What is Fair Start?
The Fair Start Movement is the convergence of
social, eco, and reproductive justice to ensure every child a fair start in life.
Social Justice
Because inequality is inherited and unequal opportunities affect kids for life.
Eco Justice
Because children have a right to nature, and healthy, safe environments.
Reproductive Justice
Because it is the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.
Why Fair Start?
We know that early childhood experience is pivotal to lifetime outcomes. Why are we waiting for adverse childhood experiences to occur before acting?
Children deserve equitable conditions, right from the beginning. A fair start in life is the first human right – it overrides all others. It is what children are entitled to under the Children’s Rights Convention. And ensuring an eco-social fair start in life for all kids can have ten to twenty times the long run impact on the key social and ecological crises we are facing today relative to other interventions.
How Can We GIVE ALL KIDS A FAIR START?
By enacting child-centered policies made to level the playing field, and with
parents choosing smaller and well-planned families, we can ensure every child a fair start in life.
Parents who plan, and wait to be ready before having kids.
Communities and governments who ensure resources to give all kids a fair start.
Small, sustainable Families who make it all possible.
When communities and parents embrace smaller and more equitable families, those communities and families are able to sustainably invest more resources in every child and create the future children deserve.
Pathways for specific and achievable metrics for each of these can be found here.
What We Do
The Fair Start Movement is a collective of parents and young people, child advocates, activists, health practitioners, social scientists, ethicists, and institutions from a range of causes who come together to advance Fair Start efforts at the state, federal, and global level.
We advocate for informed, inclusive policies rather than ones focused on short-term and unsustainable economic growth with damaging ecological consequences. We call on those with a platform to speak out, from celebrities to those in governance. We also build our movement through a growing coalition of organizations. But most importantly, we empower young people and parents to share their stories and force accountability from those who oppose giving kids a fair start and threaten our and our children’s future.
Campaigns
Recent Blogs
Open Letter to the UN Environmental Program: The Cost of Not Adopting Fair Start Reproductive Justice Is Mounting
Dear Director Andersen, World Environment Day 2021 provided a crucial opportunity for the United Nations to make good on its promise to reset humanity's relationship with nature. But by continuing to adhere to a family planning model that allows unfettered growth,...
The Fair Start Movement is Here
After five years of research and evolution, we are excited to announce that HavingKids is becoming the Fair Start Movement. This comes from the input of many voices from diverse and intersectional areas in advocacy, as the organization pivots to more of a collective...
Promoting Children’s Welfare Through Parental Choice
Guest author: Jonathan Anomaly Editor's note: Fair Start supporters will recognize that Jonathan's approach could conflict with the Fair Start family planning modeling our organization promotes, but we encourage debate around these issues and appreciate feedback on...
One Family Shares Their Story
A Mother’s Plea: Collective Planning
A Message from Fair Start Movement
Co-Director, Catharina Hughey
