Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Gone are the days when Good Housekeeping just told readers how to make a baby bonnet or decorate a nursery.
The Biggest Thing Holding Me Back From Having Kids Is Climate Change
My husband and I struggle with the impact having kids would have on the planet.
BY LIZZ SCHUMERJan 24, 20
Growing up, having kids someday felt like a foregone conclusion. My family and I never really talked about it; everyone just assumed I’d follow suit. As I got older, most of my friends started pairing off and starting families, and shortly before we got married, my husband Nick’s brother and sister-in-law did, too.
After we tied the knot, Nick bought two books on deciding when to have kids, placing them prominently on the coffee table in our newly-purchased home. But something shifted for me around that time. When the decision felt mostly theoretical, I looked at kids the same way I did any other milestone: just another box I was expected to check along the path toward adulthood. But once it became a real possibility, I began to take stock of my place in the world and my responsibility to it.
As Nick and I talked about it, what we realized tipped our personal scales in the opposite direction of we expected. I’ve always been pretty ambivalent about kids, whereas Nick dotes on his nieces and used to think he’d give them cousins someday. On the one hand, children would add another dimension to our little family. On the other, it felt pretty complete already.
Plus, I’ve always been a worrier, with my anxious brain given to fixating on the worst-case scenario. As a kid, my worries were fairly pedestrian: my house could burn down, my parents could die or I might. As an adult, the scope of my concern has expanded to include not just the well-being of my own loved ones, but everyone inhabiting our rapidly warming planet. As we discussed having kids, Nick and I looked around at our overcrowded world and didn’t see a compelling argument to add to the population. Even more so, we worried about the kind of world they’d inherit, which will almost certainly look far different than the one we grew up in.
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For many people like me, composting and driving a Prius no longer feels like enough. A 2018 Gallup analysis reported that 70% of adults aged 18-34 said they worried about global warming, compared to 56% of adults aged 55 or older. A recent BBC survey of people ages 8-16 found that nearly three-quarters reported being deeply worried about the state of the planet.
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Climate change is also impossible to untangle from other social issues related to raising a family. “We want to make the world safer for everyone,” says Kallman. “The right to control the pacing of your children, the health of your communities and a comprehensive view of what makes up a community that’s free of domestic violence, has access to safe food, safe schools, where police violence is not a threat.” By banding together to hold elected officials accountable, we can all make meaningful change that goes beyond our own doorsteps.
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Read more: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a38727379/climate-anxiety-decision-to-have-kids/
My first impulse was to make a joke about at least they are removing themselves from the gene pool, but there is something so desperately sad about author Lizz and her husband Nick that I don’t feel like joking.
Nick at least really wanted kids initially, he “bought two books on deciding when to have kids, placing them prominently on the coffee table“. But somehow they talked themselves out of doing the one thing we are meant to do in life.
I don’t buy that it is actual climate anxiety driving these decisions.
People in poor countries where life is perilous, where people have short average lifespans usually try to have more kids than anyone else. The exact reason is controversial, a lot of people argue the issue is lack of education, women’s rights and access to birth control, but I personally believe the explanation is much simpler – death is an aphrodisiac. If you see death all around you, or have repeated near death experiences, our instincts kick in and try to preserve the species.
What is missing from the lives of people who claim to experience climate anxiety is an actual reason to be anxious. Its all kind of dry and intellectual, missing the raw panic which might in other circumstances have produced very different reproductive decisions.
What I think we are seeing is the workings of the climate cult, a belief system in which people who lead generally comfortable lives see having kids as a sin.
This is has happened many times in the past, for example the 1700s Shaker movement also thought procreation was a sin.
History of the Shakers
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Background
The Protestant Reformation and technological advances led to new Christian sects outside of the Catholic Church and mainstream Protestant denominations into the 17th and 18th centuries. The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers, was a Protestant sect founded in England in 1747. The French Camisards and the Quakers, two Protestant denominations, both contributed to the formation of Shaker beliefs.
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Ann Lee was born the daughter of a blacksmith in Manchester in 1736. She worked in a cotton factory, and in 1762 she married blacksmith Abraham Standerin. They had four children, all of whom died in childhood. Ann joined the Shakers in 1758, and 12 years later had “a special manifestation of Divine light.” After this experience she became the leader of the Shakers. In 1774 she received a revelation directing her to establish a Shaker Church in America. Ann Lee, her husband, and seven members set sail for America on May 10, 1774. By late 1776 she and some followers were located northwest of Albany, New York, by which point she and her husband had separated. She gathered followers in New York until her death in 1784.
Shaker BeliefsThe Shakers practiced communal living, where all property was shared. They didn’t believe in procreation, and therefore had to adopt children and recruit converts into their community. For those that were adopted, they were given a choice to either stay within the community or leave when they turned 21.
Like the Quakers, the Shakers were pacifists who had advanced notions of gender and racial equality. The Shakers believed in opportunities for intellectual and artistic development within the Society. Simplicity in dress, speech, and manner were encouraged, as was living in rural colonies away from the corrupting influences of the cities. Like other Utopian societies founded in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Shakers believed it was possible to form a more perfect society upon earth.…
Read more: https://www.nps.gov/articles/history-of-the-shakers.htm
The Shakers still exist, though they have all but died out.
But I can’t help wondering how many wonderful additional people there might have been in the world, if Shaker founder Ann Lee didn’t have such a sad experience, seeing all four of her children die.
What the shakers did, what greens are doing today, its like watching some prolific serial killer sweeping through the people of the world, killing all the millions of babies and children and adults and grandparents who might have been, removing all that joy and happiness from the world.
Who knows how many Einsteins or Newtons or Mozarts or Picassos or Ghandis might have been, how many people there could have been who might have transformed the world, except then and now, thanks to belief systems which discourage procreation, all these wonderful people will never have the opportunity to be born.
I hope you find a way past this climate anxiety Lizz Schumer, before it is too late. Having children is a stressful, life changing decision, but there is no joy which compares to the joy of bringing a new little person into the world, to share the love of you and your family, and watching them grow up and bring joy and happiness and love to all the people whose lives they touch.
Having children rearranges priorities, usually in a good way. Thank goodness we have couples that still want to have kids lest we become Europe. Liz’s husband should divorce her, assuming he hasn’t drank the kool aid to her deranged level.
I point this out a lot: skeptics are NOT “winning the debate” or even making headway at all in the general public perception. GHK is only one magazine: this assumption about “climate change” being a looming threat is everywhere. Even woodworking magazines get into it. So far, I think the only magazines I haven’t seen mention it are gun magazines like Guns & Ammo.
Sure having kids is an option, but it is an option with huge benefits, such as the much maligned idea of continuing the species. She should consider that a main reason for her being is to not only continue the species but also to pass as many benefits to her progeny as possible, including, not just material things, but useful features of her and her spouse’s mentality, morals, and values, as well as family history and background.
She and he can also foster aspirational goals in their kids aimed at improving the world. How is that a negative? Seeing her kids as a commodity to be assessed in terms of their carbon footprint is patently stupid.
Not having children reduces her life to a much smaller niche, which in her later years she might seriously regret. IMHO, she is thinking about becoming a biological dead end. That said, I imagine anyone who is dumb enough to think that climate change myths can determine the future of her genetic line should thus not have any children. Thus, her line would be no loss from the gene pool.
You can also do that with kids that you have adopted.
Shortly after we got married in 1970 My wife’s cousin also got married but, because of the cold war and the risk of a third world war, they decided not to procreate. 52 years later they have no children or grandchildren to cheer up their declining years where as we, who didn’t worry, have 2 children and 3 grandchildren who bring us great joy and lots of love and fun.
I suspect that in years to come todays childless eco zealots will have many regrets over the misinformation that was force fed to them.
As I am a person in my 70s can you explain this ‘declining years’ thing? If it wasn’t for this covid nonsense I would be travelling overseas and climbing mountains.
Hello, Alexy. I’m 70 and my years are declining in a way that, apparently, yours are not. Climbing mountains? I’m impressed. Ask me to run 100 yards, and I’d have to pack a lunch.
Although I certainly agree that COVID is nonsense. What has amazed me is how easy it has been to frighten people about something that barely exists for most of us. After nearly two years, I still don’t know anybody who has had to be hospitalized with COVID, and I”m an old man. (Unlike you, young feller.)
Last week in the Netherlands, there was a massive demonstration against COVID restrictions. Thousands of people, all maskless. It was like the crowd for a rock concert. Now I ask you, how is it possible that there could really be a deadly plague sweeping through the world, and yet there are obviously so many people who don’t fear it?
I didn’t mean rock climbing mountains, more the walk up a mountain to scenic views.
In the UK it’s freedom day with no masks or vaccine passports required.
In Canada it is considered a serious breach of etiquette to even imply that you’re not frightened every minute of your life of death by COVID.
What do I hate most (other than the mandatory stupidity and timidity that is now taken as a sign of virtue)? Masks. I have to wear a badge on my face that proclaims to all the world that I’m a silly, fearful git.
But good for you that you are fit and active. I’m going to need a lighter TV remote, as the one I have now is too heavy.
The bottom line is that having and raising children is a far bigger commitment for the mother than the father.
Apart from our financial contribution to the family, which we would be making anyway, we Dads get to do the fun things like playing with them when they’re younger and taking them to sport when they get a bit older.
For blokes, it’s almost as good as being a grandparent.
In this case, she seems daunted by the prospect of motherhood, and has found what seems a valid justification for not having children. As has been noted in other comments, earlier generations have found other valid justifications for not having children.
Lizz should read in praise of lawn darts
The basis for a civilization of free people resides in the skills that children learn from the benign neglect of unsupervised play in an un-nerfed world
This is why you have children.
I suppose the act of swallowing all of the climate change manure without question might be an indication of lower fitness for parenting. If you are not a critical thinker and someone who is willing to question the basis for scientific conclusions and the recommended policy responses, you may be not be fit to make critical decisions about how you raise kids. Still the ultimate blame is with those who profess to be scientific when, they are really just being propagandists for a belief system without scientific foundation.
I strongly support stupid, paranoid people not breeding.
“My first impulse was to make a joke about at least they are removing themselves from the gene pool, but there is something so desperately sad about author Lizz and her husband Nick that I don’t feel like joking.”
Mockery is the only correct thing to do. Indeed we should ask them, why wait a generation?
I am not a worrier because, at 70 years of age, there is no longer anything to worry about other than decline, illness and death. All of which are going to happen soon, and nothing I can do about it. No matter what cheery nonsense you read, old age is quite unpleasant. Nothing on you or in you works as well as it did when you were 40, and you’re often just kind of sick. About the only thing to recommend old age is that you now have permission, from both other people and yourself, to be a dedicated hedonist. If it doesn’t make me feel good right now, I’m not doing it. That is the current state of my personal planning.
I didn’t have children. In my case this was probably the right choice but, for most people, not having children is to cut yourself off from the single thing you can do that is most likely to make you a good person. Fully human and wise in your humanity. I know for a fact that, by not having children, I’ve avoided a lot of suffering, but also a lot of true and unblemished joy.
“ I’ve always been a worrier, with my anxious brain given to fixating on the worst-case scenario.”
Yep. AGW eats it’s own. Same people who want to keep us all locked down over colds and flus. Good riddance. Brighter days ahead for humanity.
Ashes to ashes, they will be forgotten and the climate will cycle on without even a trace of their thoughts, opinions, or pretenses. Glaciers will recede and advance, rivers will carry sediment, and planets will spin and revolve. No one will care.
I already knew there was a group called The Shakers.
And there’s also a nomadic group known as 5he Movers.
“What the shakers did, what greens are doing today, its like watching some prolific serial killer sweeping through the people of the world, killing all the millions of babies and children and adults and grandparents who might have been, removing all that joy and happiness from the world.
Who knows how many Einsteins or Newtons or Mozarts or Picassos or Ghandis might have been, how many people there could have been who might have transformed the world, except then and now, thanks to belief systems which discourage procreation, all these wonderful people will never have the opportunity to be born.”
That’s a pretty good description of the consequences of making abortion legal.