by Lisa Hymas
A number of commenters on my “I’m
childfree and I’m proud” post, both here and on Facebook, argued that I’m just
the sort of smart, eco-groovy person who should be having kids, to ensure that
there’s a new generation of thoughtful and active citizens to carry on the good
fight. Thanks for the compliment! But I have to respectfully disagree.
For starters, I’ll turn again to wise words from
Stephanie Mills, who heard similar arguments after she announced her
intention to remain childfree in 1969:
There were well-intentioned folks
who told me that I was just the kind of person who should be having children. I
would respond that given the presence of the then three billion people on
Earth, there were already plenty of promising babies in the world, a multitude
of whom could be well served by some economic and racial justice so that the
privileges I had enjoyed wouldn’t be such an extraordinary qualification for
motherhood.
Also, remember, as a number of commenters note: You don’t get to pick how your kids turn
out. Good parents try their best to
instill in their kids strong social and environmental values, but ultimately
kids determine their own destinies, parents be damned.
For evidence of this, I need look no further than my own
immediate family. My mother and father, despite their best efforts and
commendable parenting skills, completely failed in their endeavor to raise
their four children into Christian conservatives. Instead, they ended up with four apatheistic liberals.
**
To respond to some of the other issues brought up in comments:
One reader admonished me for not talking about “the waste in
diapers, in awful disposable toys, in the massive industry of junk peddling
aimed at parents and kids.” But everyone
reading this already knows about all the cheap and disposable junk that’s part
of living as an American (and if you somehow haven’t been clued in yet, just
watch Annie Leonard’s “The
Story of Stuff”). I didn’t want to
take cheap digs at parents, so I decided to focus on the positive aspects of
being childfree instead of the negative aspects of trying to raise a child in an über-consumeristic society.
Another reason for my positive approach was to counter the
traditionally negative vibe that so many environmentalists give off when laying
out all those should not‘s. In the (now rare) instances when enviros talk
about bypassing child-rearing for ecological reasons—as Stephanie Mills did—it’s often couched in the language of sacrifice. I wanted to make the point that it isn’t
always a sacrifice; it can, for some people, be a rewarding personal choice, as
so many commenters have attested.
Yes, of course, adoption and foster parenting are wonderful
options for people who want to experience parenthood without bringing a new
being into the world. Those issues were
simply beyond the scope of my original article.
Lots of other topics were also beyond its scope: The huge issue of overconsumption. The
unwillingness of most environmental groups to touch the population issue. The touchy intersection between immigration
and population. The bogus
“selfishness” charge leveled against the childfree. The need for a global campaign to make
family-planning services available to women around the world, as well as
education, equality, and political empowerment, so all women can have the same choices
that we’ve been debating here.
If I had addressed everything I wanted to in
that first post, I would have produced a novel-sized opus that no one would
have read to the end. But I plan to
address many of these topics in future posts, so stick around.
I’m thrilled by the great comments submitted so far;
(almost) everyone has been uncommonly gracious, introspective, and candid, with
interesting insights on personal fulfillment and the movement to build a more
just and green future. I look forward to
continuing the conversation.
Related Links:
Say it loud: I’m childfree and I’m proud
Population growth should be curbed, argues Jane Goodall
New York City gets big reaction to new sex symbol