Fair Start Movement

Author: Fair Start Movement

  • 2020 Candidates: We Can’t Fight Inequality Without Family Planning Investments

    2020 Candidates: We Can’t Fight Inequality Without Family Planning Investments

    As 2020 contenders like Warren, Booker, Harris, Gillibrand, Schultz, and others make the media rounds, we’ve been hearing a common theme: creating a future where Americans have the opportunity to succeed. They talk about getting a fair shot and the struggle to get ahead.

    Elizabeth Warren frequently declares that it shouldn’t matter where you come from. She wants to fight for “…an America where every kid, no matter what that kid’s zip code is, has that same fighting chance.” It’s a trope used frequently by candidates.  

    But the reality is, it does matter what zip code a child is born into. If we want a country where the zip code in which you are born doesn’t matter, family planning HAS to be part of that picture. There’s no way around it.

    In “Giving Kids a Fair Chance,” Nobel Prize Economist James Heckman argues, “the accident of birth is the greatest source of inequality in America today. Children born into disadvantage are, by the time they start kindergarten, already at risk of dropping out of school, teen pregnancy, crime, and a lifetime of low-wage work.”

    Being born into poverty harms kids for life, and the longer it is experienced, the harder it is to overcome. Unequal opportunities translate into unequal lifelong outcomes by the time children reach the age of five. And right now a whopping 41% of American children live in or near poverty. Inequality in the U.S. is so pervasive that the UN has called us “the most unequal society in the developed world.”

    There’s no level playing field without a fair start in life.
    If we’re not talking about fairness from birth, we are not addressing the disparities in cognitive, emotional and health development that are inflicted. We’re not addressing the gap between young children who receive full attention from their parents and those who are missing critical early learning and social skills because their parents are working multiple jobs to get by.

    We squabble about how to improve school performance while ignoring the fact that 14.8 million kids in the U.S. don’t have enough to eat. It doesn’t take an expert to recognize that hungry kids cannot concentrate and do well in school. 

    As the Huffington Post explained:

    “The root of the problem of school performance is that we do not know how to effectively respond to the impact of poverty on a child’s readiness to learn or how to provide more effective instruction to accelerate progress for low-income students who find themselves behind their peers.

    Children born into poverty must overcome significant obstacles to their educational success before ever stepping a foot into a classroom or school. And once they do enter school, they encounter a system designed to provide instruction to groups of children that are expected to learn in the same environment and at the same pace. For children in poverty who began their formal schooling already behind other children, this uniform pace and structure assure that they will never catch up to their peers.”

    How Family Planning Reduces Inequality
    The decades of evidence is clear. Parents who plan, wait, and focus resources on smaller families are more financially secure and stable, parent better, and invest more in each child. The results pay off for kids in the form of greater academic achievement, emotional health, social mobility, health, community participation, gender equality, lifetime success, and more. Research indicates that better family planning is the most effective way to end the cycle of poverty.

    Fixing Our Broken System
    Some candidates are exploring the idea of a Green New Deal among other fixes. Yes, corporations and the 1% need to pay their fair share in taxes, adults need a living wage, and the cost of higher education needs to be addressed. But history shows that fairer taxes and better jobs are not enough. All of that must go hand-in-hand with investments in children and family planning to enable every child to succeed throughout their development and into adulthood.

    One solution? Guaranteed Minimum Income tied to family planning. Having Kids has proposed such a plan to reduce inequality in D.C. Another approach is having great success in Colorado through the LARC4CO program, a partner of Having Kids. They offer affordable long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) to reduce unintended pregnancy and empower families to achieve greater stability before having kids. Investments like these are powerful tools in reducing economic inequality. 

    Until we invest in better family planning to give all kids a fair start, zip codes will continue to matter in the fight for equality. We implore the candidates to start the conversation.

    TAKE ACTION: Tweet the candidates and tell them that we must invest in family planning to reduce inequality. Use the hashtag #fairstart.

  • How are Vaccinations and Family Planning Related?

    How are Vaccinations and Family Planning Related?

    In the new release, The Ethics of Vaccination, Alberto Giubilini argues, “Vaccination raises ethical issues about the responsibilities of individuals, communities, and states in preventing serious and potentially life-threatening infectious diseases.”

    Vaccination is about the collective responsibility to protect the herd through the choices we make ourselves. Can the same be said in regards to family planning?

    The Wall Street Journal’s Mark Oppenheimer said last fall, “…People should do what they want to do…And those of us who want five children should have them.” Father Rennier, who urges parents to have as many as God will allow, is another example of short-sighted thinking that ignores the needs of kids and the community.

    Like the anti-vax movement, it is isolationist thinking. The days of seeing family as the building of our own little kingdoms is over. Such a view ignores the attention and resources that every child deserves. Seeing kids as personal property is also a disaster for the world. Parents who choose to have large families do so without consideration for their impact on animals, the environment, or rising inequality.

    As with vaccinating, don’t we all have a responsibility do our part for the good of the whole? In this case, to plan our families in a way that is conscientious of the needs of both our kids and the world around us?

    Thoughtful family planning means delaying parenthood and having no more than two kids. Communities who do so make for increased stability, less crowding, a smaller impact on the planet, greater investment in each child, and more shared resources for everyone to get a fair start in life. Cooperating means better outcomes for all. 

    When we think of it in terms of the best interest of kids, it’s a no brainer.

     

  • Meghan and Harry: Consider Having a Small Family

    Meghan and Harry: Consider Having a Small Family

    Having Kids sent a letter today to Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, respectfully asking that she and her husband Prince Harry consider setting an urgently needed example for the world by making the thoughtful choice to have a small family.

    Read the letter here.

    Having Kids promotes the sustainable and human-rights based Fair Start family planning model to ensure a fair start in life for every child. Small, well-planned families are the most effective way to end poverty and to reduce our impact on the planet at the same time.

    We previously sent a letter to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge following news that the couple was considering having a third child. As we have said in the past, there are a number of reasons for writing to the Royals. With the simultaneous threats of accelerating climate change and rising inequality across the globe, there is a need for role models who have a global presence. The facts make it clear why:

    • 387 million children worldwide live in extreme poverty.
    • 4.5 million children in the UK live in poverty, and that number is expected to soar.
    • Children born into poverty are more likely to be poor as adults, passing it on to their kids.
    • As inequality increases, child welfare decreases.
    • Children of color are disproportionately affected.
    • Inequality manifests in a number of ways including child abuse, unsafe neighborhoods, poor health, and impeded cognitive development and ability to learn. In fact, 200 million young children do not develop at the same level as their non-poor peers.
    • Despite alarmist warnings about declining fertility rates, the population is growing.

    But when parents wait and have small families, they and their communities are able to invest more in every child to give them a fair start on a level playing field. Smaller families have also been shown to:

    • increase gender equality as women with small families tend to have greater decision making power and greater lifetime success
    • increase the standard of living of families
    • improve financial and familial stability
    • result in better parenting and increased levels of happiness

    The COP24 global summit this past fall showed that world leaders are failing in their duty to address the greatest threat to the stability and sustainability of our planet: large families. The world needs conscientious figures like Harry and Meghan to bring attention to the trend towards smaller families as a positive one, and to lead the discussion on the future that kids deserve.

  • Are COP24 World Leaders Ignoring the Greatest Factor in Climate Change?

    Are COP24 World Leaders Ignoring the Greatest Factor in Climate Change?

    Right now, world leaders are meeting in Katowice, Poland for the COP24 Conference to finalize the negotiations outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement. Unfortunately, the agenda indicates no discussion about the greatest factor in mitigating human impact on climate: sustainable family planning. Much of the agenda revolves around reigning in industrial emissions. Certainly, that’s important, but aren’t we missing the elephant in the room? Those emissions are driven by the demand that people create.

    We’re a already facing life with more deadly acts of nature, like the California wildfires that took 101 lives and the east coast hurricanes that took 87 lives this year. We’re also seeing less habitable land, water scarcity, and the extinction of wildlife at an alarming rate.

    Our kids are depending on us to save their future in the little time left before we reach a point of no return. Most of the world leaders in attendance at the COP24 conference are parents themselves. As illustrated by the list below, a large portion of them are doing their part to set an example by having a small family with no more than two kids.

    List of Speakers for Heads of State and Heads of Government High-Level Segment:

    Leaders with small families:
    His Excellency Mr. Baron Divavesi Waqa, President of Nauru – 1 kid (adopted)
    His Excellency Mr. Mokgweetsi Eric Masisi, President of Botswana – 1 kid
    His Excellency Mr. Raimonds Vējonis, President of Latvia – 2 kids
    His Excellency Mr. Rumen Georgiev Radev, President of Bulgaria – 2 kids
    His Excellency Mr. Borut Pahor, President of Slovenia – 1 kid
    His Excellency Mr. Milo Djukanovic, President of Montenegro – 1 kid
    His Excellency Mr. Alexander Van der Bellen, President of Austria – 2 kids
    Her Excellency Ms. Bidhya Devi Bhandari, President of Nepal – 2 kids
    His Excellency Mr. Pedro Sánchez Perez-Castejón, President of the Government of Spain – 2 kids
    His Excellency Mr. Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands – no kids
    Her Excellency Ms. Ana Brnabić, Prime Minister of Serbia – no kids
    His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See – celibate
    His Royal Highness Prince Moulay Rachid of the Kingdom of Morocco – 1 kid
    His Excellency Mr. Gjorge Ivanov, President of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – 1 kid

    Leaders with large families
    His Excellency Mr. Alain Berset, President of Switzerland – 3 kids
    His Royal Highness Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg – 5 kids
    His Excellency Mr. Sauli Väinämö Niinistö, President of Finland – 3 kids
    His Excellency Mr. Muhammadu Buhari, President of Nigeria – 10 kids
    His Excellency Mr. Ilir Meta, President of Albania – 3 kids
    His Excellency Mr. Frank V. Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji – 5 kids
    His Excellency Mr. Jüri Ratas, Prime Minister of Estonia – 4 kids
    Mr. Maroš Šefčovič, Vice President of the European Commission – 3 kids

    Leaders with an unknown family size
    His Excellency Mr. Mirco Tomassoni (unknown)
    His Excellency Mr. Luca Santolini, Captains Regent of San Marino – (unknown)
    His Excellency Mr. Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, Prime Minister of Eswatini – (unknown)
    Her Excellency Ms. Saara Kuugongelwa Amadhila, Prime Minister of Namibia – (unknown)

    Leaders from wealthy countries that have grown rich through colonization have the greatest obligation to reduce their family size and lead by example because of the disparate impact wealthy countries/populations have on the environment, because of the history of exploitation of other countries, and because human rights-based family planning change must account for culture. We all must acknowledge that, and account for the difference. But some change by all is necessary. 

    These leaders have the power to bring a discussion to the forefront on the need for nations to promote smaller families and sustainable family planning. The Fair Start model offers a human rights-based solution that accounts for the needs of future children and the world in which they are born.

    We have asked the Secretary General of the U.N. to issue a new statement on family planning, urging the world to choose smaller families. We are also calling on world leaders to incorporate sustainable family planning into their nations’ respective climate action plans in order to achieve the targets set in the Paris Climate Accord.

    TAKE ACTION
    Tweet UN Secretary-General @antonioguterres with the hashtag #COP24 and ask when sustainable families will be part of #sustainabledevelopmentgoals. And add your name to our letter here.

  • Exxon Knew It Was Destroying Our Kids’ Future. Tell Them To Make It Right.

    Exxon Knew It Was Destroying Our Kids’ Future. Tell Them To Make It Right.

    ExxonMobil, and many companies like it, are largely responsible for the climate change that is already wreaking havoc across the globe. The evidence has been mounting for years. Recent reports make clear that climate change will cause death and suffering on an unprecedented scale, that the situation is quickly worsening, and that our governments and the United Nations are utterly failing to protect us. Even former Exxon execs are calling for accountability.

    According to The Guardian, “ExxonMobil actively misled the public about climate science and its implications”.

    “In 2015, Inside Climate News and The Los Angeles Times reported that Exxon was well aware of the risks of climate change and used that research in its long-term planning for activities like drilling in the Arctic, even as it funded groups from the 1990s to the mid-2000s that denied serious climate risks,” explains the New York Times. Many have said that #ExxonKnew and even looked forward to profiting from melting ice caps in order to access new oil reserves. “…They chose to accept those risks on our behalf, at our expense, and without our knowledge,” per The Guardian. Former CEO Lee R. Raymond was a large part of that process.

    No system of government, nor system of corporate property and assets, override your kids’ right to a safe, healthy, equitable and democratic future. That right is supreme and superior to anything that interferes with it. You are morally entitled to defend that right. Just like those that defended human rights in the founding of the United States, or against aggressors in World War II, you can act against those threatening our freedom.

    We can’t rely on government anymore. We have to defend our right, ourselves. Exxon has an overriding moral obligation to answer for the consequences of its activities. It’s pretty simple: Those most responsible for, and capable of solving our greatest problems, must support the most comprehensively effective, and just, solutions.

    Exxon has proposed funding to support things like a carbon tax. We have a better idea. Rather than relying on piecemeal settlements and downstream solutions through government like failing carbon taxes, we need something more fundamental, and capable of accounting for the complex interplay of values like nature, equality, and democracy. We need to employ the most just and effective solution to climate change and other violations of human rights: We need Fair Start family planning, and by companies like Exxon owe it to us to fund it.

    The best solution is to start the source of the problem and finally initiate a true system of human rights, through a substantial transfer of resources from those most at fault to incentivize parents to choose smaller families, to help them give their kids a fair start in life, and to build the resilience our kids will need to thrive in a world degraded by climate change. Our human rights require this transfer of resources, and parents should act on their best instincts and act to protect future generations by demanding what is theirs.

    Take action:

    Politely ask ExxonMobil’s Chief Executive and Board Chair Darren W. Woods, as well as former executive Lee R. Raymond, to propose a comprehensive Fair Start solution that includes significant funding and the resources future generations will need. Contact the company at (972) 940-6000, and Lee Raymond at leeraymond@hotmail.com, or Tweet @ExxonMobil to urge them to support this proposal.

  • Gabriel Fernandez Was Tortured. We Must Prevent Child Abuse Before it Happens.

    Gabriel Fernandez Was Tortured. We Must Prevent Child Abuse Before it Happens.

    From “Why Did No One Save Gabriel?” published in The Atlantic, October 2nd, 2018.

    “Is it normal for your mom to hit you with the part of the belt that has that metal thing on the end?”

    “You mean the buckle?” Garcia (his first-grade teacher) asked.

    “Yeah,” he said. “Is it normal for you to bleed?”

    ———————–

    “Near the end of January, Garcia was reading to a group of students when the door opened. It was Gabriel. This time, the students didn’t laugh. They didn’t understand what they saw. Gabriel’s eyes were swollen, and squinty like a cat’s. Little round bruises dotted his face. Garcia told him to sit down. When she was finally alone with him at recess, she asked what had happened.

    “I fell,” he said.

    “I don’t believe you, Gabriel,” she said, noting that this was the first time he’d lied to her. She saw the anger swell inside him.

    “It’s because my mom shot me in the face with a BB gun!”

    “Okay.” She paused, not knowing what to say. “Why did you lie and tell me you fell?”

    “When I tell you, and that lady comes, then I get hurt worse.”

     

    Gabriel Fernandez was tortured to death by his mother and her boyfriend.

    Nearly five children die every day due to abuse and neglect in the U.S. The system failed to protect a little boy, who despite the cruelty inflicted upon him, still loved his mother. Gabriel’s case is a heartbreaking reminder that downstream solutions are not enough to keep kids safe.

    prevent child abuse

    But we cannot let him become another statistic. We must prevent abuse before it happens. Having Kids is the only organization working to stop child abuse through Fair Start orders, which prevent child abusers from having additional children while they are on probation and undergoing rehabilitative programs.

    You can prevent this harm inflicted on so many kids with your gift on this Giving Tuesday.

     

  • What the Occupy Movement Should Have Said

    What the Occupy Movement Should Have Said

    Thanksgiving is not about turkey and football. For thoughtful and caring people, it goes much further, and is tied to the American ideal of democracy.

    In 1896, Abraham Lincoln made the Thanksgiving proclamation to a weary country, divided by civil war, with the fate of the democracy in peril. Many believe that the purpose of the Mayflower Compact was to protect the liberty of dissenters from the tyranny of those in power. These and many other points in history remind us why Thanksgiving is a good opportunity to reflect on democracy. One recent attempt to reset our system to the ideal was the Occupy Movement. It has been described as:

    [A]n international progressive, socio-political movement against social and economic inequality and the lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primarily to advance social and economic justice and new forms of democracy. The movement had many different scopes; local groups often had different focuses, but among the movement’s prime concerns were how large corporations (and the global financial system) control the world in a way that disproportionately benefited a minority, undermined democracy, and was unstable.

    The movement has been criticized for lack of a centralizing vision, and specific demands for changes in policy. Could it have taken a longer-term view of change, one related to family planning?

    Democracy relies on a fundamental premise: That societies form, and remain legitimate, through the consensual coming together of free and equal people. The reason is simple. How else would you justify the authority of the state, and government?

    Here’s the thing. For many centuries that premise was thought to apply to the people alive at the time, adults who could choose – as free and equals – to enter and leave societies and nations as they pleased. But that static view of freedom and equality is riddled with problems. The idea of “coming together as free and equals” works much better if we think of it in terms of planning for future generations, and what it would mean if we apply it to them. Thanks to modern contraception, reduced infant mortality, the (too slow) recession of religious and other forms of oppressive patriarchal families, and about a dozen other things, we can now do that. We can make democracy inter-generational, and realize it in ways it’s not easy to imagine in today’s world, where democracy is virtually meaningless.

    The child-first Fair Start family planning model does just that.

    It’s simple: Parents plan a fair start in life for their kids. Communities, in exchange, help fund that start – proportional to need. Parents and communities both promote an ethic of smaller families to make the whole thing work, and to free us from crowded societies where the average person’s voice is lost in the crowd and does not matter, where people live in fear of one another, where they are not raised to run their own democracies, and where the freedom and security of nature is disappearing every day, etc.

    Occupy started something. Fair Start family planning can finish it. Learn more, and join us.

  • Having Kids Partners On Animal Impact Calculator

    Having Kids Partners On Animal Impact Calculator

    Despite declining fertility rates in the US and a handful of other countries, our population is on track to grow exponentially in the coming decades. At the same time, Earth has entered the sixth mass extinction. It is one that rivals the extermination of the dinosaurs and 76% of life on Earth. However, unlike past extinction events caused by natural global pulses, humans have already caused the extinction of nearly 60% of wildlife. And these trends are accelerating (1). 

    Animals are disappearing and humans are to blame. 

    We will fail our children and future generations if we do not take significant action to mitigate our impact on the planet and wildlife.

    The vast and detrimental changes to Earth’s ecosystems are largely to meet our rapidly growing need for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, minerals, and fuel. They are the result of irresponsible human overpopulation, consumption, and a false-dependency on economic growth (2). It is becoming alarmingly clear that the demand we put on the planet is unsustainable. Although there are been substantial gains in human physical well-being and economic development for a few, the long-term costs are now being experienced in the form of climate change, habitat destruction, pollution, disease, war, displacement, hunger, and mass mortality in humans and nearly all other life forms (3)

    But effective change cannot happen without an informed scientific assessment to guide those strategies. That is why Having Kids is partnering with the Institute for Human-Animal Connection at the University of Denver to research individual impact on other species. Dr. Sarah M. Bexell is serving as the principal investigator on the project titled, the Animal Mortality Footprint Calculator.

    A similar tool has been developed to assess human individual impacts on the natural environment as a whole through the Ecological Footprint Calculator. And while estimates are available about the number of animals typically consumed for food, which measures in the billions in the U.S. alone, this research will go further to consider the cost to other species. The project will develop the algorithms to calculate the average number of animals that die to support the lifestyle of one human individual.

    This information will make a clear case to policymakers, economists, conservationists, environmental and social scientists, the philanthropic community, local communities, and citizens of the urgent need for consequential behavior change in terms of family planning and family size. The Animal Mortality Footprint Calculator will expose the inescapable truth of the direct impact that each person imposes on the most vulnerable beings.

    We know that choosing smaller families is the best way to protect for all animals, including humans.

    Unfortunately, the animal protection community has largely avoided that fact. A key aim of this project is to increase support of the Fair Start Model of family planning by animal advocates as well as communities everywhere.

    We must start a larger conversation on the choice to have smaller families size to protect biodiversity and the planet, and to reduce animal suffering caused by human activity. Sustainable family planning creates a path forward to a habitable world for all kids and animals.

    We will share updates as this research progresses. In the meantime, add your name to our open letter to the U.N, and learn more about the impact of humans on animals.

    1. WWF, 2016
    2. Global Humanitarian Forum, 2009; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; WWF, 2014; 2016
    3. e.g., Ceballos, et al., 2015; Cohen, et. al., 2017; Dockery & Evans, 2017; Raworth, 2012; Rockstrom et al., 2009

     

  • Animals Are Disappearing and Large Families Are to Blame

    Animals Are Disappearing and Large Families Are to Blame

    Animals are disappearing. A recent study has determined that just two generations of humans have killed off more than half the world’s wildlife populations. Populations of animals have declined by 60 percent since 1970, according to a report released Monday by the World Wildlife Fund. According to the Washington Post, “the animals that remain will fight against warming oceans choked with plastic, toppled rainforests may zero out fragile species, and refuges such as coral reefs may nearly die off.”

    The loss is directly attributable to the fundamental cause of all environmental crises: Large, poorly planned families and the unsustainable population growth they cause. 

    Many of the environmental crises today are caused by variables that we did not understand when setting environmental polices decades ago, variables like the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. But at that time we did know about one variable – population growth as an underlying multiplier of all anthropogenic impacts. Had we taken family planning more seriously then, we would not be where we are today.

    Poor family planning is enabled by an outdated social model that focuses on what parents want more than on what future children need. It was a system developed for survival in a different time, before we knew what we know today about human impact on the planet, early childhood development needs, and the lasting impact that crowding has on inequality. We are not living in that world anymore. Our cities and towns are becoming increasingly crowded and we’re demanding more than the natural world can comfortably provide. That type of isolated living of the past no longer serves us. It does not account for the nonhuman world. It does not leave room for animals.

    There is a better way. 

    Urge the WWF, at @PavanSukhdev, to publicly support our call on the United Nations Secretary-General to issue a statement on the need for a new and cooperative “smaller family” planning model designed to give every kid a fair start in life.