The following report is from The Globe And Mail:
If my friends and I are any indicators, having kids is a much more complex issue for us than it was for our parents or grandparents. Given the state of the world and its potentially disastrous future, is having kids the right thing to do, or is it selfish and cruel? Is having children becoming unconscionable?
When I ask my friends about having children, this is a typical response:
I think I might want to have children. But I don’t know if I want to bring a new life into a miserable world with a bleak future.
As a young adult, I’ve seen the world’s problems only get worse, not better. And having children could intensify the problems the planet currently faces.
I understand that previous generations have had their own threatsto consider – poverty, postwar hopelessness, economic depression, to name a few. They, too, had to wonder about their children’s futures.
Today’s hardships, however, seem to have created a unique and perfect recipe for continuing misery. Our current problems – a climate crisis and inequality chief among them – are systemic and chronic, and many of them will likely worsen over time. Summoning your own hope for the future feels like an impossible task. Giving your children a better life than you’ve had may no longer be attainable.
The internet is rife with articles describing a future that seems unfathomable for raising children. From deadlier diseases that spread more easily, to worsening pollution, to large-scale blackouts and energy crises, predictions for a few decades from now and beyond sound utterly terrifying.
Today’s children enter a structurally unjust world. Wealth inequality is out of control – according to Federal Reserve data, for example, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans controlled nearly US$44-trillion of wealth in the third quarter of 2021, while the bottom 50 percent controlled around US$3.4-trillion. In 2020, amid lockdowns and widescale job losses, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s net worth grew by a whopping US $75-billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
Speaking of the “haves,” anyone who’s been able to purchase a home over the past year falls into that category. Buying a house, which used to be a rite of passage for young adults, is now out of reach for many of them – especially in Canada. The “forever home” looks to many of us to be a forever dream.
Then we have the potential for intensifying military conflicts with large-scale geopolitical consequences. China continues to ratchet up tensions with Taiwan, while Russia eyes its border with Ukraine.
But all of these problems pale in comparison to the big one: Climate change is threatening the planet’s 7.9 billion people. Previous generations may have foreseen a difficult future for their children, but tomorrow’s children may have no future at all. According to a recent UN climate report, we have reached a “code red for humanity,” and climate change will trigger existential problems for billions of people. In the coming years, a growing portion of the global population will lack access to clean water, food production will be increasingly under threat, and rising water levels will endanger coastal cities.
Even if we limit climate change, global temperatures are already 1.2 degrees above preindustrial levels, and the effects of this increase, including wildfires and floods, are now too obvious to ignore.
It’s hard to justify having children when you’ve seen the big picture. Indeed, research suggests that one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to have fewer children, a subject avoided by governments wary of the economic consequences of a declining population.
Of course, having children is a personal decision. There is no “right” answer. One friend said to me that it’s our job to create a new generation that can build a sustainable and better world. But personally, I wonder if that’s a burden I don’t have any business bestowing on another person.
If wealth distribution were more equal (and if billionaires spent more of their time and money on making the planet a better place rather than launching rockets into space), my age group might have a more optimistic outlook on the future. As things stand now, billionaires are planning their exit strategy while the rest of us don’t have one.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[1] Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; [2] Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; [3] Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.1 Timothy 4:1-3
What a not-so subtle way of saying, ‘we want to depopulate the planet.’
Granted, raising a child in these every growing conditions is tougher, sure, but I don’t think I need to explain the propagandist motives here for people to stop having children. The sickos at the top want less people so it’s easier for them to control.
‘But hey, that’s okay: we have the metaverse; you can have marriages and children there!’
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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“It’s hard to justify having children when you’ve seen the big picture.”
Hard to justify? Nah, that’s easy:
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: And the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; So are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:3-5 KJV
Great passage! Just shows how they are the real murderers.
Amen to that brother.