Currently Craving: ice cream in this house
i was driving to teach this afternoon and i saw a bumper sticker on a car that said: "Six billion miracles are enough" with a picture of a stork carrying a baby.
my first reaction was kind of 'yeah, this world is totally overpopulated' and my second reaction was 'hey! i'm carrying one of those miracles right now... who are you to tell me not to have kids' something else in me was repulsed by the use of the word "miracle" to describe all of the people populating this world. i know for some people it is a miracle, she doesn't feel that way to me.
and this is an issue i've thought about. on the one hand our world is super-overpopulated for the way we live. i've done those carbon footprint tests and found out it would take something like 24 Earths to support life if everyone on the planet lived the way i do. (yuck!) and i seriously don't think i'm that bad to this world. i think my biggest problem was the size of my house for the number of people living in it.
on the other hand i feel i have a right to reproduce, to have a family, to pass on my wisdom or lack there of. and who is anyone in this world to tell me i can't while other people can?
BuT then i think about what kind of world am i helping to create for Babe to inhabit?? in thirty years what kind of crap is she going to have to deal with that i don't even have to consider or i barely consider as a distant glimmer of non-reality that she will seriously have to weigh and worry about if she wants to bring a child or children into this world? things like over crowding, no energy, global warming, landfills taking over the green space, bad water, bad soil, bad sun... the list could go on and on. and what if things get to the point like they are in China when the government limits the number of children you can have... who knows. and then there's the whole issue of fertility treatment... how much is too much, when do you start? when do you stop and adopt, when do you say there's a reason i am not able to biologically have children? too many questions to have to tackle and that's without even getting the Bible involved.
at this point it's easier for me to just say 'thank goodness i don't have to worry about that' and try to be as responsible as possible when making as many choices as possible. but someday, somebody IS going to have to think about it. and it'll probably be Babe's generation that will come into those harsh realities. i'm sad about that. maybe we'll adopt a baby from China next (as if somehow that would solve everything).
1 comment:
I have also had such thoughts, especially in light that we have always wanted 3-4 children. However, we have always planned to adopt at least one.
I like to think that my children will not be an additional burden to society, as that bumper sticker infers, but rather will be some of the few who will work to make the world a better place instead of blindly accepting traditional thoughts and practices. Perhaps I am setting myself up for the next Alex P. Keaton, but I really feel in my heart that our children will take our teachings and carry them through to make significant positive changes in the future. Sometimes, when I feel like I could be doing more to make the world better, I remind myself that the greatest gift I can give the world is to raise children who care as much as we do.
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