Beth, some folks in my neighborhood adopted for environmental reasons. They would have been able to conceive…he had a vasectomy. Many people took it hard, especially because this is a good looking, well educated, successful couple. Many folks made comments like, “Our society NEEDS people like you to reproduce.” Interesting….

It took me a long time to decide to have kids. Had 9-11 never happened, I might still be more focused on climbing the corporate ladder. My eldest was conceived a month after 9-11. It changed everything for me.

I agree with the notion that the child-free option should be presented more fully to kids. When I was a DINK (dual income no kids) I really resented so many people daring to ask us when we were going to have kids.

Even though I’m a “green Mom” now, I still really identify strongly with child-free people. After all, I didn’t have my first until I was 39!!! I spent most of my life without kids, and frankly, some days I feel like I’m still getting used to the idea!

In other words, human behavior of any kind follows the curve of other phenomena – like throwing dice. So it makes me question free will…though each of us certainly believes he/she is making a free choice, when taken as a part of the whole the choice is quite predictable. That’s why I am very leery of saying that human intellect makes any difference. Not that I want it that way, but we can’t escape the statistics.

My family line has been quite the opposite. I recently read my great-great grandfather’s memoir. He and his wife had 13 children. By the time he was 80 years old he proudly reported that he and his since deceased wife had exactly 100 descendants.

My own parents both came from families with 8 children. My parents had six children including myself. My parents are in their mid fifties now and already have six grandchildren…. a total of 12 descendants. I myself have over 60 first cousins… and I have never attempted to keep track of second cousins or my cousins’ offspring as their are waaay too many of them. I come from Mormon stock…. Utah Mormons to be exact, and the culture is very mother/father/child centered.

I myself have not had children and do not plan on having more than one. I absolutely love children but am not having one now and would never have more than one biological child for environmental reasons. My partner thinks that having a biological child is part of the human experience. If it wasn’t for his feelings I probably would have already had my tubes tied.

I think that a culture with less children would not look negatively on those who do have children. Or look negatively on the children themselves. These children would be all the more precious. I do feel baby sick (like homesick… not sick of babies) sometimes and I am looking for more ways to interact with my out of state nieces and nephews, and for ways to interact with and help nurture children in my own community. What ever happened to “it takes a village to raise a child”? I think that women can choose not to have biological children due to concerns about the human population, and still find ways to be “mothers” besides adopting a child of their own. They can teach, mentor, babysit, become a nurse, etc.

First of all, over breeding is DEFINITELY a problem. When something eventually goes wrong, and people are fighting each other to survive, we don’t have enough for all these people.

Just look at the mess the U.S. has become. It’s tragic how disgusting this country is, right now. Involved in 3 wars, politicians who can do nothing for the people that’s right, we have people living in tent cities, an atrocious unemployment percentage. The fact is, the world can’t accommodate more people, and then those people’s people, and so on. Eventually, something will happen to “cull the herd”.

Another thing to think about is the cost of raising children. The cost of raising a child, if born TODAY, raised in MY NEIGHBORHOOD in the South, NO COLLEGE, in a two parent family in my $38,000-$64,000 income range(lower middle class by today’s standards), according to the Cost of Raising a Child Calculator for the first year is $11,000, alone. Total cost by age 18 is $200,052. How about 3 boys? $600,000. Who’s prepared for that?!

Those are things no one teaches you before you jump into the deep end of the reproduction gene pool. I disagree with the person who said it’s biologically and psychologically wired into us to procreate. I believe, rather, that it’s a choice we make. And, that it’s usually the most common choice. But, that doesn’t make it a biological one.

Think back to the infamous, albeit non existent, Swine Flu pandemic. Now, think about what will happen when a REAL pandemic hits us? We have children running around with no immune systems, rampant autism, rampant allergy problems, etc. The population is a ticking time bomb for a real pandemic. We didn’t have enough Swine flu vaccines to go around the first time(regardless of your opinions on vaccines for flus). I doubt very highly that we’re going to be able to keep up with a real pandemic. The American food supply is horribly tainted with mass produced toxins of all types, and we just don’t have the immunities to keep up anymore.

As for adoption, it’s not more eco friendly, no. Just because the adopting couple decides not to put one more child on the planet, there are too many as it is. It doesn’t help anything until more people hop on the bandwagon. But, the one person was right who said that the problem is that most people want a HEALTHY baby. Most won’t lower their standards to include special needs children. So, the problem really isn’t being fixed and adoption is a moot point.

Do we need to stop reproducing at alarming rates? Yes. Just do the math over a couple hundred years. Start with 2 people and give each breeding couple two offspring. Do the math. It’s frightening. Then go watch the Duggars and blood will shoot our your nose. No joke.

Your beliefs are your own business, but how can you say the population of the world is not ours to control? Clearly, we DO have the ability to make choices about and control our own reproduction, through any number of means. And if those means were exercised by people on a global scale, it WOULD amount to us controlling the population of the world. Acting as if we can’t exert control on the population of the world sounds like a rather convenient abdication of real responsibility for our actions to me, for with knowledge and power (which as I said, we clearly do have) comes responsibility to use that knowledge and power wisely.