog, but I came across it while researching an article I'm doing on having children and population (I'm a journalist, work for the Sunday Herald in Scotland). I'm looking to interview someone who has chosen to adopt rather than have a child for the sake of the environment, even if they've had their own genetic children first. Wondered if you knew of anyone. I can be contacted at vicky.allan@sundayherald.com.
best
vicky
Post a Comment
<< Home