Would you consider starting a family now if you were the right age, in a good relationship, financially secure, and otherwise able to provide a good home? I hear about the birth of children or grandchildren to friends, family and old colleagues and ask myself this question. My son was born in the early 90s. I worry about his future with the climate. It’s a depressing subject at the best of times but with the US making this choice I have lost whatever optimism I had for meaningful emission reductions from the most significant polluters. Was the US our last hope?
I gave up worrying about such things years ago. The human race needs to go on and more depressingly, more and more western women are deciding not to have children. My parents had three granddaughters (mine being one of them) and none of them want children, amongst the six grandsons, only two (my son being one) have opted to have children and they are now all in their 30’s/40’s with good jobs and no financial problems. There is nothing much we can do about the climate as ordinary people going about our daily business apart from the usual recycling, using less pollutants etc but its the big industries that have to change. I shant lose sleep over worrying now besides we have an asteroid supposedly coming past the earth in 2028 to cause mayhem, thats more of a concern.
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Yes I would.
I don’t think it’s only because my hope is not in politics, or what people do, or that everything in the garden is lovely–because it never has been in my lifetime, nor in my ancestors’.
The US was never my hope. I read an article recently which observed that not only is the US no longer the leader of the Free World, it is no longer even a member of the Free World.
While I am alive, I can make a difference, and I’m sure that’s the same for you.
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Exactly, what’s the point of worrying about things you can do nothing about.
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The question is about starting a family though and that is something one can choose most of the time. I have mixed feelings with my son and his GF not intending to have children. I’ll never have grandchildren but at least he, she won’t face a bleak future. What I fail to understand is how someone like Musk with a large family supports a climate change denier.
That is HOW the human race will go on. By women (like me) NOT having children. If humanity is to go on living in anything like a rich and diverse world there needs to be fewer of us. The reason we have climate change / poisoning of our world / significant decline in many. many species is because there are too many of us. The change in just my lifetime has been terrifying. I was born into a world where there were about 2.5 billion of us. 75+ years later the world population is 8.1 billion.
No, there is no need for “western women to have children” - unless of course one is racist.
I am profoundly grateful I am one of the people on this planet who has not contributed to population growth. Never thought about it in those terms. Just never wanted kids and if I was starting over again, certainly wouldn’t want them.
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We spoke about this last night in the spa. Even since our youngest was born 10 years ago the world has changed so much, and our eldest was born in 2001 so even more. We decided if we were starting our family now we’d still have kids but only one or possibly 2. My friend has 4, mid 20s to mid 40s and none of them want kids.
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Loads of people have worried on this down decades and probably well more than a çentury now. Especially since there was a choice. The reason just changes depending on what’s going on at the time.
Who knows maybe nature mskes competitive reproduction a thing. Who do you wsnt to have more influence on the future, you or that guy down the road?
