Should we (still) be having kids in the climate crisis?
Reproductive choices have long been regarded as a matter of moral obligation. Societal norms around having children influence the way we think about families and our own roles in society. Deciding not to have children can therefore be an act of defiance against these standards and express a mixture of different motivations: the prioritization of autonomy and freedom, a lack of financial means and, most prominently, worry about the future.
When I started doing research on reproductive choices and having conversations with childfree men in the global climate community, I noticed that many of them indeed worried about the future and criticized dominant societal norms around having children. While they have been asked many times about their choice not to have children, some activists that I talked to now feel that it is time to turn the tables and ask, “Why do you want to have children?”. They question the deeply rooted societal norms around having children, which are often entangled in patriarchal and heteronormative norms: With the idea that the most desirable conception of life is this image of a perfect family with two parents and children. Having and raising your own children is a social norm that is so deeply internalized that it just seems ‘morally right’, without any real reason why this should indeed be the case. The result is that people who choose not to have children feel scared of ‘missing out’ on an important human experience. Some are even perceived as ‘selfish’.
However, in light of the climate crisis, one could argue that in today’s world, having children is no longer simply “the right thing to do”. But does that mean that it is the wrong thing to do? Have the tables also turned on the question of moral duty? Should we be asking instead: Can we – or should we – still be having kids in the climate crisis?
Anyone who has basic knowledge of climate change knows that things are bad right now and will probably get worse soon. The current political climate as well as the lack of climate action leads to many people suffering from climate anxiety and feeling helpless. This situation feels painfully much like the movie "Don't look up", in which the main characters try to warn human civilization about the imminent danger of a meteorite hitting the earth and get ignored and/or stuck in endless discussions with the media (would recommend watching!).
What’s really scary about the climate crisis is that it needs to be dealt with internationally. That means national policies and collective climate action on a local level only go so far and cannot stop (or significantly decrease) climate change. At the same time, many people want to make whatever small contribution they can in their own lives, to face the paralyzing helplessness with at least some conscious lifestyle decisions. They choose a vegetarian diet, fly less, buy less clothing and consume fewer goods in general. But some go even farther: By having fewer (or no) children, one’s own global footprint can be reduced as well as another footprint altogether avoided. So, should we have fewer children for the sake of the climate? Should we limit the number of children being born?
Most activists I talked to don’t seem to think so, at least not straightforwardly. As a thought experiment, let us imagine a world where having children is seen as a moral ‘wrong’ and thus downregulated by the state. For example, the state may take away parental benefits or incentivize having no children through reward systems. It might achieve that the number of children born as well as emissions are decreased. I think many of us would find such a scenario highly undesirable. The state would also deeply intervene in personal decisions and thereby take away the human right to self-determination. The people I talked to all agreed: This is not an intervention that should happen under any circumstance. And especially not when so many destructive lifestyle choices, like flying private jets, are yet to be regulated. In fact, there is a long list of things we should deem morally unfit before talking about the decision to have or not to have children.
But if we no longer have a clear moral response to the question of having children, then how can we decide if we should have children or not? Well, maybe we should not listen to what our neighbor has to say about it, or even your own parents or grandparents. Not even to scientists telling us the world will end. Because the truth is, in the end, very simple: Having children is a deeply personal choice and should be made by you. And if we want to talk about morality, there are a lot of things we should question before we choose to question the moral status of having children, such as: Why are we still not regulating luxury emissions, such as from private jets? Or even: Why are people who choose not to have kids considered selfish, and how is this perception related to patriarchal and heteronormative gender norms—norms that hurt not only women, but people of all genders?
So instead of regulating—or even just moralizing—the choice of having children, a more interesting question might be for those people who do want children to ask: How do we want to have and raise children in times of the climate crisis? There are pathways to having children and being eco-conscious at the same time. Green parenting is for example a way for parents to raise their children with the knowledge of how their own lifestyles influence global emissions and how they can live in less climate-intensive ways. Initiatives that promote green parenting engage in alternative, sustainable ways of traveling, a more outdoor-oriented education as well as a higher awareness of (mental) health. By home gardening, getting back in touch with nature, or finding alternative schools, they aim to raise their children in a way that is more conscious of nature and the world around them.
In the end, the only considerations that are really necessary to make relate to your own lifestyle, your happiness and your own needs. But what I learned by talking to climate activists who chose to remain childfree is this: To figure out what your own wish is underneath layers of societal expectations, it could be helpful to reflect on the societal pressures you (directly or indirectly) encountered in relation to having children and the capitalist influences on our mindsets that tell us we need to give our children “everything” to have a good childhood. Ultimately, the choice (not) to have a child is not something that can be fully rationalized. It is not something that can be decided based on a list of pros and cons. It is a complex, multi-layered decision, a life-long consideration that can change with time. And in the end, there are not only the two options to have children (and live in carbon-intensive lifestyles) or not to have them. Green parenting and alternative lifestyles with children show us that raising children can be done in various ways that don’t need to involve high carbon emissions. So, the question is not whether we should still have kids in the climate crisis. It really is rather this: Do we want to have them? And if so, how do we want to raise them?
The green parent magazine UK:
Climate anxiety: https://sustainability.yale.edu/explainers/yale-experts-explain-climate-anxiety
Autonomy and freedom: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405661819300176
Get worse: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
Photo by Daiga Ellaby | A guest post by
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