Category: Family Planning & Child Rights

“Why I Ended Up With Too Many Children” is an opinion piece by Father Rennier, a Catholic priest from St. Louis. He urges having as many kids as God is willing to allow. Having Kids is calling him out, and calling on Pope Francis to correct Father Rennier. Read our letter here.

Father Rennier states, “No matter how many children you have, the number is always just right.” This perspective is surprisingly disconnected from the harsh realities we witness every day. Even Pope Francis has said that parents should not have more than they can properly bring up. Nearly 40% of American kids spend at least 1 year in poverty before they turn 18, and one in four U.S. children depend on SNAP benefits in a typical month. Rather than push mothers to have kids, Father Rennier should be asking how privileged people, like himself, can improve the conditions in which all children are born, though cooperative family planning models like Fair Start.  

Father Rennier promotes a lack of responsible family planning by parents and communities. Here’s a fact: Nadya Sulemon (the “Octomom”), who struggles to feed, house, care and give attention to her kids, now says having 14 children was ‘very foolish, immature and selfish’. But according to Father Rennier’s view, her decisions were “just right”, despite the impact that large families have on our social safety nets as well as God’s beloved creation. How does that make any sense? 

Despite what Rennier suggests, pregnancy isn’t a miracle. Today, for most women in the developed world, children can be a choice. The VAST majority of the practitioners of religions opposed to artificial birth control, including Catholics, obviously use some form of birth control or family planning method. These parents (as well as Pope Francis) understand that they cannot create good lives for their children if they have more than their resources (time & money) can bear.  

For those like Fr. Rennier with the will and means, why not consider providing for a child in need? He missed a great opportunity to encourage his flock and readers to change their thinking beyond themselves, as well as to set an example. 

Rennier also referred to the Amercan decline in fertility. Contrary to economists’ fears about our current reduced fertility cycle, the U.S. still holds one of the highest fertility rates in the developed world. Moreover, global trends project world population to exceed 10 billion by 2100. These facts, and the impact on our climate and future environmental security, cannot be ignored. Should we disregard the Vatican’s position on sustainable development and the moral obligation to protect our planet from further species extinction and famine?

More crowded societies also mean greater social instability and less of a voice for each of us in our bloated and dysfunctional democracies, the sort that produce leaders like Donald Trump. Father Rennier’s example and advice are of legitimate concern for the world at large. A man of God who contemplates spiritual questions daily, he should look beyond himself.

It is important that all of us cast our gaze not only lovingly on the children we have, but also more broadly to those around us and further forward to future generations.

TAKE ACTION: Email Michaelrennier@gmail.com, and urge him to encourage thoughtful family planning decisions, ones that consider the needs of all of God’s children, not just our own, and ask Pope Francis (@pontifex) to denounce his advice.

Child-first, Fair Start family planning puts the interests of children before parents. As parents, don’t we want what is best for our children? That’s why we need to wait, plan, get help, and be ready before having kids. When kids are born with a fair start, not only do they have a better shot at succeeding, our communities as a whole benefit as well.

What does this mean in simple terms? It means planning smaller families, which are more sustainable for the planet and society, with families in need getting the resources they deserve to give their kids a fair start in life.  

But aren’t fertility rates dropping? Why do we need to change our family planning model and related policies?

Yes, U.S. fertility rates are down slightly. But our population is actually exploding, and economists’ alarmist warnings are centered on the position that we should have more kids to create more taxpayers, workers and consumers. They are urging us to hurt kids, in the log run, in order to create wealth for elites. That approach treats children as objects, and drives economic inequality.

Our family planning choices affect everyone. We can make our world better for all kids by choosing to have smaller families and demanding the resources, that as parents, we all need.

There is no doubt that if the average parent plans smaller families, where we work together to ensure every child gets a fair start in life, you and your kids’ future will be less crowded, cleaner, and safer. If we continue on our current path, we get the opposite.

Read stories from families who have decided to help us down the right path: https://fairstartmovement.org/sustainablefamilies/

In an open letter sent today, Having Kids is urging NARAL Pro Choice America to break a universal taboo and adopt the Fair Start model as its family planning model. Having Kids is urging the change in policy and messaging, especially in the fight against Trump’s new “domestic gag rule,” because it will base the demand for the freedom and resources not to have children on a broader base of objective interests, and make that demand more compelling, if not irrefutable.

Read the full letter here.

• The most effective way to address many of the impacts on our environment and other species, like climate change, is by choosing smaller families. Yes, it’s more effective than changing diet or forms of transportation.
• By 2100 world population could vary by billions of people, depending on whether the average woman in the world today has one child more or one child fewer in her lifetime. That fork in the road will determine the quality of life on earth, for humans and other species.
• Our current family planning systems provide no minimum standard of wellbeing for future children, allowing children to be born into failing state systems because their parents cannot care for them. That exacerbates inequity, and ensures rich kids stay rich and poor kids stay poor.
• Child-first family planning provides a clear human rights-based solution and path forward. It’s sustainable and equitable, and reflected in the worldwide trend towards smaller families that can invest more in each child and ensure a safer future.

Having Kids is urging NARAL to challenge Trump because his family planning policies threaten national security, and as such bring into question the legitimacy of his government, and the obligation of the people to rise up. Having Kids is urging NARAL to challenge Trump because families in need have a moral claim to a portion of his and his ilk’s wealth, in order to assure their children starts in life equitable to the starts in life wealthy kids are given.

Anne Green, Executive Director of Having Kids, said this: “Reproductive freedom should account for the needs of future children, the community, and the environment. Recognizing that intensifies the demand for resources, to a level it deserves.”

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”]
[et_pb_row admin_label=”row”]
[et_pb_column type=”4_4″]
[et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]
On a little known corner of the culture wars battleground, a struggle is being waged over an unusual subject: Motherhood.

Worldwide, fertility rates and family sizes have dropped significantly as women have become more liberated. Through delayed motherhood and fewer children, many are taking more time to develop their own lives, as well as invest more time and resources in each child. In that sense it liberated and empowered us and our moms, creating significantly better child welfare and development outcomes. That trend includes an openness to parents of diverse sexual orientation, and nontraditional family planning like adoption and fostering. The trend also promises to be the best chance we have to respond to the looming threat of climate change, and in that sense represents something like a form of human evolution, a change moving us away from being as much of a threat to our own species.

On the other side, there is a faction of interests that benefit from traditional family planning, where woman are culturally pressured into having kids, where that pressure points women towards larger families, where sustainable and massive families are role modeled as somehow a good thing, where elites like Trump and his ilk use higher fertility rates to produce cheap labor and lots of consumers while also exacerbating inequality, and where impacts on the environment are ignored. They float above the masses, buoyed up by growth-based inequality. And rather than seeing parenthood as an opportunity to empower and develop children, they see it as an opportunity for economic exploitation.

This Mothers’ Day, if you want to really help moms and do more than just buy the obligatory card and flowers, consider getting involved in this struggle. Help moms succeed by making sure they get the resources they need to give their kids a fair start in life – one with opportunities equal to other (and wealthy) families in their community. Help them protect their kids’ future from things like climate change though a cooperative family planning model – the most effective way to mitigated the ecocide currently underway. Help them ensure their kids will inherit a world with greater economic equality, and functional democracies where their kids have a voice and power.

Want to help moms? Follow us on https://www.facebook.com/havingkids and take action on the new Action Alerts we offer every day. Or volunteer at HavingKids.org for one of our four primary campaigns.

Get involved – it’s your world and future too.
[/et_pb_text]
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_row]
[/et_pb_section]

In an open letter sent today, Having Kids is urging the star of Tully, UN Messenger of Peace, and model parent Charlize Theron to break a universal taboo and call for a change to family planning laws, worldwide. Her public statements about parenting, UN title, and courageous portrayals of the lives of women in her films make her an ideal candidate to lead a change. The letter said this:

That is why we are writing to ask you to break a universal taboo, and in your words and own way, speak out publicly for the worldwide need for a better family planning model, one that prioritizes the needs of future children and the universal value of smaller, more sustainable, and truly equitable families.

Read the full letter here. 

The facts are clear:

• The most effective way to address many of the impacts on our environment and other species, like climate change, is by choosing smaller families. Yes, it’s more effective than changing diet or forms of transportation.
• By 2100 world population could vary by billions of people, depending on whether the average woman in the world today has one child more or one child fewer in her lifetime.
• Our current family planning systems provide no minimum standard of wellbeing for future children, allowing children to be born into failing state systems because their parents cannot care for them. That exacerbates inequality, and ensures rich kids stay rich and poor kids stay poor.
• Celebrities, whether they like it or not, can provide influential role modeling for others when it comes to family planning decisions.
• Child-first family planning provides a clear human rights-based solution and path forward. It’s sustainable and equitable, and reflected in the worldwide trend towards smaller families that can invest more in each child and ensure a safer future.

Anne Green, Executive Director of Having Kids, said this to Ms. Theron: “We stand ready to assist you in any way we can, but are confident that you will find the best way to do this.”

For more information, please visit HavingKids.org

A recent story in Utah had a lot to say about lower fertility rates in the state, and the need for better policies “[i]f we’re really serious about being pro-natal and wanting people to have children . . . . “ The article used an example of one young woman as an example, citing women seeking higher levels of education and entering the workforce, of the underlying problem.

This study is exemplified in 28-year-old, Lauren Steadman. She has her master’s degree in information science and a well-paying job. Although she wants to be a mother someday, she’s forgone that life goal in order to be more financially secure. “My husband and I made a deliberate decision to wait until we have kids later specifically after school, after we were established in our careers,” said Steadman. Steadman also plans to have two to three children, a few less than her mother had. “(I have) no plans as of now to quit my job and stay at home,” said Steadman. Steadman says although she may change her mind when she has children, as of now, she plans to continue to work. She plans to either put her children in daycare or hire a nanny.

Higher Housing Costs

One of the reasons for lower fertility rates notes by the article is the price of housing, but that’s a result of increasing population and demand. Larger families won’t help reduce housing prices – though the housing industry is all for pronatal policies and the higher prices it brings. Will it otherwise help women like Lauren?

Waiting To Have Kids

One of the reasons fertility rates have fallen drastically around the world involves gender equality. Women with one child can experience motherhood as well as other things in life, rather than the more monochrome life of constant motherhood. Parents waiting to have kids in order to attain high education also benefits their future children. Short term pronatal incentives designed to override longer term thinking might not be the best way to help women like Lauren.

How Kids Are Affected

Will kids benefit from policies meant to increase family size? Utah ranks well in the nation for overall child welfare, but is one of the worst states in the U.S. for child abuse and neglect (especially sexual abuse). How do policies that simply to try to arbitrarily push for higher fertility rates prevent more creating abuse and neglect? Would investing in improving child welfare, rather than investing in creating more kids, be a better approach? More broadly, Utah’s kids are concerned about climate change – recently urging state legislators recently to do something about it, and the fact is that large families are the worst way to exacerbate climate change, and worsen other environmental impacts that have disparate impacts on children, like air pollution. Environmental threats like climate change are not just about protecting the environment – they determine social outcomes, and now present a threat to U.S. national security

Who’s Behind The Fertility Push?

As the article notes, Utah continues to have the highest fertility rate in the U.S., youngest population, earliest age at first marriage, and largest household size in the nation. If women and kids don’t necessarily benefit from such policies, who will? Big business loves Utah. The state consistently ranks highest in the nation for catering to business, in part because its population growth rate ensures a good supply of cheap labor, weak unions, and tax and regulatory policies that disfavor workers. Beyond Utah, big businesses like Toys “R” Us, which blamed women’s lower birth rate for falling sales and their eventual closure. Businesses push women to have kids because they benefit from population growth while always pushing the costs forward, in what U.N. chief likened to a Ponzi scheme robbing future generations.

A Better Solution

What would be the best policy for Lauren and women like her? One alternative to the growth model, and the parent-centered policies that promote it, is the child-first Fair Start model. It treats the trend to lower fertility rates for what it is: the evolution of our species towards more sustainable families that can invest more in, and better develop and protect, each child. The Fair Start model is simple: Child-first family planning means parents working with their communities to get the resources they need to give their child a fair start in life, with equal opportunities relative to the child’s peers. It also means planning a smaller family so that parents and others can invest more in each child. Whether the average woman in the world chooses larger families or the Fair Start model will change world population by billions in the decades to come, as well as determine who future generations become. Will we be workers and consumers in massive, unequal and unsustainable economies, or educated and empowered citizens in functional and sustainable democracies? The fight for the future is on, though few would ever recognize it. Planning smaller and more sustainable families liberates parents, kids and the community. More time for parents, more resources for kids, and a better us going forward.

Giving up growth will not be easy. We feed off of ignoring minimum standards of child welfare, fair starts in life, protecting our kids future environment because doing so brings us easy wealth.

But if we love our kids we will change our ways. Take action here to start.