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.

How many kids? Part 1

I've been watching with interest (and dipping my toes in) the debate over Sarah Palin's childbearing and childrearing choices and to what degree they reflect on her as a person, a mother, and a candidate. I don't want to rehash those arguments here, but the subject did get me thinking about choosing to have large families in today's world.

Is it OK to look down on a person's judgment for bringing five kids into this world? Is it relevant if they have trouble affording five kids? Is this changed if both parents have demanding jobs that take them outside the home frequently?

Does it matter if all five of the kids were planned? Does it matter if all five of the kids were unplanned? Furthermore, what do we think about the women or men who have five children, but from multiple partners?

Are any of these scenarios fairly subject to ridicule?

First, let's look at the problem with being too judgmental of people's childbearing choices. The affordability question is a big slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? If people waited until they could "afford" kids, we'd have a huge population of first-time parents waiting until they reach 40. (Oh, wait a minute...) While there is nothing ethically wrong with waiting until 40 to have kids, on the societal scale it means high numbers of infertility issues, maternal health issues, and greater risks (like Downs) for the resulting children. So, perhaps the affordability issue can be overemphasized.

We all have different standards on what is affordable. Are we really going to tell working class people struggling to make ends meet that they are ineligible to have families? The other side of the coin is that wealthy families get "permission" to have large families that are morally barred to less well off families. Hey, this isn't China. Rich people get more cars and homes and flashy entertainment systems than the rest of us, but should they get to have more children?

Connected to the wealth issue, is it better to have multiple kids if a parent can be at home as opposed to daycare? Again, a messy standard. The decision whether to go the childcare route versus at-home parenting relies on many factors. We know that for families and children both options have their positive and negative aspects. Why should that matter in the decision to have kids? Or are we telling career women that they are not allowed to have kids or at least not very many of them?

The planned versus unplanned distinction is a whole can of worms. I think we can all agree that due to inadequate sexuality education and irresponsible personal choices, a great many men and women unintentionally find themselves on the cusp of parenthood. But to paint all unintended pregnancies as evidence of moral failure is unhelpful and unfair. Approximately 50% of pregnancies in the United States are not planned. That would be a big number of "irresponsible" couples. Of women seeking abortions, over half had been using a method of birth control the month they got pregnant. Sometimes people are inconsistent with birth control and sometimes birth control methods fail.

I'm proudly pro-choice. But I would never judge someone harshly for making the personal choice to continue an unexpected pregnancy to term. Afterall, it's all about choice. If you negatively judge a woman who has had more than one child unplanned, you are putting a woman who has had multiple abortions on higher moral ground. I would assert they are of equal moral standing.

And as for the multiple partner angle, both fathers and mothers are judged for this, but women are judged much more harshly for having multiple partners than men. And women are usually the ones actually taking the responsibility for the resulting children! I'm not going to say that perhaps a person who has had five kids by three partners may be making some ill-advised and selfish decisions. But I would also urge people to pause before judging and assuming too much. None of us know where life may unexpectedly take us. Some of us are simply more lucky in love.

Too many kids?

NEXT UP:
Now that I've argued that it is unfair to judge someone for having large numbers of children in these kinds of circumstances, I'm going to get a little judgmental myself. I'm going to say that no one in North America today has the moral standing to birth large numbers of children regardless of circumstance. I'm not advocating a China one child policy, but in the world in which I'm in charge, no one bears five kids. Stay tuned.

"Balancing" at St. Thomas

What is up with the University of St. Thomas? The St. Paul Catholic institution just can't seem to stop making bad news for itself as it makes interesting interpretations on how to retain a Catholic identity but respect freedom of thought. Their conclusion seems to be that you can't be Catholic and respect freedom of thought.

It's only been three weeks since the last incident, but this week the dean of the St. Thomas law school declared that a student could not get credit for the school's community service requirement when they were volunteering to help out with STD/STI and cancer screening, because it was at the evil Planned Parenthood.

The service approval process is governed by a student committee that had indeed approved the student's project at Planned Parenthood. Dean Thomas Mengler simply over-rode it. This is another trend at St. Thomas, give students authority to make decisions surrounding their academic experience, but over-rule them whenever they make decisions you don't like. It's very patronizing.

It's like the time when I was eight years old and my mom asked if I wanted to take a bath. I said no. And then she told me that I needed to take a bath anyways. It's just like that.

What's the point of being permissive in the first place if you're just going to butt in at your fancy?

The best part of the Star Tribune article on the matter is the very end:

Mengler, who issued his letter after receiving complaints from faculty, students and alumni, said Thursday he plans to meet with Borton soon, but he's not changing his mind.

"My decision is final," he said

This is great because, first, it implies that he made the initial decision without any dialog with the student (which would be a jerky thing to do); second, he is taking the George W. Bush approach to conflict resolution,* that is: You can feel free to talk to me, but it's not like I'm going to listen or it's going to matter at all.

The article notes this is part of the "latest philosophical wrestling match" on "the school's attempts to balance religious and academic values." (Emphasis mine.) We can't really say that the school is trying to "balance" Catholic values and scholarship. It's pretty clear that the school is an arm of the Catholic moral police first and foremost and not a place that values democracy or freedom of thought or speech.

* The George W. Bush method is a variation of the Dick Cheney method. Cheney, when facing conflict, will simply tell you to "fuck yourself." Bush's method is to tell critics to fuck off, without actually using the words "fuck off."

Neglect of kids

Via the Pioneer Press, a mother who left her 2 year-old and 4 year-old alone for a lengthy period of time has pled guilty to gross misdemeanor child neglect. Her four year-old son had been found outside with out shoes or a shirt at 2 AM in 34 degree weather. One's heart aches whenever these stories surface.

Almost a year ago, I saw another incidence of apparent child neglect. As I looked out the window of my office over the busy Rice Street in St. Paul, I see a man charging to the middle of the street and grabbing a small boy. He thrust him quickly, and out of the path of an on-coming car. Several cars stopped briefly as the man brought the boy to safety.

I go downstairs to see what happened. The boy, about 4 years old, is now standing across the street with a different man, who had pulled over in his car. The boy had on an open jacket in below freezing weather. After watching a few minutes, I go outside, with a bottle of water for the boy. (I had no snacks at hand.) The man is an off-duty firefighter. There are no signs of parents or other adults responsible for this child. He has the boy sitting in the backseat of his parked car and tells me that he called the police, but that the police told them it'd be a while. (Apparently there was some other big emergency in the neighborhood occupying all available cops.) The boy is sitting there silently, but a bit happy to be wearing a real firefighter helmet grabbed out of the trunk.

I keep an eye from the building for a while. Maybe after a half hour or so, the police do arrive. I don't see what happens next.

About two weeks later, in front of the building, I think I see the same boy in the same jacket across the street. (I didn't get a good look.) He's walking with a man in his early 20s down the sidewalk. I am tempted to catch up to them to see and say something, but what would I say?

I have no idea what happened in this case. How did this boy be wandering across a busy street during rush hour alone? Was it from some serious negligence, or not? Were charges ever filed? Do his parents even know how close he came to being hit by a car at 30 miles per hour?

When I hear a story about a woman leaving her child along, walking half-naked at 2 AM, one of my first thoughts is that we're dealing with a parent who probably shouldn't be a parent. More widely available and promoted birth control probably won't stop the neglect or abuse of children, but it damn well wouldn't hurt.

Remote controlled vasectomies

Via Salon.com's Broadsheet today.

[Insert your male joke here.]