I threw my fears to the wind

[Totally_Baffled]

Blimey - what a relief reading this thread!

We are having our second (and final) child in August, and I have to say I am really excited but at the same time feeling a tad hypocritical.

I have to be honest - I wonder sometimes if I am too fitting my post peak view to my decision to have children?

I do genuinely believe there is a good chance that a child born today in the UK can have a happy life. Certainly a life worth being born for anyway!

They may not have all we have today, hell they may not even live as long - but I certainly dont believe they will be born into a future of doom and being forced to eat each other!

Some of the poorest people in the world are the happiest. Maybe we can discover that again in the developed world (excuse my hopeful naivety )

[Adam1]

Blimey - what a relief reading this thread!

We are having our second (and final) child in August, and I have to say I am really excited but at the same time feeling a tad hypocritical.

I have to be honest - I wonder sometimes if I am too fitting my post peak view to my decision to have children?

I do genuinely believe there is a good chance that a child born today in the UK can have a happy life. Certainly a life worth being born for anyway!

They may not have all we have today, hell they may not even live as long - but I certainly don't believe they will be born into a future of doom and being forced to eat each other!

Some of the poorest people in the world are the happiest. Maybe we can discover that again in the developed world (excuse my hopeful naivety )

This is how I see things basically TB.

Why do you say "What a relief"?

[leroy]

I do genuinely believe there is a good chance that a child born today in the UK can have a happy life

Upon reflection I think that this is a more balanced conclusion than my previous 'certainly don't want to have kids into this world' line. I wasn't suggesting that having children was irresponsible, either, rather that having children solely due to pressure from a partner was a questionable motive. Just my opinion.

SunnyJim - regarding whether parents block things off more or not, I took that observation from the article that spawned this thread and from general observation of my peers. I would have to say, though, the vast majority of single and childless mates are not particularly receptive to my musings on impending peril either! There is plenty of evidence on this thread that it is not all parents who shy away from looking at things - no intention of offending anybody

[Bozzio]

My wife and I had our third child last September and we made the decision to do so despite knowing about peak oil. We are all very happy and I guess that's all that matters. Children are very adaptable, more so than adults, so I don't think the future will be too painful for us at all.

[Totally_Baffled]

Why do you say "What a relief"?

When my wife and I were planning/discussing another child, I was facing an awful dilemma.

Although my wife understands the future is going to be tough, she is very much of the view that you cannot let this stand in the way of "last chance" decisions you have to make now.

We are both in our mid thirties - so it was now or never , and I was feeling the heat of:

a) Should I bring another child into a post peak world, where there is the possibility I could see them suffer.

b) If I stood firm and said I only wanted one child, I think there could of been some strain on our marriage (I cannot say for certain , but faced with the choice of the risks of (a) and/or the loss of my marriage/wife - I take the risk of (a)!

I guess it was a relief to see others where facing the same choices - and reaching similiar conclusions!

[careful_eugene]

We are both in our mid thirties - so it was now or never

No way mate I turned 40 1 month before my son was born, my wife is 40 next month, you and your wife have loads of time.

[Gerontion]

I'm 38, married and have no children (had the snip a few years ago). One aspect of all this which seems to have been by-passed is the stress which a child - especially a British one - places on our ecological support systems. If you honestly believe that we are in a state of overshoot - and it seems pretty hard not to believe this - then surely it's incumbent upon you not to amplify or to worsen this state and that quite possibly means not having children. For the all the - quite understandable - interior questions about hope, the future, familial relationships, etc., there remain morally significant questions about the extent to which we may make - for example - inter-generational impositions; bringing more Western consumers into existence is clearly such an imposition. The article was interesting but notably failed to address these issues and - unfortunately - struck me as being a typically self-indulgent, solipsistic, Sunday-supplement route of addressing the problems.

[nepenthean]

Yeah, that's what I feel. I don't think that sort of conversation would happen in real life, except when dealing with a moody teenager as RC says.

I can see it occurring when the 20 something year old realizes the terminal inevitability of his/her existence.

[clv101]

...realizes the terminal inevitability of his/her existence.

We're all going to die one day.

[eatyourveg]

I'm 38, married and have no children (had the snip a few years ago). One aspect of all this which seems to have been by-passed is the stress which a child - especially a British one - places on our ecological support systems. If you honestly believe that we are in a state of overshoot - and it seems pretty hard not to believe this - then surely it's incumbent upon you not to amplify or to worsen this state and that quite possibly means not having children. For the all the - quite understandable - interior questions about hope, the future, familial relationships, etc., there remain morally significant questions about the extent to which we may make - for example - inter-generational impositions; bringing more Western consumers into existence is clearly such an imposition. The article was interesting but notably failed to address these issues and - unfortunately - struck me as being a typically self-indulgent, solipsistic, Sunday-supplement route of addressing the problems.

Right on the spot.

[goslow]

We have four kids. Not having any more now, our family is complete. One thing to say from my own experience is that a larger family does not necessarily mean a straight multiplication of resource use compared with those having smaller families. Our income is not particularly different from a typical smaller family, and so to some extent we do without consumer goods, posh holidays etc to direct our spending on the basics. Also we get some efficiencies from hand-me-down toys, clothes, and our slightly larger home and car do not require as much energy as the houses and cars of two equivalent smaller families living in two separate households. I have come to the conclusion that resource use is just as much to do with lifestyle decisions rather than how many kids you have. And a larger family will to some extent force you to be more efficient and use less resources, unless you are very rich, in order to just pay the bills!

I also think that life has to go on, so don't let PO stop you having the kids you would like to have, whether thats 1, 2 or more. If you are getting on with PO preparations, you will teach them some useful skills for the future. I have told my older kids about PO, they seem to accept it but have not said much about it. They get to hear lots about the environment (from me and school) so are probably now well primed for major changes in lifestyle in the future. I would hope that our lifestyle of "making do" as a larger family makes us and them more ready to take on the challenge.

[Gerontion]

We have four kids. Not having any more now, our family is complete. One thing to say from my own experience is that a larger family does not necessarily mean a straight multiplication of resource use compared with those having smaller families. Our income is not particularly different from a typical smaller family, and so to some extent we do without consumer goods, posh holidays etc to direct our spending on the basics. Also we get some efficiencies from hand-me-down toys, clothes, and our slightly larger home and car do not require as much energy as the houses and cars of two equivalent smaller families living in two separate households. I have come to the conclusion that resource use is just as much to do with lifestyle decisions rather than how many kids you have. And a larger family will to some extent force you to be more efficient and use less resources, unless you are very rich, in order to just pay the bills!

I'm sure that's quite true but nevertheless, the more people in a family, the more resources will be consumed and once your children become independent adults, they won't be sharing hand-me-downs for long. (And (i) the choice isn't between one large family and two small ones; it's between one large family and one small one. (ii) Large families may well use fewer resources per head but they're unlikely to use fewer resources.) Clearly, people are still going to have children but future resource use is - or should be - a factor when considering whether to have a family and how big it should be. I think that it's exactly this type of thinking which we must internalise and make completely reflexive if we're to have any hope of heading off the approaching disasters and because of this, it's a shame that the article originally quoted drew the boundaries of analysis at the immediate how-do-I-feel limit, rather than looking beyond that to see how everything looks from where the planet stands. Sadly, this seems to pretty much par for the course in The Guardian/Observer school of environmental writing, which would have us believe that swapping Primark hoodies for organic alpaca shawls will see everything turn out alright.

[Miss Madam]

Hmm this is an issue I have thought about a lot recently, for me, I would feel morally bankrupt if I had more than the replacement rate of children i.e. two - otherwise talking about ecological overshoot, peak oil, overpopulation, climate change would all just be hypocritical. The basic problem is that there are too many of us, and unless people CHOOSE to limit their families to replacement rate or less, then the problems are only going to get worse. We in the developed world ought to be leading by example - it isn't hard for us to limit our families we have contraception, life choices for women etc that just aren't available in other parts of the world. People can try and justify it - we wanted a girl, we thought we'd just have one more, the fourth kid completed our family etc, - these are wants NOT needs, something the rich world is forever confusing - but more than replacement rate families are not sustainable and are just accelerating our progress off the cliff. I come from a family with a massive history of multiple births (out of 11 cousins, 6 of us are twins) so that's why I'm super careful with contraception - the odds are I'll have twins. But it really is pretty easy to avoid having a large family if you want to. And a lot easier than the hardships that we are likely to face in the future from being too crowded on a resource constrained island.

[Vortex]

Hmm .... que sera, sera ...

Large families - at a personal level - can be advantageous.

Who do you think will manage to get their fair share of the emergency food handouts in 20 years time?

You sitting alone in your little bungalow ... or that large family down the road, with the street wise kids, and the extended circle of contacts?

Survival is the name of the game - at least for your genes. They will be VERY angry at you if you decide to consign your branch of the human race to the dustbin.

When the smoke clears, I would rather that MY great great grandchildren were still around, rather than anyone else's.

[Miss Madam]

Large families - at a personal level - can be advantageous.

D'oh - no sh*t sherlock - that has to be the best one line example of the tragedy of the commons I have seen recently. But isn't that THE central issue - most of our problems (i.e. CC, PO) come from people making decisions which make sense at a personal level but which have crippling global consequences when we all do them. At some point, someone out there has to be the bigger person and make a decision which may be less advantageous to them personally and more advantageous globally - otherwise we're all stuffed.