By
Ms. Olmstead is a writer.
-
- 275
“Many would-be parents in the millennial generation worry that bringing a child into this world might, in its effects, serve as a choice for more consumption, waste and damage to the planet. Others wonder whether the children conceived now might face a fate somehow worse than nonexistence in future years — a fate involving planetary apocalypse or catastrophe — and they don’t want to bring children into that future.
These fears have developed into an argument that suggests it is morally irresponsible to have kids (or at least to have too many). Indeed, at the Democratic presidential candidates’ climate change town hall, Bernie Sanders was asked about “the need to curb population growth,” suggesting that dissuading mothers around the world from having more children is a necessity for dealing with climate change.
I understand that, since the humans we bring into this world will also consume resources, there can be some fear among millennials that having children will make the problem of climate change worse. Still, I have made the choice to procreate — I have two daughters — even though I am concerned about climate change. And it’s important to argue for children and their parents and for the essential role they can both play in this urgent work of planetwide stewardship going forward.
The act of creation is opposed to the act of consumption: The latter suggests that everything exists to serve our needs and appetites, but the other reminds us of the value and goodness inherent in things themselves, and how creation encourages stewardship and responsibility.”
