Fair Start Movement

Category: Climate Protection

  • UNFPA Must Address Climate Change. Take Action.

    UNFPA Must Address Climate Change. Take Action.

    Today, given a recent study showing that the loss of ice in Antarctica has tripled in a decade as a result of the climate change crisis, Having Kids called upon the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to abandon its outdated family planning modeling in favor of the sustainable Fair Start model. Family planning is the most effective way to address climate change and other environmental threats.

    This is our message to the UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem: 

    Dr. Kanem:

    We respectfully request that you consider reforming the family planning model at the heart of the United Nations Population Fund’s work. The UNFPA currently uses an outdated family planning model that was developed before the manifestation of climate change, key developments in the science of early childhood development, and the massive and growing gap between rich and poor that exists today. That outdated model should be reformed to account for these things, and many other problems it exacerbates.

    The current model adopted by the UNFPA recognizes the fundamental human right of parents to decide the number, spacing, and timing of their children. It treats parents as if they were isolated from one another and their community in the act of planning, and does not include the rights of future persons, animals and their environment, the role of family planning in further democracy, etc. That model has no basis in binding sources of international law, and is unethical.

    How does that model account for parents that choose to have massive families, degrade the environment we all share, and put us all at risk? How does it account for parents’ obligation to not flout the Children’s Rights Convention, or even basic standards of fitness, by bringing children into existence below legally mandated thresholds? How does it account for the obligation parents and their community share to give every child a fair start in life, with opportunities equal to their peers? The UNFPA’s current model is isolationist, and by focusing on parents, violates the fundamental human rights of future children and communities.

    We offer the child-first Fair Start family planning model as a sustainable alternative to the UNFPA’s isolationist model. The Fair Start model is cooperative rather than isolationist, is based u[on binding sources of international law, and provides a clear human rights-based solution to the problems discussed above and a path forward. It is also reflected in the worldwide trend towards smaller families that can invest more in each child and ensure a safer future.

    Take action, and ask Dr. Kanem to consider our request by tweeting her at @Atayeshe.

     

  • Effective Environmentalism? Make Sure Future Generations Are Better People Than We Have Been

    Effective Environmentalism? Make Sure Future Generations Are Better People Than We Have Been

    Today, on Earth Day 2018, you might hear a familiar expression: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” It’s an amorphous and difficult thing to live up to. But if we temporalize our thinking and relate the expression to family planning, it can become deeply meaningful and actionable. Who do we want future generations to be, literally, in terms of their quantity and quality? There are plenty of studies that show the quantity of future generations is a key determinant when it comes to things like mitigating climate change. But of course the quality of future generations matters as well – will they care about and care for the environment, or consume it into degradation, as we and prior generations have done?

    While most environmental, child welfare, human rights and other progressive organizations are silent on the issue of family planning, a whole faction of industrialists and politicians is pushing for larger families as a means to create a glut of cheap labor and voracious consumers in the future. Yes, Elon Musk, we heard you. They know who they want future generations to be: People who will make them money.

    How do we confront that threat?

    Human rights are designed to protect the vulnerable from the powerful. Future generations are vulnerable to the sort of exploitation the faction of industrialists and politicians described above are intent upon. Having Kids is pushing back against them with something called child-first Fair Start family planning. It’s a human rights-based family planning model designed to ensure future generations a fair start in life, functional democracies (not simply growth economies) where their voices will be heard and matter, and a clean and safe environment in which they can thrive. Its core moves are  1) to shift public thinking about family planning as something we do in isolation from others to something that is cooperative, 2) to use the benchmark of fair starts in life as something around which to orient that cooperation, and 3) to recognize the simple fact that smaller families mean a healthier environment and the ability to invest more time and love in each child.

    Fair Start family planning is not designed to create future generations who will just make rich people richer.

    For Earth Day, make being the change you wish to see in the world mean even more. Take action here. 

  • Earth Day: Challenge Environmental Organizations to Address Family Planning

    Earth Day: Challenge Environmental Organizations to Address Family Planning

    Meet Tricia and Mickey Bhotiwihok.

    A man, woman, and two young girls stand in front of a tall grandfather clock with a red patterned wall as the background. The woman holds the youngest child, while the older girl stands in the center, smiling. Last year, on the heels of announcements that Prince William and Kate Middleton were having a third child, Los Angelinos Mickey and Tricia set a different example. Like Having Kids’ other Featured Families, Mickey and Tricia chose a smaller family, two children in their case. They understand that choosing a smaller family is the best way to protect their kids’ future and the environment at the same time. It’s a win-win. But only if we all work together.

    Tricia and Mickey are leading by example and steering the world towards a better future. We all benefit from what they’ve done.

    Here are the facts:

    For Earth Day, Having Kids is issuing this challenge:

    We are urging environmental and animal protection organizations to adopt a public position on family planning, simply one that furthers their mission, before Earth Day 2020.

    Want to take action? If you are a member of environmental and/or animal protection organizations politely encourage those organizations to meet the Having Kids Earth Day Challenge.

  • Climate Change Deniers Pushing Larger Families

    Climate Change Deniers Pushing Larger Families

    There’s just one problem. The entire critique can be summarized as follows: Long-term and short-term savings are not the same thing. Yes, that’s true – so what? How would that fact undercut policy prescriptions, which generally use both? Is this article advocating being shortsighted?

    At the end, the author reveals a bit more about why she’d want to critique those studies and the idea of promoting smaller families: Making the shift to smaller families would mean fewer workers in the future, would rob kids of the benefit of many siblings, invite immigration in the future to add to the labor force. What would promoting smaller families mean about how we value children? The author values economic growth driven by using future children as cheap labor over protecting the environment and restoring nature, values the aesthetic of large families (even though studies have debunked the claim that kids fare better with many siblings), does not value immigrants, and values the act of having kids, which is not the same as valuing children. To truly value children, we must ensure they are only born in situations that give them  the resources they need to have a safe and healthy future.

    By launching an attack on the science that shows smaller families are perhaps the best way to respond to climate change, the author declares her position. Yes, policy choices, in the end, come down to values. At Having Kids, we value ensuring that all children are born into a basic level of well being and are given a fair start; that all children can enjoy the natural world and live in a true democracy. Those values, together, support a child-first Fair Start family planning model. Learn more here.

     

     

  • How Do You Simultaneously Restore Nature, Protect Kids, and Build Real Equality and Democracy?

    How Do You Simultaneously Restore Nature, Protect Kids, and Build Real Equality and Democracy?

    It’s called child-first family planning, and it starts by recognizing that all children have the fundamental human right to fair start in life, with the same opportunities that wealthy kids are getting, the same opportunities Donald Trump’s kids are getting. What loving parent wouldn’t want that for their child?

    Kids have that right because systems of human rights and democracy begin with free and equal people coming together. That “coming together” happens – in the most important way – when we have children and bring them into society. Our family planning systems have to bring kids in as equals, on a level playing field, and each with the resources – high levels of things like education, health care, nutrition, love – to eventually make them truly free and emancipated people. Systems of human rights and democracy don’t begin to work until we ensure kids that right.

    How does a child’s right to a fair start in life also protect the environment and restore nature?

    Ensuring kids a fair start in life is a two-way street – parents have to work with their communities to create that start, before they have kids. If parents do that they will have fewer children (which is the most effective way to mitigate disastrous climate change), and will invest more in each child. That process in turn builds real democracy, or smaller communities of better-prepared people, living in a healthier and natural environment. Here is an example of one family moving towards child-centered family planning.

    There is a natural confluence between cooperative family planning, smaller families, and higher investment in each child. That in turns leads to freedom: The freedom to do what you want that comes from a fair start in life, the freedom of a smaller, truly democratic and autonomous community where your voice matters, and the freedom of nature.

    Having Kids is pushing for children’s right to a fair start in life, against our current family planning systems, which treat kids like widgets in an economic model. You can push for child-first family planning too, and restore nature, protect kids, and build real equality and democracy, all at the same time.

  • Take Action for the Climate!

    Take Action for the Climate!

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    [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]Are you sick of hearing about climate change without being able to do anything truly meaningful about it? But we can take action! Today Having Kids is launching our Protect Your World campaign. It’s simple:

    We all know that if you want to better the world, you can think globally but need to act locally. And when it comes to mitigating climate change (and almost every other way we are destroying our children’s environment), the best way is by working with others to plan smaller and more sustainable families.

    Having Kids is working with local governments to adopt policies, often as part of their Climate Action Plans, to:

    • Explicitly recognize (in their climate action plan or in other ways) the role family planning plays in climate change;
    • Endorse and/or implement any family planning model that promotes smaller, more sustainable, and more equitable families that provide every child a fair start.

    You can make this case in your community, too!

    Please start with this sample letter, and use it to open a dialogue with your local town, city, or county government about the need to take a position on family planning.

    You can contact us to assist with the process.

    The best way to protect your world is by changing the way we all plan families.

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  • Care about Climate, Care about Kids

    Care about Climate, Care about Kids

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    Post from guest blogger Courtney.

    Like most Americans, I am well aware of the dangers of global warming. The topic is a common subject across media platforms, occupying space on television news, blogs, and Facebook posts. Most people in progressive circles express a fair amount of certainty that thanks to climate change, life on this planet will be very difficult for its inhabitants, even 50 years from now.

    And yet, the context, even one as dire as many of us envision, does not currently play a central role in people’s decision to have children. This seems odd, but it’s a natural consequence of the one-sided parenting model we now operate under. Under the three-sided model proposed by Having Kids, people would frame their decision not only in terms of their own desires, but also in the interest of their children and of the community/society.

    In an environmental context where global warming is a major factor, potential parents should weigh their desire to parent against the wellbeing of their future child, as well as the ability of the community to respond effectively to a changing climate and environment. Such decision-making might result in a person deciding not to have children or deciding to have fewer children — children they would better equip to live in this more challenging world. Either way, the decision would be one that emerged from a broader — and some might say truer — perspective on the situation at hand.

    At Having Kids:

    We promote and protect every child’s right to a fair start in life by replacing unsustainable, parent-centered family planning models with the human rights-based and child-centered Fair Start family planning model. The model suggests a shift in family planning from a subjective focus on just the parents, to an objective focus that considers the interests of the potential child, the parents, and the community.

    It’s all about this: Smaller families working together to give every child a fair start in life.

    Today many families are adopting the Fair Start family planning model. First, they try to give their child a fair start in life by having a smaller family where they can invest more in their child. Often they also foster or adopt one of the many children eagerly waiting for parents rather than creating additional need. Second, they publicly role model their choices. Finally, these families join public advocacy campaigns to shift resources from extractive centers of power like governments, corporations, and wealthy families in order to democratically empower children and future citizens by incentivizing better family planning by all parents. Why? All parents know that the quality of their own child’s life will depend on how other parents decide to have and raise their kids.

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  • Meaningful Action for Earth

    Meaningful Action for Earth

    Changing the way we plan families is the most effective way to fight climate change. We can’t ignore the need for reform and still claim to care about either the environment or children. Without rational, fair start family planning, we will be condemning countless children to an unfair life at the mercy of a dangerous climate.

    As part of Earth Day 2017, Having Kids is urging Los Angeles and Berkeley to update their historic climate change action plans with a novel but powerful provision: increased funding for family planning.

    Many major cities have climate action plans, and these are increasingly important as the federal government fails to take action to mitigate the effects of climate change. But these cities do not address family planning as an effective way to respond.

    A study by statisticians at Oregon State University found that the greenhouse gas impact of having an additional child in the U.S. is almost 20 times greater than a lifetime of recycling, reducing, and reusing. They also found that each child born in the U.S. will add about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent. The study concludes, “Clearly, the potential savings from reduced reproduction are huge compared to the savings that can be achieved by changes in lifestyle.”

    Carter Dillard, Having Kids’ co-founder and President, notes: “In light of the exponentially positive long-term environmental impact of family planning, increasing these services must play a key role in continuing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

    “California’s cities should once again lead the nation by recognizing the irrefutable link between investment in family planning programs and the prospects for climate change,” says Anne Green, Executive Director of Having Kids. “Let’s do what’s most effective, help cities in other states do the same, and make up for what is lacking at the federal level.”

    Increased focus on family planning has numerous environmental and social benefits, including decreasing various forms of pollution, alleviating pressure on housing and social services, and reducing traffic. Given the unparalleled results family planning can produce, cities have little reason not to include provisions in major initiatives like their climate action plans.

  • Kids and Climate Change: What Do We Do?

    Kids and Climate Change: What Do We Do?

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    Recently, NPR asked a very important question: should we be having kids in the age of climate change? Professors at Johns Hopkins have been asking this question for a very long time. Their conclusion is that we can, but we should significantly limit the number of children we have in order to reduce carbon emissions and give populations susceptible to climate change their best chance.

    And that’s what the Having Kids model is all about. It’s about asking smaller families to work together to plan a better future for every child. That means that potential parents should think about their future children and the community that their children will enter. They need to ask the question, “What would give my child, my community, and other children the best quality of life?” They will quickly find that limiting their family size and contributing resources to their community to help create a safe place for their child to grow are the best options, especially in the face of climate change.

    The statistics NPR cites on the carbon emissions of large families, relative to other lifestyle choices, are sobering. Below are a few examples of how much carbon dioxide (in metric tons) is saved over a lifetime (80 years) by a typical American for certain actions, including not having one child.

    • Increase car’s fuel economy from 20 to 30 mpg: 148 tons
    • Reduce miles driven from 231 to 155 per week: 147 tons
    • Replace single-glazed windows with energy-efficient windows: 121 tons
    • Replace ten 75-watt incandescent bulbs with 25-watt energy-efficient lights: 36 tons
    • Replace old refrigerator with energy-efficient model: 19 tons
    • Recycle newspapers, magazines, glass, plastic, aluminum and steel cans: 17 tons
    • Reduce number of children by one (with emissions fixed at 2005 per-capita values): 9,441 tons

    Source: “Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals” by Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax

    For too long, parenting models focused on the choices of the parents without putting them in the context of a larger community. These models didn’t emphasize the needs of future children. Having Kids wants to change the conversation. We want potential parents to think critically about the needs of their child, the world they want to bring their child into, and how they will ensure that world becomes a reality. We want to see a world where the impacts of climate change are prevented, and where every child can be guaranteed a high quality of life.

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