Commenter Daisy saw all the discussion and controversy over the pregnancy photos and wanted to have a word. Here she is:
On a completely different note, I‘d like to hijack this thread for a moment to make a rant of my own. Pregnancy, not family or motherhood which can be experienced without increasing the population, pregnancy itself is being blatantly marketed to American women, flying directly in the face of everyone‘s professed green mantra, and no one is talking about it.
With no offense to Ash meant, good riddance to “a rather artful photograph [of] her pregnant belly”. The statement “They were the artful maternity photos you see a lot today” makes my skin crawl.
Knowing what we know about brand marketing via celebrity, think about the current crop of breeder flicks, “bump-watch” hysteria, checkout rags, and blatantly fake pregnancies like that of Nicole Ritchie. Now think about the economic impact of population increase as opposed to population decrease, not just on consumption but the future impact more or less workers have on the labor/capital struggle. No wonder the financiers of print, screens large and small want America to have baby rabies.
I am 31, on a generational cusp. I know very few educated Gen X women (or men) with kids, and granted I don’t pal around with consumer replicators, but it seems as though almost all the Gen Y women I know have at least one. Gen X was the second generation to have access to the pill and legal abortions. To my eyes this shift bears the nefarious mark of so many of our ’conspiracy theories’ that are in fact actual, implemented conspiracies.
No amount of sustainable lifestyling can make up for actually increasing our numbers, even at the personal level. Now is when I always hear the howling chorus “So what are we supposed to do, just not have kids?” In my humble opinion, yes, we are supposed to, as an advanced and educated society with many family planning options, not replicate ourselves for the good of other species and our own until the Earth’s population decreases to a reasonable size of 1 billion or less. And yes, that is a project that will require the entire human race working in concert for several hundred years and it will be very bad for profit growth.
If you have the burning desire to nurture, adoption is great. Even better is viewing all human life, regardless of age, as something to be nurtured and cared for by all. Now that’s ‘green‘ parenting.
Sorry for the thread hijack.
6 Comments
Thank you Ash for giving this much maligned topic a local forum.
Before the 9/11 Scooby mystery, before WMD’s, before steroidal privatization, before Roberts and Alito, Puppet Bush’s first act was to reinstate Global Gag. Not long after, he defunded UNFPA. One has to wonder with his administration’s record, why these tasks were deemed to be so important as to precede all other nefarious activities. Could it be that overpopulation makes developing countries easier to control by keeping internal conflict over resources flared? Could it be Americans would be harder to control were they childless and had more time to pay attention to things besides diapers and mortgages, and the clincher, less to lose? Remember the new voting demographic, “Safety Moms”?
Skimming through recent topics on this premiere blog of WNC let’s see which are directly caused by human overpopulation: well, certainly the drought; Cliffs invade Fairview, check; I-26 corridor, yep. In twenty years every cute baby equals another adult using water, driving, buying a house and producing more cute babies.
I often ponder ways to make people truly understand the impact of creating more humans. I read or heard this once about North Korean culture, no idea where or if this is true but the concept serves my point. Whenever a baby is born the eldest member of the household leaves to die of starvation willingly, essentially giving their portion of resource to the newcomer. If the resources of the entire planet were to be divided equally and any children you have, and their children and their children and so on had to continue dividing that same resource pool, would people be so quick to breed?
Most Americans feel they are entitled to live an unnaturally long time. Let’s say a couple having 2 children today at 25 lives to 100 and their 2 children have 2 children each @ 25 and the next generation follows suit. Even assuming that half the resource burden would come from the other parent of those offspring, that is still the equivalent of 14-18 humans living off the resource allotment of the original two. How does this math bode for future droughts, even if we give up lawns, pools, car washes, etc..
Also, most of the irrigation done in the world uses ancient aquifers that will not be replenished; they are a finite resource just like oil. Desalinization is looking like it will be the answer, but that is going to leave us with vast inland lakes of toxic saline by-product. The accepted pre-oil, pre-Norm Borlaug carrying capacity of humans on Earth is </= one billion. That is living off current energy and current rainfall. The “sustainability” discussion IS about abstinence until we are back to those numbers.
The sarcasm directed at the point I am making is misplaced. The shoes to put on are those of children and grandchildren 40 and 80 years from now when the projected world population is about 11 billion, give or take a billion. Do we want the 3 billion people living on less than a dollar a day now to be allowed to starve after they have served their purpose to provide a lucrative dump for excess grain produced by Big Agriculture? If the answer is no, which I hope it is, the only solution is for Americans who know better to stop having children, put UNFPA on steroids, and to stabilize the population of the entire planet. Not engaging in actual gestation does not mean Americans won’t have babies; we can give a home to the worlds’ babies.
The basis of many of our problems around the world is simply too many humans. From one billion in the 1800’s to what will be SEVEN BILLION by the end of this decade. We added another billion in a flat decade; our population in the 1960‘s? Three billion. This is mind-boggling. There is no way to do the things we SAY we want to do: stop deforestation, species extinction, poverty, injustice, resource depletion, unless we stop producing more consumers.
On a personal note, I am not a seasonal vegan. I have two dogs. I consume the flesh, drink the carbon-footed imported beer, and drive a wicked SUV. I’m willing to make small sacrifices such as forgoing airplane travel and paying more for local meat, beer and produce, but I would never be willing to make the kind of sacrifices required to offset another me, and I don‘t see most parents doing so either.
Somebody said about the anti-abortion, pro-death penalty stance of the religious right, “Birth is a death sentence.”
“Only the good die young” (and leave the planet a little less populated than they found it.)
" … blatantly fake pregnancies like that of Nicole Ritchie …"
Huh?
Oh honey, I’m sorry you’re so confused. But I’m glad you’ve chosen not to procreate.
Daisy’s intellect is astonishingly sophistic. The foundation of sustainability is responsibility not abstinence. How else would an "advanced and educated society" sustain itself except that it educate the next generation (and that means there needs to be a next generation (i.e. children) to educate)?
Sloaneroo’s sarcastic comment is an excellent response.
Thank you Daisy (and your non-consumerist pals) for not have children. That means I can either have more children or adopt them or both.
If I live off the grid can I please please PLEASE just have one kid.
Just one really cute kid.
Thanks in advance.
I am so grateful for her perspective on this issue. I obviously had kids just so that I could buy more stuff.
I am just a pawn in this market driven world and now, as a "buy-product" I have these two product-hungry devil children who just want to increase the carbon footprint that our family makes. Tell you what, I am going to pack up all of their things in our recycled earthfare bags and put them at the end of our block tomorrow morning.
I don’t know what I would have done without my Generation X sister to help point out how awesome and thoughtful her generation is; while everyone else is just sucking up the resources of the earth. I feel so raw and exposed…