This is a recording and partial transcript of an impromptu dialog (mostly me talking though). It was in response to the common reluctance of young people to want to have babies. Seeing what kind of times lie ahead, they wonder, Why should I bring a child into the world?
I shared this post with my mother in deep gratitude for her giving me such sturdy shoulders to stand on, so I could have a chance at dreaming something beautiful into being, and we shared a sweet and tender moment together. Thank you for inspiring that, and giving us an opportunity for deeper love and appreciation.
Beautiful line looking for the remainder of its verse: "This made my eyes leak." What happened to the verse? Or, is it still percolating? Is it in the "Wish I could...?" part? Sometime for me, all I need is to sit and read another's lines to begin seeing more of my own....
Thank you, Charles. In the short days of January I tend to lose hope. I do know that our mother Gaia knows how to go on. As a mother myself, I know what it takes to conceive and bear and bring forth a child. I have never felt that it was in vain. Always have known that my daughter is here for a good purpose and have been watching to see how her purpose will be fulfilled. We humans are part of this creation, part of this earth and heaven, one of the many children of Gaia. She has not made a mistake in bringing us forth, evolution is continuing and we are part of it. May we mature and do our part well.
Those from the Neo-Marxist PostModernist mindset pretend to believe humans are no more special than other species and therefore should limit their numbers to aid other species. By this very argument, they reveal that they do believe humans are special. Humans are to sacrifice themselves for the good of all. That is a plagiarized form of Christianity.
In Charles’ book, Climate, A New Story my favorite portion was Tending the Wild about how the landscape of California before the Gold Rush was a cultivated landscape, cultivated by the indigenous people and that to them untouched wilderness was a lesser state of being. Yes, for nature to be at her highest state she needs the hand and mind of humanity. I know a present day indigenous leader in California whom I have heard express the same vision. Ron Goode, tribal chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe in California.
In the Bible in Genesis humanity is placed in Eden to “dress and keep it” The Hebrew for ‘dress and keep” could also be translated to “serve and observe closely”. This service and observation to me is the real heart of the purpose of the gift of human dominion over the earth for if we wisely meet our material needs the earth is brought to a richer more beautiful state. And for that to happen humanity needed to be fruitful and multiply so there would be enough of us to effect that.
Here is Tending the Wild from Charles’ book Climate - A New Story, a very wise book and well worth purchasing and reading
By the way I am not advocating a wholesale return to the indigenous lifestyle once present in California, but an application of wisdom to find new life giving ways using what we know and are now and finding new knowledges and applying knowledges now on the sideline.
Thank you so much for this essay. And I’m appalled at the insensitivity? audacity? of the person who said such a thing to you about having 4 kids. Back in “the day” (1980s/1990s), when I was an activist invited to keynote and offer workshops around the country on “Gaian Economics”, “creating an economy for a living Earth”, in the Q & A after one presentation, a white, middle aged man who had no clue I was a mom of 3 boys, went on about how women were having too many children, population growth, etc. in quite a dogmatic way. In addition to pointing out to him that it is we, in the western world whose consumption far exceeds the consumption of the brown women in what was called the “third world” back then, he seemed to be denigrating (forgetting, of course, that it takes 2), that the solution is education and opportunity for women. That when women have opportunities for education and ways of supporting their families, they have fewer children. Then, because he was so dogmatic, and he irritated me so much (I was young then, in my 30s, LOL), I said to him: Oh, and by the way, I have 3 boys. Do you think I should have aborted one of them? He didn’t know what to say. It was like . . . oh well, it’s you and you’re aware so your kids are okay . . . like because I am a privileged white woman, I was not being irresponsible. It was just the poor, brown women who were. Anyway, I love your response and that you managed to keep your cool. And re: hope. I agree. While I don’t have hope in the conventional sense, I have something better: I know that we can do this, turn things around, that humans have amazing innate but latent talents and even “powers” that we must acknowledge and learn to use and honor in each other. I don’t know that we will. But I do know that it is possible.
I never had kids because I didn’t want to compromise my ideals for the sake of material security (at least, not more than any individual already has to compromise in this society). The parents I know were more likely to take a job for The Man, because they have mouths to feed. Some of them come up with sophisticated rationalizations to justify it.
I wouldn’t want to be in the position where I had several dependents and was given the opportunity to work for someone who endorses genocide...
What do you do when you find yourself working for an organization that does some appalling things or contributes to an appalling system? What do you do when you advise a politician with whom you agree on most things, yet with whom you have a sharp disagreement on an important issue -- for example, war crimes against Gaza? Do you just quit, hoping your departure will have an effect besides making you look principled? Or do you stay on as long as you feel you might have some influence? I decided that unless I do everything I can to influence the candidate on this issue, I would be unable to look a Gazan in the face. I am in a position where I have some influence. i am doing the best I can to use that influence well. I have to at least try.
Anyway, I don't feel compelled to stay on in order to feed my children, thank goodness. I have the freedom to do what I think is the most helpful.
I might try to change the system, while also remaining honest about whether I'm able to have any impact. Lots of people hold onto careers in destructive organizations for decades, fooling themselves into thinking that they're making a difference.
Many have left RFK's campaign. Are they quitters, or do they think he's not going to change his view?
Whatever's going on with RFK, it doesn't seem like just a difference of opinion. Either he's been blackmailed or bribed. How much influence could you have in that situation?
He hasn't been blackmailed or bribed. He is completely sincere in his beliefs. That is why I think he could change. Go ahead and judge me for it, but I am determined to keep trying as long as I believe there is hope.
RFK Jr. is being sabotaged by the very people that had such high hopes for him and his campaign. If this is all about genocide, then who would be the better candidate that could change his mind? Certainly not Biden or Trump, who both have supported Israeli as POTUS. How else can a 'fringe' candidate get elected if we don't support the possibility? Certainly, after being elected President in 2024, RFK Jr. could change his mind. He would be in the utmost position to survey the situation on many levels, and do the right thing. The risk is seeing the possibility of a new way, rather than the old dead course. By the way, Bobby Jr. is still a relatively young man, and seems just like his father. You'll never elect a President that excoriates Israel for genocide. Just elect one that can/will change their mind about what is right and true.
This article would seem to indicate that RFK Jr. is already an afterthought in the present election year. Hope will never be achieved in the near-term.
Even the ICJ will never indict Israel for genocide. What was South Africa thinking? Of course, Israel has been committing genocide, and this goes back to 1948, when the Jewish homeland was made official. That was the beginning of Palestinian conversion to the West Bank and Gaza. They had their own rights, which were nullified when the Zionist nation began. This will never change, even as genocide occurs today. Yet, the genocide is being orchestrated by the west, which could have easily approved the Balfour Declaration of 1917. If so, the outcome would be entirely different than today. By sequestering the Jews in Europe for another 30 years, c. 1918-1948. the supposed Holocaust occurred between 1939-1945, and this is what had the further effect of making it imperative that a Jewish homeland be made official. Yet, it can be shown that this decision only caused the first Israel-Arab War to occur that very year of 1948. Well, why? Jews hadn't even decided then to return to their true home, and most never did, like Einstein, who was a Zionist living in Princeton, New Jersey. So, the gesture of a Jewish Homeland was formal, and only for the purpose of continuing the war to ostracize the Palestinians. This was entirely the construction of the West, i.e., the United States, which rules the world today.
What does the present and future mean for you, Chucky? Would Hope have a cause, Faith an effect, and Liberty a future. Life goes on with a meaningful significance, and even the negative sentiments displayed here on the Eisenstein from time to time need this kind of format as a kind of relief valve. It is true that we are rather powerless and helpless in the face of evil. Yet, Hope is as eternal as seeing a new life come into the world. The lack of having this experience is what makes for a world forlorn in today's milieu.
Hmm... Seems like a modern idea of what is needed to welcome a child into your life. My parents were in a 1 bedroom apartment and tucked my oldest sister into an open drawer initially (1950). Their choices as they raised 5 children were never focused on “material security”. I myself was still a student when my first son was born. My choices were rarely based on “material security”. Three kids, a number of years of homeschooling and community work while keeping expenses low and living simply. Back to school for me when they were 7-10 and embarking on a new career in law in my 40s - choosing private practice where I had control over my work. During Covid, I left my small partnership when the others wanted to institute mandates for employees and set up on my own practice. I don’t feel I’ve compromised in any meaningful way. Less travel? Sure. My “kids” are all in their 30s now and an enormously precious gift in my life.
Of course it's a modern idea; we're not in the 1950's anymore. Haven't you noticed that everything is more expensive, and most young people will never be able to afford to buy a house? Thanks to a glut of oil, ignorance of pollution, and geopolitical factors, the Boomers came of age experiencing material abundance that will never again be seen on earth.
Our ideas of "living simply" are probably very different, too. I live off grid, in a small house I built. I endeavor to reduce my energy use, and grow my own food. Ideally, I'd live without money. But even if I reduce every other expense, the property tax bill will continue increasing at an astronomical rate (another thing people didn't worry about in 1950). This is how the Machine traps us. I know people who live this way and have children, but it's very difficult to maintain integrity, and they usually end up having to compromise and work for the Machine.
And I'd never consider working as a lawyer as compatible with my values.
I appreciate your response, and agree with your noting that many with dependents must work for the Machine. I do not have children by choice; my reasons are primarily to do with the parenting I received and a deep desire to limit burdens on finite resources. Unfortunately, my friends/colleagues with kids did not create precious blessings that will enhance the world. God, no. Instead, they have neurotic, addled, medicated, indoctrinated, technology-addicted, downright unpleasant kids. Maybe Charles’ audience is a unique subset? I’m certainly open to that possibility. Great kids do exist of course, just not in my (albeit limited) network.
The problem isn't the number of people. The problem is our relationship to consumption and our disrelationship with Nature. We were really fulfilled on a soul level, would we need to try to fill a bottomless pit with rampant consumption?
As a farmer growing on a regenerative biodynamic operation, I try to give back more than I take, but even here I am limited. The material good I can offer the world is limited, and I depend on the grace of the Sun's recurring gift of light every year for any plants to grow. I try to foster conditions to maximize the potential for life.
The world has destroyed itself many times over, and there's nothing we can do to stop the voracious hunger of people who've been hollowed out — other than loving them and perhaps sparking the light of enthusiasm in them.
We have enough resources to feed the world many times over, but access and prices prevent this. There's enough light to power the world endlessly, if we were serious about switching over to sustainable energy.
When I have children, I want them to be apart of a world open to life, new unfolding possibilities, not ever more material consumption.
Charles, I read much of your writing, and agree with you on almost everything. I also agree that we – like every species – have a purpose here, whether that's within the ecosystem and as part of a trophic cascade, or whether that's altogether on a different more subtle plane. I also agree we are here to learn. And like you I believe in hope. Personally, I think this is to do with how we live, and how conscious we can become, and especially how soon.
However (and this is not a judgement on you), I still kind of feel you are using a rather feeble justification for people having several children at a time when the sheer weight of the human species is driving all other species to extinction. We are nearly 9 billion people and rising, and that is at a time when only 4% – 4% – of mammals extinct in the wild, as free-living creatures. The rest are captive, in one way and another, for our exploitation. It's really important, I believe, for the future of all of us, human and other-than, that we shift our viewpoint from the anthropocentric to the ecocentric, and fast. Very fast.
I know that is a different argument, to do with what and how much we choose to consume. But unless the rest of humanity suddenly decides to go vegan, becomes very aware of their choices, curbs their appetites, and a great deal of land is reforested miraculously swiftly, we don't stand a chance. That's one thing, but I hate the fact that we will take all the other species on this beautiful planet down with us.
So it's hard to escape the fact that we are simply over-populated for the capacity of the earth to sustain us within our current economic and especially agricultural systems. More people is not a solution to that, in my view.
Well, how about this factor when we consider world population. If in the span of a little more than a hundred years, the world population increased from 1.5 billion in 1918, when WW I ended, to 8 billion estimated in November 2022, then it means something important about bringing life into this world after all these years. Maybe this beautiful planet has a gig that is yet to be realized. Could it be the evolution of the human soul and spirit that would see this kind of offense against specie, climate, and culture? Maybe there is a bigger objective to go along with the numbers! A dying, crumbling planet within the biosphere of earth continues to propagate its own, even amongst the tumult of the modern technological age. Now, this is the miracle to be considered. So much destruction seen, and yet the life force is the only true reality to what we are experiencing today. Eisenstein has his cap on.
This is an inspiring perspective, in alignment with the Symbiocene and symbiogenesis, where all species thrive on biodiversity. Children are a gift to the future 💕🙏
The real reason people aren't having children is multi factorial.
-economy sucks, housing is ridiculous, job market sucks, food inflation
-thankfully women have a choice to choose to not have kids. See Scandinavia, more freedom and better conditions for women lead to less population
As much as I respect those who take the burden of raising children, it's a huge sacrifice for those of us who prefer to have alone time or time alone with our partners.
What is lovely is how all the other parents help each other out, pick your kids up, have them round for food and play and vie verse. Such strong communities are made by having kids. I am glad I did it with my wife but it was horrible when she met someone else and took them off, heartbreaking. That is one thing that would put me off being a father now, so little power of the Mum takes off cross country and missing all their teenage years
I agree it’s so unfair that rights are so heavily unbalanced towards Mothers. But what’s even more unfair is denying the kids their father. Kids need their fathers influence. No matter how bad it gets between parents, they need to put that aside for the sake of their kids.
Rob! You seem to live in a world where men don't have any part in the making of children! Women have always had a choice not to have kids, it's just that for centuries, men believed they had a God-given right to have sex with us and got away with it, under the preposterous banner of 'God's law'. There is so much more complexity to it than your multi factorial markers, which I posit, have nothing to do with the decision not to have kids. Once the urge (and I mean emotional as well as physical - perhaps even existential) to have them is upon us, they generally happen. Choosing to have a child represents the greatest of our hopes. Except now it's getting harder, with fertility rates in both men and women plummeting. Whether that is by Gaia's design or by the myriad of ways we poison ourselves and our reproductive systems and so fuck up natural cycles, I don't know. Maybe it IS Gaia's way of letting us know we'd best be a lot more respectful of the lives we have, or we might just not deserve to be here, gifts or no. It's funny how we have a gazillion campaigns to 'Save the ....(insert flora/fauna) and yet we are so destructive of each other.
Here's a note & book that helps this fundamentalist-raised boy deal with our common uncertainties. The book is titled: The Christian Future; the author is Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. The author was an artillery officer in WW I; he wrote the book after WW II. The quote: "The evils of modern life cannot be escaped.... They are rather a challenge to us to find constructive ways of overcoming the sterile divorce of labor and leisure, and of mastering the sequence of changes which industrial society makes inevitable in every individual life."
Here's another book and author who are also helpful with our cascading predicaments: The author is Lao tse; the book: Tao te Ching; the translator: Stephen Mitchell. Poem #67, verse 2: "I have just three things to teach:/simplicity, patience, compassion./These three are your greatest treasures./Simple in actions and in thoughts,/you return to the source of being./Patient with both friends and enemies,/you accord with the way things are./Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world."
A note of my own here may also help. Multiple combat engagements in Vietnam taught me that sometimes impatience is also invaluable. The core value of that verse is glimpsed but not revealed: empathy. Empathy takes us into that center of simplicity, compassion, and patience, all three conspiring to enable us to see when these three wise words are refuted by the present our empathy renders impossible to ignore. This is also applicable with raising children.
Having raised two now fine, creative, industrious, and magnanimous daughters humbles me today by observing their own superior parenting to my own back when they were children. Wisdom sits in places is also the title of a brilliant Native American story about stories. Families are the most prominent places in which stories find they most welcoming places. My grandchildren teach me the value of letting them hear my stories as well as the value of welcoming their stories. When stories sit inside us, they also remind us of appropriate offering moments, which are new places the stories want to visit, and places that seemingly & spontaneously emerge in daily life.
Thank you all for your stories here. They remind me this is a great gathering place for stories.
Thank you Charles for being one of the voices our Humanity needs to hear in order for us to know the greatness we can be. Your words "You know, hope is an interesting word. It can mean wishful thinking, but it can also mean a premonition of a possibility." are so inspiring, helping us to connect to All That Is. To All That We Are. Thank you.
Goodness sakes. A lovely sentiment and a nice rationalization for us to feel good about ourselves. I am happy to be alive. I’m happy that I have 2 children. I wouldn’t be unhappy if I had three or four or five, but don’t. No great deed on my part. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if my youthful indiscretions left additional children out there unknown to me. We have sex because we are driven to it by nature. Homo sapiens is a pretty cool animal (if I do say so myself) but ultimately everything happens for a reason in the ecological sense but there is no purpose. The universe is a place of randomness. It is what it is. Homo sapiens will exist until they don’t and the universe will continue on its random journey. That doesn’t mean we should be nihilistic. Homo sapiens has evolved the ability to see consequences of its behavior, to reflect that in both altruistic and selfish behavior. Now, I love my children and my friends. I live my life in relative freedom, joyfully seeking my individual purpose because that is all I can do. Homo sapiens is now ubiquitous in the world. We define the Anthropocene. Regardless of whether we number 8 billion or 12 billion, our mark is made. Nothing to do about that, really, so enjoy the party! Unless you happen to be one of the billions of unfortunate H. Sapiens born to poverty, war, hate, and lack. The altruists will try to solve problems while the selfish will exploit. Just like H. sapiens has always done.
Thank you for this article. I feel the same- having 5 kids, I know that they are enriching our world. They are beautiful, compassionate, creative beings, elevating the consciousness of the Universe. There’s nothing more important than that. 😇
Thank you for this piece, Charles. I largely share your sentiments, but I think you are wrong to assume that young people don't want to have children out of some kind of concern for nature. I seriously doubt the authenticity of even those who put it so explicitly. Generally speaking, humans do not act for reasons. Take the most reason-oriented people there are--say, philosophers and judges--and pay close attention to them and their arguments, and it becomes abundantly obvious that they reason backwards from whatever conclusion they already favour. They rationalize, so I think it's... ahem, reasonable... to infer that that's mainly what the rest of us are doing.
Overwhelmingly, I suspect, young people are not having children because they are not finding themselves in the positions to do so, or do not expect to find themselves in the positions to do so. But even still, it is far too vague to speak of 'young people'. We should speak of the gatekeepers of babies--that is, women. Young women, by and large, do not want to have children. Or maybe, better put, they don't want it enough.
I think, when pressed, most of them would say that they do. But the 'liberation' of women has given them more options. They want children, but not yet. They want to go to school, to work, to travel, to date, to make art, whatever. That's all fine, in itself. But the trouble is, by the time they are 'ready', the conditions for having children have largely evaporated. Many women do not even attempt to have children until their mid-30s. They were never taught--no one is ever taught, because it's so taboo to say--that women's peak for reproduction is somewhere between 16-24. Women spend most of their fertile years not having babies. And then when they want to have babies, it's much more difficult to do so, and there is a shorter period of time during which it is possible. So many fewer babies are born. It's not such a mystery.
But then, many, probably most, women come to want to have children, usually by their 30s. But now the window is much shorter, and there are relatively far fewer men who are interested in these women (perhaps in part because they are subtly or not-so-subtly treated primarily as prospective sperm donors, which is hardly how a man wants to be treated). So these women can't have children, or at least don't. They have re-discovered their most primal desire and instinct, and it is no longer possible.
So what are women supposed to do in such a situation? They can acknowledge they made bad choices and that they are less desirable to men and that as such, they will never have children. That sounds like a very difficult thing to do, psychologically speaking. So instead, they can tell themselves and the rest of their world a story: that they choose not to have children (how empowering!) out of a concern for the planet (how noble!). That is a much easier story to tell oneself.
To argue that, actually, one should have children despite whatever effects it has on nature, will not move these women. This story is how they cope. They need this story. If you want young people to have more children, more women should be encouraged to do so at an earlier age. As you are fond to say, you have to give them a different story. And that story is probably one that does not glorify, say, women going to Yale Law.
Doubtless those factors are there too. I was speaking especially to the teenager in the room and his parents. The conversation had been about the despair of his peers.
Thanks for sharing that context. I suppose in a situation like that it is difficult to avoid accepting the presuppositions of the question. But still, I find it difficult to believe high school kids care much about nature. These kids won't even give up their vape pens, but they're so ready to give up having children? My sense is that worrying about the planet is mostly symbolic, a heuristic for worrying about the future. In that sense, I'd completely understand their despair.
Antinatalist sentiment isn't usually about caring for nature so much as it's about caring for one's own well-being and the well-being of one's potential children. If you're not especially happy with your own life, and you don't feel you can guarantee your children a life that's much better than your own life (or especially if you expect it will be worse), then it feels like you would just be foisting a miserable situation onto someone else — who need not have ever experienced even slight discomfort — at high cost to yourself. From that perspective it's a clear net-negative all around.
I shared this post with my mother in deep gratitude for her giving me such sturdy shoulders to stand on, so I could have a chance at dreaming something beautiful into being, and we shared a sweet and tender moment together. Thank you for inspiring that, and giving us an opportunity for deeper love and appreciation.
Beautiful. This made my eyes leak. Wish I could share the same with my Mom. Never take her presence for granted!
Beautiful line looking for the remainder of its verse: "This made my eyes leak." What happened to the verse? Or, is it still percolating? Is it in the "Wish I could...?" part? Sometime for me, all I need is to sit and read another's lines to begin seeing more of my own....
Namaste'.
Thank you, Charles. In the short days of January I tend to lose hope. I do know that our mother Gaia knows how to go on. As a mother myself, I know what it takes to conceive and bear and bring forth a child. I have never felt that it was in vain. Always have known that my daughter is here for a good purpose and have been watching to see how her purpose will be fulfilled. We humans are part of this creation, part of this earth and heaven, one of the many children of Gaia. She has not made a mistake in bringing us forth, evolution is continuing and we are part of it. May we mature and do our part well.
Those from the Neo-Marxist PostModernist mindset pretend to believe humans are no more special than other species and therefore should limit their numbers to aid other species. By this very argument, they reveal that they do believe humans are special. Humans are to sacrifice themselves for the good of all. That is a plagiarized form of Christianity.
In Charles’ book, Climate, A New Story my favorite portion was Tending the Wild about how the landscape of California before the Gold Rush was a cultivated landscape, cultivated by the indigenous people and that to them untouched wilderness was a lesser state of being. Yes, for nature to be at her highest state she needs the hand and mind of humanity. I know a present day indigenous leader in California whom I have heard express the same vision. Ron Goode, tribal chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe in California.
In the Bible in Genesis humanity is placed in Eden to “dress and keep it” The Hebrew for ‘dress and keep” could also be translated to “serve and observe closely”. This service and observation to me is the real heart of the purpose of the gift of human dominion over the earth for if we wisely meet our material needs the earth is brought to a richer more beautiful state. And for that to happen humanity needed to be fruitful and multiply so there would be enough of us to effect that.
Here is Tending the Wild from Charles’ book Climate - A New Story, a very wise book and well worth purchasing and reading
https://charleseisenstein.org/books/climate-a-new-story/eng/tending-the-wild/
By the way I am not advocating a wholesale return to the indigenous lifestyle once present in California, but an application of wisdom to find new life giving ways using what we know and are now and finding new knowledges and applying knowledges now on the sideline.
Thank you so much for this essay. And I’m appalled at the insensitivity? audacity? of the person who said such a thing to you about having 4 kids. Back in “the day” (1980s/1990s), when I was an activist invited to keynote and offer workshops around the country on “Gaian Economics”, “creating an economy for a living Earth”, in the Q & A after one presentation, a white, middle aged man who had no clue I was a mom of 3 boys, went on about how women were having too many children, population growth, etc. in quite a dogmatic way. In addition to pointing out to him that it is we, in the western world whose consumption far exceeds the consumption of the brown women in what was called the “third world” back then, he seemed to be denigrating (forgetting, of course, that it takes 2), that the solution is education and opportunity for women. That when women have opportunities for education and ways of supporting their families, they have fewer children. Then, because he was so dogmatic, and he irritated me so much (I was young then, in my 30s, LOL), I said to him: Oh, and by the way, I have 3 boys. Do you think I should have aborted one of them? He didn’t know what to say. It was like . . . oh well, it’s you and you’re aware so your kids are okay . . . like because I am a privileged white woman, I was not being irresponsible. It was just the poor, brown women who were. Anyway, I love your response and that you managed to keep your cool. And re: hope. I agree. While I don’t have hope in the conventional sense, I have something better: I know that we can do this, turn things around, that humans have amazing innate but latent talents and even “powers” that we must acknowledge and learn to use and honor in each other. I don’t know that we will. But I do know that it is possible.
I never had kids because I didn’t want to compromise my ideals for the sake of material security (at least, not more than any individual already has to compromise in this society). The parents I know were more likely to take a job for The Man, because they have mouths to feed. Some of them come up with sophisticated rationalizations to justify it.
I wouldn’t want to be in the position where I had several dependents and was given the opportunity to work for someone who endorses genocide...
What do you do when you find yourself working for an organization that does some appalling things or contributes to an appalling system? What do you do when you advise a politician with whom you agree on most things, yet with whom you have a sharp disagreement on an important issue -- for example, war crimes against Gaza? Do you just quit, hoping your departure will have an effect besides making you look principled? Or do you stay on as long as you feel you might have some influence? I decided that unless I do everything I can to influence the candidate on this issue, I would be unable to look a Gazan in the face. I am in a position where I have some influence. i am doing the best I can to use that influence well. I have to at least try.
Anyway, I don't feel compelled to stay on in order to feed my children, thank goodness. I have the freedom to do what I think is the most helpful.
I might try to change the system, while also remaining honest about whether I'm able to have any impact. Lots of people hold onto careers in destructive organizations for decades, fooling themselves into thinking that they're making a difference.
Many have left RFK's campaign. Are they quitters, or do they think he's not going to change his view?
Whatever's going on with RFK, it doesn't seem like just a difference of opinion. Either he's been blackmailed or bribed. How much influence could you have in that situation?
He hasn't been blackmailed or bribed. He is completely sincere in his beliefs. That is why I think he could change. Go ahead and judge me for it, but I am determined to keep trying as long as I believe there is hope.
RFK Jr. is being sabotaged by the very people that had such high hopes for him and his campaign. If this is all about genocide, then who would be the better candidate that could change his mind? Certainly not Biden or Trump, who both have supported Israeli as POTUS. How else can a 'fringe' candidate get elected if we don't support the possibility? Certainly, after being elected President in 2024, RFK Jr. could change his mind. He would be in the utmost position to survey the situation on many levels, and do the right thing. The risk is seeing the possibility of a new way, rather than the old dead course. By the way, Bobby Jr. is still a relatively young man, and seems just like his father. You'll never elect a President that excoriates Israel for genocide. Just elect one that can/will change their mind about what is right and true.
This article would seem to indicate that RFK Jr. is already an afterthought in the present election year. Hope will never be achieved in the near-term.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-another-trump-nomination-presents-123205141.html
Even the ICJ will never indict Israel for genocide. What was South Africa thinking? Of course, Israel has been committing genocide, and this goes back to 1948, when the Jewish homeland was made official. That was the beginning of Palestinian conversion to the West Bank and Gaza. They had their own rights, which were nullified when the Zionist nation began. This will never change, even as genocide occurs today. Yet, the genocide is being orchestrated by the west, which could have easily approved the Balfour Declaration of 1917. If so, the outcome would be entirely different than today. By sequestering the Jews in Europe for another 30 years, c. 1918-1948. the supposed Holocaust occurred between 1939-1945, and this is what had the further effect of making it imperative that a Jewish homeland be made official. Yet, it can be shown that this decision only caused the first Israel-Arab War to occur that very year of 1948. Well, why? Jews hadn't even decided then to return to their true home, and most never did, like Einstein, who was a Zionist living in Princeton, New Jersey. So, the gesture of a Jewish Homeland was formal, and only for the purpose of continuing the war to ostracize the Palestinians. This was entirely the construction of the West, i.e., the United States, which rules the world today.
How about that for a short and concise :)
What does the present and future mean for you, Chucky? Would Hope have a cause, Faith an effect, and Liberty a future. Life goes on with a meaningful significance, and even the negative sentiments displayed here on the Eisenstein from time to time need this kind of format as a kind of relief valve. It is true that we are rather powerless and helpless in the face of evil. Yet, Hope is as eternal as seeing a new life come into the world. The lack of having this experience is what makes for a world forlorn in today's milieu.
I think I have with this very comment on motivations for continuing the human species, and a future.
Hmm... Seems like a modern idea of what is needed to welcome a child into your life. My parents were in a 1 bedroom apartment and tucked my oldest sister into an open drawer initially (1950). Their choices as they raised 5 children were never focused on “material security”. I myself was still a student when my first son was born. My choices were rarely based on “material security”. Three kids, a number of years of homeschooling and community work while keeping expenses low and living simply. Back to school for me when they were 7-10 and embarking on a new career in law in my 40s - choosing private practice where I had control over my work. During Covid, I left my small partnership when the others wanted to institute mandates for employees and set up on my own practice. I don’t feel I’ve compromised in any meaningful way. Less travel? Sure. My “kids” are all in their 30s now and an enormously precious gift in my life.
Of course it's a modern idea; we're not in the 1950's anymore. Haven't you noticed that everything is more expensive, and most young people will never be able to afford to buy a house? Thanks to a glut of oil, ignorance of pollution, and geopolitical factors, the Boomers came of age experiencing material abundance that will never again be seen on earth.
Our ideas of "living simply" are probably very different, too. I live off grid, in a small house I built. I endeavor to reduce my energy use, and grow my own food. Ideally, I'd live without money. But even if I reduce every other expense, the property tax bill will continue increasing at an astronomical rate (another thing people didn't worry about in 1950). This is how the Machine traps us. I know people who live this way and have children, but it's very difficult to maintain integrity, and they usually end up having to compromise and work for the Machine.
And I'd never consider working as a lawyer as compatible with my values.
I appreciate your response, and agree with your noting that many with dependents must work for the Machine. I do not have children by choice; my reasons are primarily to do with the parenting I received and a deep desire to limit burdens on finite resources. Unfortunately, my friends/colleagues with kids did not create precious blessings that will enhance the world. God, no. Instead, they have neurotic, addled, medicated, indoctrinated, technology-addicted, downright unpleasant kids. Maybe Charles’ audience is a unique subset? I’m certainly open to that possibility. Great kids do exist of course, just not in my (albeit limited) network.
The problem isn't the number of people. The problem is our relationship to consumption and our disrelationship with Nature. We were really fulfilled on a soul level, would we need to try to fill a bottomless pit with rampant consumption?
As a farmer growing on a regenerative biodynamic operation, I try to give back more than I take, but even here I am limited. The material good I can offer the world is limited, and I depend on the grace of the Sun's recurring gift of light every year for any plants to grow. I try to foster conditions to maximize the potential for life.
The world has destroyed itself many times over, and there's nothing we can do to stop the voracious hunger of people who've been hollowed out — other than loving them and perhaps sparking the light of enthusiasm in them.
We have enough resources to feed the world many times over, but access and prices prevent this. There's enough light to power the world endlessly, if we were serious about switching over to sustainable energy.
When I have children, I want them to be apart of a world open to life, new unfolding possibilities, not ever more material consumption.
Charles, I read much of your writing, and agree with you on almost everything. I also agree that we – like every species – have a purpose here, whether that's within the ecosystem and as part of a trophic cascade, or whether that's altogether on a different more subtle plane. I also agree we are here to learn. And like you I believe in hope. Personally, I think this is to do with how we live, and how conscious we can become, and especially how soon.
However (and this is not a judgement on you), I still kind of feel you are using a rather feeble justification for people having several children at a time when the sheer weight of the human species is driving all other species to extinction. We are nearly 9 billion people and rising, and that is at a time when only 4% – 4% – of mammals extinct in the wild, as free-living creatures. The rest are captive, in one way and another, for our exploitation. It's really important, I believe, for the future of all of us, human and other-than, that we shift our viewpoint from the anthropocentric to the ecocentric, and fast. Very fast.
I know that is a different argument, to do with what and how much we choose to consume. But unless the rest of humanity suddenly decides to go vegan, becomes very aware of their choices, curbs their appetites, and a great deal of land is reforested miraculously swiftly, we don't stand a chance. That's one thing, but I hate the fact that we will take all the other species on this beautiful planet down with us.
So it's hard to escape the fact that we are simply over-populated for the capacity of the earth to sustain us within our current economic and especially agricultural systems. More people is not a solution to that, in my view.
Well, how about this factor when we consider world population. If in the span of a little more than a hundred years, the world population increased from 1.5 billion in 1918, when WW I ended, to 8 billion estimated in November 2022, then it means something important about bringing life into this world after all these years. Maybe this beautiful planet has a gig that is yet to be realized. Could it be the evolution of the human soul and spirit that would see this kind of offense against specie, climate, and culture? Maybe there is a bigger objective to go along with the numbers! A dying, crumbling planet within the biosphere of earth continues to propagate its own, even amongst the tumult of the modern technological age. Now, this is the miracle to be considered. So much destruction seen, and yet the life force is the only true reality to what we are experiencing today. Eisenstein has his cap on.
This is an inspiring perspective, in alignment with the Symbiocene and symbiogenesis, where all species thrive on biodiversity. Children are a gift to the future 💕🙏
The real reason people aren't having children is multi factorial.
-economy sucks, housing is ridiculous, job market sucks, food inflation
-thankfully women have a choice to choose to not have kids. See Scandinavia, more freedom and better conditions for women lead to less population
As much as I respect those who take the burden of raising children, it's a huge sacrifice for those of us who prefer to have alone time or time alone with our partners.
It is also incredibly enriching
True, I love kids but the way society is leads to huge difficulty.
I see my sister having to do so much to raise her kid.
Perhaps if I lived in the country, I would have had kids.
What is lovely is how all the other parents help each other out, pick your kids up, have them round for food and play and vie verse. Such strong communities are made by having kids. I am glad I did it with my wife but it was horrible when she met someone else and took them off, heartbreaking. That is one thing that would put me off being a father now, so little power of the Mum takes off cross country and missing all their teenage years
I agree it’s so unfair that rights are so heavily unbalanced towards Mothers. But what’s even more unfair is denying the kids their father. Kids need their fathers influence. No matter how bad it gets between parents, they need to put that aside for the sake of their kids.
Indeed
Rob! You seem to live in a world where men don't have any part in the making of children! Women have always had a choice not to have kids, it's just that for centuries, men believed they had a God-given right to have sex with us and got away with it, under the preposterous banner of 'God's law'. There is so much more complexity to it than your multi factorial markers, which I posit, have nothing to do with the decision not to have kids. Once the urge (and I mean emotional as well as physical - perhaps even existential) to have them is upon us, they generally happen. Choosing to have a child represents the greatest of our hopes. Except now it's getting harder, with fertility rates in both men and women plummeting. Whether that is by Gaia's design or by the myriad of ways we poison ourselves and our reproductive systems and so fuck up natural cycles, I don't know. Maybe it IS Gaia's way of letting us know we'd best be a lot more respectful of the lives we have, or we might just not deserve to be here, gifts or no. It's funny how we have a gazillion campaigns to 'Save the ....(insert flora/fauna) and yet we are so destructive of each other.
Earth might know what it is doing... how would we know anyway? Most humans don’t have a clue. Breeders will breed.
This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
Here's a note & book that helps this fundamentalist-raised boy deal with our common uncertainties. The book is titled: The Christian Future; the author is Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. The author was an artillery officer in WW I; he wrote the book after WW II. The quote: "The evils of modern life cannot be escaped.... They are rather a challenge to us to find constructive ways of overcoming the sterile divorce of labor and leisure, and of mastering the sequence of changes which industrial society makes inevitable in every individual life."
Here's another book and author who are also helpful with our cascading predicaments: The author is Lao tse; the book: Tao te Ching; the translator: Stephen Mitchell. Poem #67, verse 2: "I have just three things to teach:/simplicity, patience, compassion./These three are your greatest treasures./Simple in actions and in thoughts,/you return to the source of being./Patient with both friends and enemies,/you accord with the way things are./Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world."
A note of my own here may also help. Multiple combat engagements in Vietnam taught me that sometimes impatience is also invaluable. The core value of that verse is glimpsed but not revealed: empathy. Empathy takes us into that center of simplicity, compassion, and patience, all three conspiring to enable us to see when these three wise words are refuted by the present our empathy renders impossible to ignore. This is also applicable with raising children.
Having raised two now fine, creative, industrious, and magnanimous daughters humbles me today by observing their own superior parenting to my own back when they were children. Wisdom sits in places is also the title of a brilliant Native American story about stories. Families are the most prominent places in which stories find they most welcoming places. My grandchildren teach me the value of letting them hear my stories as well as the value of welcoming their stories. When stories sit inside us, they also remind us of appropriate offering moments, which are new places the stories want to visit, and places that seemingly & spontaneously emerge in daily life.
Thank you all for your stories here. They remind me this is a great gathering place for stories.
Namaste'.
Namaste'.
Thank you Charles for being one of the voices our Humanity needs to hear in order for us to know the greatness we can be. Your words "You know, hope is an interesting word. It can mean wishful thinking, but it can also mean a premonition of a possibility." are so inspiring, helping us to connect to All That Is. To All That We Are. Thank you.
Goodness sakes. A lovely sentiment and a nice rationalization for us to feel good about ourselves. I am happy to be alive. I’m happy that I have 2 children. I wouldn’t be unhappy if I had three or four or five, but don’t. No great deed on my part. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if my youthful indiscretions left additional children out there unknown to me. We have sex because we are driven to it by nature. Homo sapiens is a pretty cool animal (if I do say so myself) but ultimately everything happens for a reason in the ecological sense but there is no purpose. The universe is a place of randomness. It is what it is. Homo sapiens will exist until they don’t and the universe will continue on its random journey. That doesn’t mean we should be nihilistic. Homo sapiens has evolved the ability to see consequences of its behavior, to reflect that in both altruistic and selfish behavior. Now, I love my children and my friends. I live my life in relative freedom, joyfully seeking my individual purpose because that is all I can do. Homo sapiens is now ubiquitous in the world. We define the Anthropocene. Regardless of whether we number 8 billion or 12 billion, our mark is made. Nothing to do about that, really, so enjoy the party! Unless you happen to be one of the billions of unfortunate H. Sapiens born to poverty, war, hate, and lack. The altruists will try to solve problems while the selfish will exploit. Just like H. sapiens has always done.
Thank you for this article. I feel the same- having 5 kids, I know that they are enriching our world. They are beautiful, compassionate, creative beings, elevating the consciousness of the Universe. There’s nothing more important than that. 😇
Thank you for this piece, Charles. I largely share your sentiments, but I think you are wrong to assume that young people don't want to have children out of some kind of concern for nature. I seriously doubt the authenticity of even those who put it so explicitly. Generally speaking, humans do not act for reasons. Take the most reason-oriented people there are--say, philosophers and judges--and pay close attention to them and their arguments, and it becomes abundantly obvious that they reason backwards from whatever conclusion they already favour. They rationalize, so I think it's... ahem, reasonable... to infer that that's mainly what the rest of us are doing.
Overwhelmingly, I suspect, young people are not having children because they are not finding themselves in the positions to do so, or do not expect to find themselves in the positions to do so. But even still, it is far too vague to speak of 'young people'. We should speak of the gatekeepers of babies--that is, women. Young women, by and large, do not want to have children. Or maybe, better put, they don't want it enough.
I think, when pressed, most of them would say that they do. But the 'liberation' of women has given them more options. They want children, but not yet. They want to go to school, to work, to travel, to date, to make art, whatever. That's all fine, in itself. But the trouble is, by the time they are 'ready', the conditions for having children have largely evaporated. Many women do not even attempt to have children until their mid-30s. They were never taught--no one is ever taught, because it's so taboo to say--that women's peak for reproduction is somewhere between 16-24. Women spend most of their fertile years not having babies. And then when they want to have babies, it's much more difficult to do so, and there is a shorter period of time during which it is possible. So many fewer babies are born. It's not such a mystery.
But then, many, probably most, women come to want to have children, usually by their 30s. But now the window is much shorter, and there are relatively far fewer men who are interested in these women (perhaps in part because they are subtly or not-so-subtly treated primarily as prospective sperm donors, which is hardly how a man wants to be treated). So these women can't have children, or at least don't. They have re-discovered their most primal desire and instinct, and it is no longer possible.
So what are women supposed to do in such a situation? They can acknowledge they made bad choices and that they are less desirable to men and that as such, they will never have children. That sounds like a very difficult thing to do, psychologically speaking. So instead, they can tell themselves and the rest of their world a story: that they choose not to have children (how empowering!) out of a concern for the planet (how noble!). That is a much easier story to tell oneself.
To argue that, actually, one should have children despite whatever effects it has on nature, will not move these women. This story is how they cope. They need this story. If you want young people to have more children, more women should be encouraged to do so at an earlier age. As you are fond to say, you have to give them a different story. And that story is probably one that does not glorify, say, women going to Yale Law.
Doubtless those factors are there too. I was speaking especially to the teenager in the room and his parents. The conversation had been about the despair of his peers.
Thanks for sharing that context. I suppose in a situation like that it is difficult to avoid accepting the presuppositions of the question. But still, I find it difficult to believe high school kids care much about nature. These kids won't even give up their vape pens, but they're so ready to give up having children? My sense is that worrying about the planet is mostly symbolic, a heuristic for worrying about the future. In that sense, I'd completely understand their despair.
Antinatalist sentiment isn't usually about caring for nature so much as it's about caring for one's own well-being and the well-being of one's potential children. If you're not especially happy with your own life, and you don't feel you can guarantee your children a life that's much better than your own life (or especially if you expect it will be worse), then it feels like you would just be foisting a miserable situation onto someone else — who need not have ever experienced even slight discomfort — at high cost to yourself. From that perspective it's a clear net-negative all around.