How many kids? Part 2

I recently posted an argument asking people to not be too judgmental when it comes to people's choice whether or not to have a large number of kids. The issue of whether pregnancies are planned or not, or whether children can be afforded are red herrings that distract from the main issue.

The question is what is a reasonable size for a family today?

I'm not going to assert what the ideal population of the world is. I'm not going to tell you whether we are past, at, or near the ideal population in the world. What I can assert, which I think is difficult to argue, is that continuous population growth is unsustainable.

Year
Graph courtesy of Wikipedia

We have limited resources and limited space. We can't continue the global status quo.

But, you may say, the birthrate is low in our country. The growth of population in the United States can be attributed to immigration. The real problem is in places like sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty and the birth rate abound. That's where you need to be concerned with family size.

And I would agree in large part. From a policy perspective, rampant population growth is a problem in developing countries and that is why the work of the UNFPA is vital in these areas. We know that rampant population growth can be curtailed with access to family planning services and information, with economic development, and with the educational/social/economic advancement of women.

While this is all true, it's not a reason to ignore global population growth in a wealthy country such as ours. From an environmental perspective, each body in this country consumes many times more energy and resources than just about any other place in the world--and that's regardless of that person's personal choices. Just by being here (in North America) you are contributing to the problem in a disproportionate way.

Each person born is going to take some share of the Earth's resources. In a world of finite resources, every person born is going to take a share that could be taken by someone else. Each additional person makes the pie slices a little thinner.

What do we do? We have less kids. And that means everybody. We're all in this together. It's unfair for one family to get what is morally unavailable to another. We're all on the same Earth and need to work in concert with each other.

The gifted science fiction writer, Ursula Le Guin, described a multi-generational colonizing space ship in the novella Paradises Lost. (It is a story that bears some resemblance to the future humans in the Wall-E movie.) Of course this confined spaceship of 4000 people has to have a carefully maintained population. Each person is restricted to having one child, with the possibility be allowed a second child if there is an open slot.

"Everyone who wants to can gave a child. One child, two at most. A woman has her motherchild. A man has his fatherchild."

And also,

"Everybody can have a child. Some can't or won't or don't have children and some children die young, and so most of those who want two children can have two children."

The ship can be seen to represent the finite Earth. Now, I would not advocate that, like this science fiction society, we need "anthrogeneticists" with the authority to give us permission when and with whom to have children and how many. But wouldn't it be better to create a culture where the small family is a near universal norm--to an even greater degree than may currently be the case?

I'm told there are joys of having big families with multiple siblings. I bet that's true. But I bet there were also joys of shooting massive numbers of American bison in the Great Plains in the 1870s. We just can't afford to let people do that anymore.

If you are a parent of say five children reading this, you might be feeling a bit defensive. "I'm not selfish. I'm not causing the problem. There are bigger problems than whether I have a few more children than the median American." Again, I agree. I'm not trying to thumb my nose at you. I certainly have no moral high ground. While I only have two children, there are lots of ways I am consuming my grossly disproportionate share of the Earth's resources.

It would be unfair to judge people today for having too many children when there is no societal consensus on the subject. As Americans, we really haven't addressed the issue of overpopulation as it pertains to our own birthrate and the personal choices involved. I'm just saying that we do need to have that conversation and perhaps going forward we need to say goodbye to families with more than three kids (excluding adoptions of course).

So I'm not telling you that you're out of line if you have five kids. Yet. But I'm hearby putting you on notice. Going forward, once you get to the 2 or 3 kids mark, it's time to have the tubes tied or cut.