I don't have kids, and I never will. I decided that years ago. According to pundits, politicians, and pontiffs, this makes me selfish. They couldn't be more wrong.
Recently, US Republican Steve King warned of the "population time bomb" putting civilisation itself under threat by way of Muslims having more babies than white Europeans. And now, businessman and Fairfax columnist Harold Mitchell has opined on why it is imperative and patriotic for Australians to commit to having more children.
To his credit, Mitchell, who laments the resistance many Australians have towards immigration, is not concerned about "western civilisation" so much as he is about economic growth, although one could argue these are much the same thing.
"The fact is," Mitchell warns, "the economic and sociopolitical environment since the GFC has frightened our young child-producing population out of having kids, and our comfortable future is at risk."
Related Content
The entire problem could be solved by us encouraging "our young generations to feel positive about the future," he suggests, as if financial hardship is merely a state of mind.
Life is expensive. Life with children even more so. People have the right to opt out.
And unsurprisingly, many are. But the way population growth or "fertility rate" (icky) is measured – number of children per woman – means the gloomy-looking economic fate of our country is yet another excuse to wag our fingers at women.
"Have one for mum, one for dad, and one for the country," former Treasurer Peter Costello infamously said, as if the bodies of women were the property of the entire country and procreation was a patriotic duty.
This intrusion on the bodies of women is made even worse given society and the government seem uninterested in actually easing the burden of having children. Just last week Labor's Kate Ellis announced her resignation from federal parliament because she could not "bear the thought of spending at least 20 weeks of every year in Canberra away from (her) son."
If a woman in Ellis' position found it impossible to achieve that elusive work-life balance, what hope for us with far fewer resources at our disposal?
The social isolation that often comes with being the primary caregiver, something many of my female friends experienced after having children, is no small thing. Not that these women complained or expressed regret, but in the era of the nuclear family, the responsibilities fell largely to them. As one told me, it left her feeling as though they "exist in separate spheres" to their own partners, and the fathers of their children.
As a woman who has decided to apparently let down her country – if not entire species – by remaining childfree, I find measuring the value of children in terms of what they can do for the economy more than a little distasteful. Have more kids – we need to commodify them!
When my former partner and I decided against children, we did so partly out of fear for the harm humans do to the planet, and fear of the harm that could come to our children on a planet struggling to cope with ever-increasing human activities.
That alone is enough to make be rebel. Nonetheless, there is also another very compelling factor driving my decision.
Our planet is in trouble. We all know this. The Amazon is depleting so rapidly, we have already lost 20 per cent of it and will lose another 20 in the next two decades – just as children born today are coming of age. Lucky them!
The Great Barrier Reef is as good as dead, as everyone who is not Pauline Hanson will admit, but deforestation is also happening in the oceans, thanks to the rise in global temperatures. Meanwhile, the oceans will be commercially extinct by the middle of the century, and the entire Arctic is living on borrowed time.
Those who care not for the health of the planet that keeps them healthy can toss out "national security" with the garbage they know should have been recycled. Climate change is only going to displace millions more people in the coming decades.
Ironically, it is those of us causing the most damage that will be hit last. Per capita, Australia (and the west) is leading when it comes to messing up the world, yet insists on closing borders to the people whose displacement we helped cause. It makes measuring population in terms of "economic growth" seem obscene.
In addition to financial and emotional difficulties, these environmental considerations mean women are taking the decision to have children more seriously than ever.
Writing for Fairfax, climate scientist Dr Sophie Lewis said despite her own wish to have children, doing so would be "irreconcilable with my professional dedication to remedying our global challenges."
For lay people, the knowledge that one child born today will add 9,441 metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere is enough to turn them off procreation. "You can never take it back," said one American woman. "That stopped me in my tracks."
And yet, here we are, with women still informed by the Pope himself of our alleged selfishness. When my former partner and I decided against children, we did so partly out of fear for the harm humans do to the planet, and fear of the harm that could come to our children on a planet struggling to cope with ever-increasing human activities.
As with my veganism, the devastating effect on the environment wasn't the only factor driving my decision, but it sure made it feel like the right one. That didn't stop me from wistfully watching my partner, knowing what a great dad he would make, and wondering what our children would look like, would be like. But for us, to have children just so we could meet them would have been the more selfish decision.
No, I am not saying that people who choose to have children are selfish. Reproduction is a personal matter and I'm aware of how strong the drive to have children is. Everyone has the intrinsic right to weigh up the costs and benefits and go with what they think is best; we didn't start the fire and all that.
This, however, means those of us who have decided against children also deserve to have our decisions respected and our reasons considered.
While it is true humans have long despaired at the state of the world, fearing the end was just around the corner, never before have they had science on their side. People often assume I don't have children because I don't care for them. On the contrary: I care far too much.
12 comments
New User? Sign up