Childlessness

Our world, in many ways is like an equation. There are several interrelated factors that balance together to describe the state of our existence. Human activity, plant life, air quality, technology etc. are a few of countless factors that make up this huge balance. If one changes, it intrinsically changes the other. If one takes, the other has to give and vice versa. Humanity is on pretty new ground in our history. We’ve come at odds with nature before and in the long run been able to “conquer” it. However our ability to overcome obstacles, grow and succeed is no longer the question. It is very evident that humans have the capability to rule this planet, the question is can we do so with enough wisdom to sustain life here. Changes in our culture that encourage childlessness have presented the opportunity for improving global health. Let the data here clearly demonstrate a need for decline in population and excellent reasons to eliminate any negative stigma on families and especially females regarding the choice to remain childless.

The U.N.’s records show that world population in 1900 was about 1.6 billion people, 6 billion currently, 8.9 billion projected in 2050, and about 10 billion in 2100 (Grant, 4). Even despite the fact that these are estimations, the figures still show significant multiplication of population rates. In the last hundred years, human population quadrupled, and our current rate of growth sets us up to almost double that number in the next hundred years. We don’t need to populate the earth anymore: mission accomplished. Now our job is to subdue it. The environmental sustainability issues we’re having difficulty facing now are going to look like a cake walk when we’ve got twice this many people.

Resources are growing scarce even now. Irrigation is a major avenue for water supply in naturally arid areas. However, when “foreign” water is introduced into these environments its long term effects are not positive. The new water temporarily creates more arable land (therefore supporting population in that area), but eventually creates salt build up in the ground, making it unable to produce crops. It also is draining the rivers dry on a large scale. At least several major rivers have literally dried up (they no longer reach the ocean) including the Yellow River, The Rio Grande and the Colorado river (Grant, 21).

Science is showing us pretty clearly that our world is not as stable as we may have thought it was. Sea level has risen six inches in the last hundred years- water expands as it increases in temperature. The ten hottest years on record occurred since 1983. Seven of those since 1990. Arctic glaciers are melting. In the last decade snow cover at high altitudes has reduced by 10%, also reducing earth’s ability to reflect heat and light from the sun, and continuing the warming trend. Commercial industry has increased its carbon emissions by about 33% in the last 20 years. Deforestation and the logging industry are chipping away at our trees and related ecosystems. Forests have unique environments which are excellent temperature and carbon dioxide moderators among other things (Grant 30-33). Changes in each of these factors affects the status quo of the other. They are literally making waves.

Lindsay Grant (Grant 35) estimates that the globe would be at a level of sustainability with about two billion people demonstrating our current habits. Perhaps more could survive long-term if we adapted our energy and waste disposal practices. Billions go hungry daily. In 2003 there were 4.8 billion people living on (US) $1 per day or less. Another 2.8 were living on less than $2 per day. The richest fifth of the world’s population received 85 percent of its wealth while the poorest fifth received only 1.4 percent (Infoplease).

Globalization is doing its part to help us realize this phenomenon. Aside from the industrialization/ pollution aspect of the recent globalization trend, it is also allowing people to be more informed and empowered than ever before on a large scale. The four corners of the world are no longer as mysterious to each other. When a crisis happens in Southeast Asia or Africa, people in Canada are aware within hours, if not minutes. We’ve got the tools to be more involved in global activity than ever before. International adoption is very common in the U.S. because we are aware of the need and have direct access to each given situation. An economy crisis in Mexico leads to increased immigration to the U.S. A nuclear crisis in North Korea could result in increased immigration to China. People are voting with their feet because they’ve got more of an ability to immigrate now. As the world gets smaller we are forced to realize that each of us depends on the other’s survival. We are relentlessly connected to every aspect of life. Each part belongs to each other. What hurts one of us will affect the rest.

For relatively unrelated reasons, an increasing number of women and couples are choosing to remain childless. Motivating factors vary from postponement related to marriage relationships, age, unlikely fertilization, career choice and others. According to google there are at least 838,000 websites principally dedicated to or containing a concentration on the issue of childlessness. This phenomena comes at a particularly strategic time considering all of the previously mentioned data. The key factor in such drastic changes in all of these environmental issues is human activity. Things like heavily increased rates of arctic glacier melting may seem totally unrelated to a family’s personal choice to procreate or not. This is not the case. They are very directly related. There are many plausible starting places for addressing the issues listed above (as well as countless others not mentioned). There are many options of things we could do. However, it is abundantly clear that something that must happen is population reduction. This could happen in a wide variety of ways which will likely be highly controversial and hotly debated in the ethics arena. Clearly the best way to go about lessening the population on earth is on an indivudual voluntary basis. Choosing to remain childless (even if it means adopting as opposed to personally procreating) is a wise decision. This is a sensitive issue because it gets at the roots of womanhood. It has the potential to call into question the definition of femininity. It makes women seem less important. However, I believe the opposite is true. Over the last hundred years or so women have become exponentially more educated, more involved in the workforce and business world, and more financially independent. Females outnumber males in college enrollment. Marriage and motherhood is no longer the sole goal of women today, nor is either required to hold a secure place in society as has been true for almost every other time in history. This is not to say that they are ignoring the mothering or nurturing instinct. Remaining childless or choosing to adopt does not require denying one’s feminine nature.

In fact, the choice to remain childless seems to deny human nature. It seems to fight our urge to progress as a species and cut off our ambitions at the roots. The question has now become: What is progress? How and where do we want to develop? The desire for offspring is obviously a strong one, and for good reasons, but in this situation it’s been trumped. The transcendent reason for having children has always been to continue human life on earth. It is important to realize that these two are in somewhat of a state of conflict right now so we need to employ alternate methods.

Childbearing continues to be a salient cause for praising females. She is life giver. A woman can receive and harness the power of masculinity in her partner and cause it to multiply. She is the guardian and treasurer of life in it’s most vulnerable forms. She takes something that is already innately beautiful and praiseworthy and gives it continuity. The type of patience and self-sacrifice required to bear children symbolizes more than just a personal desire to be taken care of by your offspring. Children are a part of you. They have pieces of you in them. They symbolize the future. The wise mother’s heart is able to consider the world as a whole. She can see how the call to bring continuity has taken on a very different form. The feminine aspect of life giver in a woman identifies very deeply with the shifting of our aim as humans when it is realized. She desires to come alongside humanity to fulfill humanity’s potential. It is clear that the change in current events should supersede desire for children. Women are becoming more prominent right now than they ever have been not only through the feminist movement but because of their incredibly clutch role in situations like our world finds itself in now.

The question at issue or goal of humanity has very recently shifted from conquest, expansion, and power to discipline, wisdom and life giving. We must become committed to childbearing of a different kind. In many symbolic and philosophic ways the earth is coming into a time of femininity. The current age is revolutionizing what it means to be a woman without any help from us. Only time will tell what this new quest humanity finds itself on must manifest if life is to continue on this planet. But the choice to remain childless by no means contradicts it. Instead, it holds the self-sacrificing position of honor that life giving characterizes. This is a choice, along with many other hard choices that need to be made in order to restore balance to our equation and fulfill the potential of life on this planet.

Sources

Grant, Lindsay. Too Many People. Washington D.C. Steven Locks Press. 2000.

Information please Database . 3 November 2006. Measuring Global Poverty. 2006. Pearson Education Inc. 3 November 2006. <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908762.html>.

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