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[wombat]

You will. We are making the taxpayers and social security contributors and the caregivers of tomorrow.

Well I hope your kids are going to change my diaper often enough in the nursing home then, since I don't have any kids of my own to nag them about it.  I worry about this, but it's definitely up there with the worst reasons to have kids that I can think of (the other one is that a doctor once told me that my menstrural cramps would be less bad afterwards if I had a baby.)

[AlohaDawg]

we also learned in bio class that one american child uses the resources that like 100 third-world-country kids would. So maybe it's better to not have kids.

Pffffft. What that has to do with biology I'm not sure. That's a socio-political statement and it strikes me as nothing much more interesting than liberal guilt. Of course, you can go to a third-world country to have your kids...

[theinevitable]

we were learning about "current environmental topics". Population growth, global warming, etc. We learned that birth rates are a ton higher in less-industrialized nations, but that they use fewer resources. I would call that "the truth." The amount of oil, natural gas, etc. used per American is many many times higher than in other nations.

the "so maybe it would be better not to have kids" was my own conclusion.

[AlohaDawg]

Well I hope your kids are going to change my diaper often enough in the nursing home then, since I don't have any kids of my own to nag them about it.  I worry about this, but it's definitely up there with the worst reasons to have kids that I can think of (the other one is that a doctor once told me that my menstrural cramps would be less bad afterwards if I had a baby.)

Trust me, that was not a reason to have kids, just a response to your statement. I'm asking for euthanasia before diaper stage. Based on my experience with nursing home staff, you'll wish you had your kids around. It's not a good thing.

I have kids because I love kids, because I am confident that my kids will be successful, and because I believe families are the basic foundational unit of healthy, growing communities.

 

[AlohaDawg]

we were learning about "current environmental topics". Population growth, global warming, etc. We learned that birth rates are a ton higher in less-industrialized nations, but that they use fewer resources. I would call that "the truth." The amount of oil, natural gas, etc. used per American is many many times higher than in other nations.

the "so maybe it would be better not to have kids" was my own conclusion.

The way I see it, you can't use resources that aren't there. If you dropped a family from one of those places in the middle of the US, do you think they could avoid using resources at a pace far beyond the possible where they came from? It's a silly argument to say that my kids have very much choice in terms of consumption - we can reduce, reuse, recycle, try to be energy efficient, conserve gas -so maybe if we did all that we'd be only 50 times the consumption. Here's the problem - we're now at half the consumption (good) but that family over there is in the exact same place (bad) no matter how we behave over here.

Americans give a lot to charity, probably leading the world in aggregate. The US government supports more aid programs in more places than anyone as well. The idea that when my kids throw a light switch or ride a bus, somehow that costs a child in a third world country something is not only pointless but is a backwards way to look at the problem. If you feel like you help a kid in Namibia out more by switching to lower wattage bulbs than by contributing to UNICEF or Oxfam, I think you are kidding yourself (unless you saved money on your electric bill and sent that to UNICEF or Oxfam).

I you choose to have kids, raise them to be consious and understand the world, and to make a difference. I don't think that's such a bad way to approach the problem either.

[pmcd9]

Overpopulation is at the heart of every major problem the world faces.

~Paul

[AugustWest]

The way I see it, you can't use resources that aren't there. If you dropped a family from one of those places in the middle of the US, do you think they could avoid using resources at a pace far beyond the possible where they came from? It's a silly argument to say that my kids have very much choice in terms of consumption - we can reduce, reuse, recycle, try to be energy efficient, conserve gas -so maybe if we did all that we'd be only 50 times the consumption. Here's the problem - we're now at half the consumption (good) but that family over there is in the exact same place (bad) no matter how we behave over here.

I think the problem is more systemic.  Our society is set up to consume, consume, consume.  Whether or not reducing our use of resources would help someone else, I don't think it's healthy for us.  I'm afraid that our way of life is making us fat, jaded and lonely.

[pmcd9]

I think the problem is more systemic.  Our society is set up to consume, consume, consume.  Whether or not reducing our use of resources would help someone else, I don't think it's healthy for us.  I'm afraid that our way of life is making us fat, jaded and lonely.

Also, AD's argument overlooks the fact that we don't consume only our own resources, we take from the rest of the world.

~Paul

[jough]

As for the Christian thing, it's a little odd to ask someone if they are a Christian 'yet'. I've never heard the question put that way.

I usually hear it as "Have you found Jesus?"

I haven't, but I did find a $20 bill on the street, which brought me a lot more fortune than Jesus ever has.

[wombat]

I usually hear it as "Have you found Jesus?"

I wish someone would ask me this so I could say "Why, have you lost him?"

I didn't know there were very Christian villages in England.  This does not fit with my admittedly out-of-date mental picture at all.

[AlohaDawg]

I think the problem is more systemic.  Our society is set up to consume, consume, consume.  Whether or not reducing our use of resources would help someone else, I don't think it's healthy for us.  I'm afraid that our way of life is making us fat, jaded and lonely.

I think I can agree with that to some degree - but there was an attempt to link our lifestyle to a third world child's poverty and I don't think that is a really good connection. What I think may be true is that more people consider it a responsibility to help people in circumstances, and also that we find a way to give people good objective information about the performance of charitable organizations worldwide - that could give more confidence to people who want to give, and bring more accountability to the organizations.

I also think it's too simplistic to boil the world's problems down to a bumper sticker about overpopulation. As for overlooking our consumption pattern, I have to disagree - I pointed out that we pay for a lot or resources on a world market. We spend a lot of money for oil and fuel. We don't take resources from anyone, we even pay for oil from Iraq, where it would be most likely we could take it if we wanted. The problem is not that we are running around stealing from people - we don't now, and even in the 19th century and the run-up to WWI, we weren't doing it on even close to the scale that the powers of Europe were doing it during the empire-building phases of the UK, Germany, Belgium and France.

Sadly, none of this will prevent Linnea from going into early menopause.

[Mite]

I think I only just convinced my family that I didn't get married "under circumstances", since it has now been roughly 9 months since we eloped, and I do not have a screaming banshee in my arms right now.

That shook my mom up enough, so it should be a long time before I get the grandkid pressure.

I worry about it, though. There never seems to be a good time, you know? Of course, as I think Dawg said once, you're never ready, you just have to do it. I think I still have to wait until the grad school is mostly done before I start popping out the kids.

And though liberal guilt has made me really want to be an adoptive/foster parent rather than contributing to overpopulation, my biological drive is just too strong to not at least try to have kids the old fashioned way. It's rare that I recognize evolutionary pressure in my everyday life, but my urge to propagate my genes is just too damn strong to head straight for adoption.

[wombat]

I don't think you have to feel bad about not wanting to adopt.  I mean, we're not talking about a puppy here.

[CortJstr]

I don't think you have to feel bad about not wanting to adopt.  I mean, we're not talking about a puppy here.

Oh, so I'm a puppy now, am I?

[misterqueue]

Oh, so I'm a puppy now, am I?

If it makes you feel better cort, I think of you as more of a mongrel.