Thinking About: Babies

There’s been a lot of talk about babies recently and not just because of the recent Royal birth. In the last few weeks a report was published outlining the fact that the financial cost of raising a child from birth to 18 has risen to over £140,000 – how they arrived at this figure I have no idea. This week it was revealed that, I think for the first time, the number of one child families in the UK (or possibly just England and Wales) breached the 50% barrier. Almost immediately calls where heard to encourage parents to have at least a second child for a multitude of reasons. I found this to be quite incredible.

It is certainly arguable that a significant number (if not actually all) of the world’s most pressing issues are as the direct result of human population growth. The strain on resources from water, food, oil and land is caused by the simple fact that we already have far too many mouths to feed. Extoling people to have more children is, to me, at the very least a questionable (if not actually crazy) recommendation. Rather than criticising single child families we should be congratulating them. Rather than burdening them with even more financial responsibilities we should be thanking them for being pragmatic, reasonable, and sensible – especially in these times of fiscal irresponsibility. If families across the world restricted themselves to a single child, or certainly to no more than two, global population would level out before falling back to a more reasonable level. After a few generations the Earth, if it was capable of such a thing, would heave a sigh of relief and the people of that time could spend more time improving the lives of the much reduced population rather than spending more and more of their time and energy chasing fewer and fewer resources.

I like children as a rule. It small doses, at a distance and with the ability to give them back when they start crying, fall over or wet themselves they are a delight. But I also pity them. Any way you look at things, the future is not going to be a very pleasant place for anyone not already in the top 1%. The next 100 or so years will probably constitute mankind’s greatest challenge to its own survival. Still, after being told for decades and bearing witness to increasing evidence of environment degradation, we are doing next to nothing about Global Warming. As technology, especially in bio-genetics, becomes ever more sophisticated we continue to use it to develop ever more efficient ways of killing our fellow man. In the not too distant future someone somewhere, either on purpose or by accident, will release a virus which will inevitably get out of hand a kill millions. In the not too distant future someone somewhere will explode a nuclear device in a major city and kill tens of thousands. Meanwhile for the majority of people on Earth life will become more difficult. Food and especially water will become scarce. Billions will go to bed hungry and wake up angry. Today’s political turmoil will start to look like a golden age of peace and opportunity. This is the world into which people are choosing to bring more and more children. This is why I shake my head and wonder at the mentality of people or organisations who can, seemingly without thinking, advance the notion that we should have more children not less. Thankfully it’s something I don’t need to personally worry about. As someone who is childless and who will probably remain so – for practical reasons as much as philosophical ones – I don’t have to worry about my child’s future. That doesn’t stop me feeling a little sad every time I see a child though.