Family Size Decisions That Consider Welfare of Children
Today, family planning decisions tend to be all about the desires of parents, with little or no regard for the rights and living conditions of the prospective child and people who are already here. Do two adults have the right to bring a child into a world that’s a dystopian hell? Or do they at least have some responsibility NOT to? If the number of children you decide to conceive will have a direct impact on the quality of life those children experience, should that consequence be factored into your family size decision?
These questions are more relevant now than ever. Today, more and more young women and couples are questioning whether having children is the right thing to do in a world destined for tough times.
A new paper in the journal, Social Change, proposes a more child-centered and community-centered approach. A Human Rights Approach to Planning Families was authored by our guests on this podcast, Sarah Bexell and Catharina Graff-Hughey, along with attorney and Having Kids founder Carter Dillard and animal rights attorney Matthew Hamity.
This episode is the first of several that will share content from – or suggested by – the April 2019 forum Tackling the Population Taboo: Creating a Sustainable Future. The forum was organized by Maureen Cohen Harrington, special projects manager at the nonprofit, Having Kids.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
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Sarah Bexell 0:00
Parenting is not about making more people who look like us. It is about leading by example to make sure that every human is raised with the things that they need and deserve.
Dave Gardner 0:10
That was Sarah Bexell speaking in Washington DC in early 2019 about designing a better mousetrap when it comes to planning a family. Find out what she came up with on this episode of the Overpopulation Podcast. Hi, I'm Dave Gardner, Executive Director of World Population Balance and host of the Overpopulation Podcast. Should family planning decisions be all about the parents with no regard for the rights of the prospective child? Do two adults have the right to bring a child into a world that's a dystopian hell? Or do they at least have some responsibility not to? If the number of children you decide to conceive will have a direct impact on the quality of life those children experience, should that consequence be factored into your family size decision? Well, these questions are more relevant now than ever. You've probably not missed the news that today, more and more young women and couples are questioning whether having children is the right thing to do in a world destined for some very tough times with an unfriendly climate just heading a long list of environmental crises. If that's been catching your interest, you will find this episode of the podcast fascinating. In April of 2019, the Overpopulation Podcast was really pleased to be a sponsor of a forum titled Tackling the Population Taboo: Creating a Sustainable Future. The forum was organized by Maureen Cohen Harrington, Special Projects Manager at the nonprofit Having Kids. Now I've talked about Having Kids from time to time and we even had the founder as a guest on a couple of our episodes of the podcast. They do great work. We partner with them at World Population Balance at every opportunity. This episode of the Overpopulation Podcast is the first of several that will either share content from that forum or use presentations at that forum as jumping off points. The forum was my introduction to the very smart Dr. Sarah Bexell, visiting clinical associate professor at the Institute for Human Animal Connection, and Director of Humane Education, both at the University of Denver. Sara is trained in biology, anthropology, environmental studies, science education, and early childhood education. And she teaches sustainability at the DU. Sarah is co-author of a new paper just published in the Journal of Social Change. Her co-authors are attorney and Having Kids founder, Carter Dillard, social work professional Catharina Graff Hughey, and animal rights attorney Matthew Hamity. The papers titled A Human Rights Approach to Planning Families. Now it's not tucked away behind a firewall, so I'll include a link to it in the show notes. I've invited two of the authors, Sarah and Catharina, to chat about the subject of the paper on this episode. If you spend any time advocating for humankind to achieve a sustainable population level, considerably smaller than today's 7.7 billion, you're likely to hear time and time again that every man and woman on the planet has an unlimited right to conceive as many children as he or she desires. It's called procreative freedom or reproductive rights. Here's a bit of Sarah Bexell's presentation at that forum.
Sarah Bexell 3:41
In a lot of places, families don't yet have access to choice. But where we do have choice, oftentimes, humans follow what we call the isolation model. And this particular model is unsustainable, it's antisocial, and it's based solely on parental subjective choice. And within this model, parents have the choice to bring children into this world, but they're not thinking about the choices of their community and what their community needs, or the choices of their own child, perspective child, and what they need. So the isolation model ignores the thoughtful and carefully constructed and limited right to found a family ensured by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and instead creates an arbitrary model that ensures would-be parents the unfettered, subjective right to choose the timing, number, and spacing of their children. It does not adopt a holistic and objective focus that includes the rights of prospective children and their communities. Most people continue to subscribe to this model because they mistakenly assume that the only other option is governmental coercion. The isolation model has largely been debunked as without a basis in ethics or law.
Dave Gardner 5:07
I had no idea we'd been following an isolation model, and that it was so flawed. But thanks to the groundbreaking work of the team that authored this paper, there is hope for something better. Here's another moment from that forum.
Sarah Bexell 5:20
We probably are thinking, yeah, we maybe need to think about how we bring children into the world a little bit differently. And oftentimes, then we get stuck. So we know what needs to be different but how do we do it differently? And how do we do it in a way that truly feels awesome to all of us? And that's what I want to present to you today is one possible, awesome way to think about bringing kids into this world.
Dave Gardner 5:46
Let's find out more about that awesome way to make family planning decisions. Sarah and Catharina, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm pretty excited about the conversation we're about to have.
Sarah Bexell 5:56
Thanks for having us, Dave.
Cat Graff-Hughey 5:58
Yeah, thank you, Dave.
Dave Gardner 5:59
Your paper is about a human rights approach to planning families. Why is the paper needed?
Sarah Bexell 6:07
Well, we felt that it was needed on essentially several fronts. And I'll mention some of the the top ones. One is that our current sort of approach globally to family planning is not centered on protecting the rights of children. It's also not taking into consideration the health of our planet at this point in time. It's also not taking into considering vast inequalities that we see throughout every nation, not just from sort of a difference between, quote unquote, developed and developing countries, but that even within every nation, there's a growing inequality gap. And we also wanted to bring sort of a critical and positive attention to the role of the size of the human population currently, and the climate crisis as well as mass environmental deterioration.
Dave Gardner 7:01
Wow. So that seems like there was more missing than there was in place than the current model.
Sarah Bexell 7:10
Yes. And we, throughout the paper, try to give great detail to all of those points that I just mentioned.
Dave Gardner 7:16
So tell me a little bit about the team that came together to write the paper. How did that happen?
Sarah Bexell 7:20
Yeah, I think it was a lot of luck and a lot of shared friendships. And so originally, I was introduced to Carter Dillard, who is the founder of the organization Having Kids through one of his law school buddies that happens to teach at the University of Denver, where Cat and I are. And so then I mentioned some of the work that we were doing with Having Kids in a course, International Social Development that Cat took with me, oh, probably three years ago. And she came up to me after class and said, "Wow, this is really interesting, I want to learn more." And then we started working together on some research for Having Kids and also in a work/study arrangement that we had through our university. And then this paper came forward, and Matt and Carter had been working on it. And they said, you know, we would really like the perspectives that you two have to offer. One as women, and then also with, with Cat's really great background in social work, and specifically in foster care systems in the United States. And then with my background in wildlife conservation, as well as early childhood development.
Cat Graff-Hughey 8:28
I would say it was really neat to see the whole team and the strengths that we brought. I remember hearing about this from Sarah, and I was just blown away that we could talk about family planning in a new way, instead of it just being about birth control or a policy, and that we could get to the core of what we are trying to talk about is that we are growing at an alarming rate. And how do we have this conversation where everybody can feel included and see their rights represented in this. And it wasn't just seeing human rights represented, we're seeing more than the human right. We're asking people to think about this, and to talk about this, and bring awareness. And so it was really a great experience working on this paper, having Sarah's background in environment. And then Carter and Matt, Matt with the lawyer perspective. And then me over here being like, "No, we can't say that. We can say this. Yes, we can say that." Because this is in honest truth, such a difficult conversation to have without making people feel uncomfortable. And we completely acknowledge that and wanted to go forward taking that very closely in mind and making sure that we could have this conversation and when there are people who want to push back, we could say, "But here's why, you know, we've thought about this really deeply."
Dave Gardner 10:03
Yeah, and I'm gonna give you, you know, really high marks for, I think you've accomplished your objective. I guess we're gonna find out, as the paper gets some publicity and gets discussed, but I think you did a heck of a great job anticipating the misassumptions and the, you know, the concerns that are all, I don't want to say that they're not well-founded, there's obviously lots of good reasons that this baggage has developed. But it is baggage. And we need to find a way to get rid of this excess baggage. And I think that this paper does a good job of that. So congratulations.
Cat Graff-Hughey 10:39
Thank you.
Dave Gardner 10:40
So in the paper, you write about the, you know, the existing family planning approach, and you've called it the isolation model. Tell me a little bit about that.
Sarah Bexell 10:50
Yeah, this is a term that was really coined by the full group at Having Kids and it has been published officially on the Having Kids website. And the isolation model is, the way that we explain it, is that it is sort of the current status quo of family planning. And we see this across cultures, within socio-economic statuses, you know, this is a universal practice, for the most part. Of course, there are always exceptions in every sort of, of practice or norm in that the isolation model focuses on the subjective parental choice of whether, and when, and how many children they want to bring into this world. And so it's called the isolation model because it is the choice of sometimes even one parent, or two parents, coming together and saying, "This is our right, this is our choice. When where, if, how many," without the inclusion, to be frank, of even thinking about the rights of that prospective child, and the full community into which that child will be coming into.
Cat Graff-Hughey 11:58
So what I really thought really interesting about us terming the isolation model was when I got to talk with participants and hear what they thought about the Fair Start Model, which was a couple of groups that we did in Colorado Denver, and Sarah did in China. And what was really fascinating to hear was when people talk about having children, and think about that decision, I think we saw almost around 80-85% only talked about it with their spouse or partner. When they were talking about the reasons for having children, we would get answers such as, you know, I felt it was that time, my family wanted a kid, wanted a grandchild, religious reasons were stated. And it's interesting, I was having a conversation the other day talking about the paper. And somebody was like, "Well, you know, but these are reasons," you know, the number one that came up, you know, "We want to continue our genetics, pass it on." And I was like, "Yes, but those are all pretty subjective reasons, right?" And I was wondering, and they said, "Well, people who choose to not have kids, also, they're choosing it because of financial reasons. Or they're choosing it because they liked their lifestyle and want to continue it. How isn't that selfish?" And I thought well, they're not hurting anybody with that choice though. You know, they're choosing to still be a part of a community where they're giving back. So I think the isolation model is just a very interesting way of us talking about how we talk about planning to have children, who we talk about it, and then the further implication that it resonates with, and so it fits really well, and people get it when they hear it.
Dave Gardner 13:39
So let me throw out a few ideas. And then you can smack me around if you cringe when I paraphrase it.
Sarah Bexell 13:47
I'm ready for this. Social worker here.
Dave Gardner 13:47
So our thinking has been very parent-centered, and you're really talking about adding to that much more child-centered thinking. And part of that, I think, is that it's become necessary because now we're living on a full planet where every decision to bring a child into this world - it can't be done in isolation anymore because there, there's just no extra space. There's no extra atmosphere for the carbon footprint to disappear into. There’s, as you know, we're bumping up against all kinds of environmental limits and planetary boundaries. So the decision two hundred years ago or five hundred years ago, there was less harm to be done maybe.
Cat Graff-Hughey 13:52
Well, Dave, I'm glad that you bring that up about, you know, if we keep having all these kids, where are they going to go? And I think that more than half of the population right now lives in childcare deserts. So if we just start off with the fact that having a baby, only half of these children will even have a place to go for early childcare and education.
Dave Gardner 14:56
Wow.
Cat Graff-Hughey 14:56
So that's on one hand, and then we're already thinking about the kids that we have, and we have around 400,000 children every day in the foster care system. 400,000 children here in the US right now. So we're talking about bringing in more kids, and I'm going, where are they going to go? And then the second half of that, when we're thinking about some of the things, and I think this goes into, you know, fairness and democracy is closing the gap, the wealth gap and the educational gap. And we know now that brain science is supporting that the first thousand days of a child's life is where they're going to make the most connections, where they're going to build their building blocks. But we're also saying that there's not a place for them to go, they're already all these kids that have missed out on those moments. And all of these children, at the end of the day, are going to be joining the workforce, you know? So if we don't start focusing on how we're going to plan for them accordingly and meet their needs, where's that going to put us down the line?
Dave Gardner 15:54
Yeah, of course I have this strong environmental focus on all the work that I do. And you've broadened my horizon there that it's about much more than just the environmental and sustainability considerations. It's about just the quality of life of a child.
Cat Graff-Hughey 16:11
And I think that quality is the resources. And that's why it goes back to the sustainability aspect of the climate and the resources that we're using. Like for, you know, my dad always told me, like, his proverb was, the richer you got, the more things you needed to buy, you know? So I think that the more that you need, you know, the more that you grow, the more that you need. And when do we kind of say, "Okay, enough is enough," or there's just not anything to take from anymore. And going back to just like the whole wellbeing of a child, I think Sarah can speak to this a little bit more, of that we know that being in nature, seeing, you know, trees in your day, walking around, fresh air, it all brings up that quality of life for you. And even knowing - Sarah, can you tell the story? I think that you've said before, like even us knowing that there's a whale in the ocean, what that does for us, and what a kid sees in that book.
Sarah Bexell 17:09
Yeah, I often asked my students in classes to think about the fact that, you know, it used to be talked about that extinction is something that's going to take, you know, place off in the in the distant future. But what if we all just took a moment, and just imagine that you wake up one day and your phone is ringing, it's your best friend that's calling to let you know that the last whale, the last giant panda, the last gray wolf, and the last manatee has gone extinct. They're gone forever. How does that make us feel? You know, and I give students a moment to really think about what that impact would be on them to wake up and find out, oh my goodness, they're really gone. And what some studies are starting to show is that humans have an increased sense of loneliness as we start hearing about the extinction crisis, as we start thinking about the fact that, really, there's one dominant species that's pushing out the existence of all others. Psychologically, this is really traumatic for us. And we're just now starting to grapple with what that might mean for our species and our development. And of course, there's always the, you know, beyond sort of the mental health and ramifications of this, there's also, just in the past twenty years since I've been out of school, our acknowledgement of ecosystem services. I think we've always known, you know, humans aren't that dense. And I think especially traditional ecological knowledge is founded on our understanding that Earth is our support system, it is our lifeline, it is our only lifeline. And now there's a whole body of science that has come out in the past few decades, saying, these are ecosystem services. This is what they provide for us, our air, our water, our food, all of these things can only be provided by the Earth. But with each additional person, those ecosystem services are more highly degraded and even deleted in some marginalized communities. And so the ecological crisis is looming large for us. We're seeing it, we're acknowledging it. We're feeling it both physically, especially in marginalized communities, and psychologically, we're starting to see implications also in the development of healthy children.
Dave Gardner 19:24
Sorry, you said something that just stood out to me. You said humans aren't that dense. Couldn't stop thinking about that. I think you were talking about how many human beings per square kilometer or something like that, right?
Sarah Bexell 19:39
I actually, I was trying to get some intellectual credits there.
Dave Gardner 19:44
See, originally, I was gonna take exception to that. And then I thought, no, that couldn't be what she meant. Then I came up with a good poster or a bumper sticker - The denser we get, the denser we get.
Sarah Bexell 19:57
Exactly. And I think that speaks to our detachment from nature too, as we, you know, become such a highly populated, and then sometimes by necessity more urbanized and condensed, dense, you know, in our population. Then we become distanced from the natural world. And I think psychologically also in, you know, we're seeing studies come out of children not really even understanding where their food comes from, or making statements as to why does it matter if there's tigers in the wild when I can watch them on YouTube? As we become so distanced from nature, I think that that does add to a lack of, or I think I should say, rephrase that, loss of our cognitive abilities to recognize and register on a daily basis, that nature is our life support system - that we have to have it.
Dave Gardner 20:53
I was going to ask you to just sort of tick off the key points of the human rights approach, I think we've sort of wandered through most of them. But maybe for the benefit of the listener who is multitasking and isn't paying that close of attention and isn't taking good notes, maybe we should still go ahead and do that. Do you think you could kind of just give us a cliff notes summary of that?
Sarah Bexell 21:15
Yeah, so our model is really promoting the fact that we feel and, you know, we really want people to punch holes in our paper and let us know anything that we've done wrong or that we're forgetting. But really what we are putting forward is that we feel that children need access to five key elements. And those are, and I'm going to actually say them very simply, but happy to, Cat or I both can talk more about each of them individually, Dave.
Dave Gardner 21:44
Okay.
Sarah Bexell 21:44
So one is that all children need to have access to a sense of wellbeing. Another is that all children brought into this world need to enter this world on a fair playing field, not based on sort of economic standing of their parents, but that each child coming into this world should be brought in, again, on a fair playing field. That each child also needs to have a sense of and live within a fair democracy. And another is that all children deserve access to nature and a thriving environment. And the last of those five things is that all humans need access to what is called continuity. So every person should have the right to bear children as a fundamental human right. But that also that that level of continuity has some limitations, and even, as put forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that all of the rights that are put forward in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be obtainable by all humans within reason. And in this case, within reason, in terms of that your obtaining of those rights doesn't then limit somebody else's access to those rights. And that's sort of something that we're bumping up against now in terms of human population. So now, as you were mentioning just a few minutes ago, when it was two hundred years ago, or five hundred years ago, if a child was born into this world, they weren't then limiting the rights of another child to access to resources, and access to wellbeing, access to fairness, all these things that we're outlining. Now, with the birth of every single child, we are actually limiting the rights of other children. And as Cat was really mentioning earlier, and I just wanted to emphasize again, with all the children who are already here, already here, like those children in our foster care system right here in the United States that don't have access to those things, how are we going to make sure they continue to have that access that they deserve?
Cat Graff-Hughey 23:55
I think that you went through them pretty well. I love that we really talk about improved continuity from the parent side. And that I don't think that there's a parent out there that would say that they don't want better for their child, you know? But when you say that, what does that mean? And how do you make that possible? And parents have a part of that decision-making. You know, they should feel empowered by that question. How do I make my child's life better after me? How do I, you know, as a real or biological caregiver of a child, how do you ask that question and what do you offer? Depending on the age that that kid comes into your life as well. So then it makes you have to ask yourself a couple more question. You know, you as a family unit, what can you do to not impede on other's rights, and then the community and then your environment? And those questions are fascinating that we've seen in the Fair Start Model is parents doing something, you know, like this is tangible. They're doing, you know, like they think, okay, well, maybe having a kid, we will pick up new recycling, maybe we'll do solar panel, maybe we'll, you know, really try to get hand me down clothes. You know, like there are tangible steps to take, instead of just keep walking this path that we've already been told buy bigger, buy more, buy new, and not thinking about the repercussions of that. So that's what I think of improved continuity and wellbeing. I think that one just goes back to what Sarah was talking about, just the behavioral effects that we see happening with how kids are raised. I mean, if we're talking about wellbeing, we want to give those kids as much attention and time as we can. And you like, let's be honest, you can't do that when you have maybe three, four, or five kids. That's just - time is not infinite. There's only so many hours of the day. And what we're seeing I think now is children being on tablets and phones and in front of TVs. And we've seen that so often. And that I think shows that parents are already taking on so much. We see two parent working homes as the norm now. So where are we carving in that time to make sure that the children's wellbeing as being met? And then I do want to just go to democracy, because I think that that's just such a big one that sticks out for me that this is just plain science and math. The more people you put in the pot, you're going to dilute the entire voice. And I love that we think about representation. And I think there's this issue has to do with politics so well, that even right now as we're represented, we would need almost what 202,000 representatives in the House to actually represent all of our population's means in the US right now. Like that's even crazy to think about, oh my god, they would never get anything done.
Dave Gardner 26:57
I think I've heard an even bigger number. We actually did an episode about that of Overpopulation Podcasts, so.
Cat Graff-Hughey 27:02
Seven thousand, wasn't it? Maybe it was seven thousand. I think China right now, right? China has around two thousand. We would need seven thousand people.
Dave Gardner 27:11
I know it was pretty staggering, astonishing number.
Cat Graff-Hughey 27:15
Voting for seven thousand people? I would do it though. I would do it.
Dave Gardner 27:24
So I'm tempted to just go, "Duh." I mean, why haven't we been talking about this? Or is, has there been some voice somewhere tucked away in some corner that hasn't been getting any attention, that's been espousing this kind of much more child-centered thought process?
Cat Graff-Hughey 27:42
It was very interesting going through the research, and even hearing from people that this isn't a new idea. That I think it was what, around the 1960s, '70s, Sarah, that this conversation did come up and was started, but it quickly died away. There was an interest in that. And I think, Sarah, do you know what I'm referring to?
Sarah Bexell 28:02
I think you're talking about, yeah, I mean, people, you know, especially with Paul Ehrlich's book and whatnot, you know, this is really your area of work, Dave, you know, that people started talking about the population crisis. And multiple other things kind of coalesce at that time, you know, with Silent Spring being published as well, and the Limits to Growth studies and whatnot. And so people started, you know, talking about, at least at that point, I remember my parents talking about the Replacement Theory, and so that, you know, every family should just have two children to replace those parents and whatnot. And then in terms of, you know, this particular approach to family planning, as far as we know, from the research that we did from this paper, nobody else has talked about it in this way. And I don't know if you would agree, Cat, but we read a lot of papers and a lot from philosophers to biologists to ecologist to lawyers, you know, and a lot of people are writing in this area, but nobody putting it together in this way to create the what we call the Fair Start Model.
Cat Graff-Hughey 29:02
Yeah. And I think what you're saying is like putting it in the way that we're centering it around the child's rights.
Dave Gardner 29:08
Yeah.
Cat Graff-Hughey 29:08
And having somebody ask that of the children before they're born, asking parents to discuss this, asking them to discuss it not just with their spouse, but with their friends, possibly with their community. Like this is already like, when I spoke to people about it, their faces were like, oh, yeah, I could do that. Why have I never thought that I could talk to my parents or my friends or my community? And once again, I just want to go back, I felt like they felt empowered by that. You know, that siloed isolation model has made people think that this is a private matter, but it's a private matter that becomes not so private after a while.
Dave Gardner 29:51
I guess it's time has come. I mean, part of that is, as you know, there are groups of women who are starting to get together and have conversations and and share their, their thoughts and their questions about it. And I just think it's a more evolved conversation, it is a different conversation than was being had in 1968, 1970, when a lot of the environmental movement was pretty engaged around the overpopulation subject. You know, it might have, that conversation might have continued, instead of kind of being buried for a couple of decades, if it had been as just as intelligent and complete as this conversation we're having today is so thank you for that.
Sarah Bexell 30:34
Yeah. Yeah, I think you know, just to add, you know, to what Cat was just saying about some of the research that we did a couple of years ago. You know, she did interviews in in Denver, and I did in Chengdu, China with young couples who had either just had their children, were still planning their families, maybe had just become a couple. And it was really, so wonderful for us to have the experience that we both had, working literally on other sides of the planet, with two quite different cultures, and finding the same response when we would share with them, this is what the Fair Start Model is, you know, and the with a three prong approach to first and foremost, the child's rights, the community's rights, and also the parent's rights, and have people in both countries overwhelmingly say, "Why aren't we talking about this? Why aren't we having these conversations? Why have I been made to feel that this is something that I only talk with my partner about?" And so I really think like you were, I think, alluding to Dave, the time has come. I don't think people want to make this huge, and arguably most important decision of their lives under the isolation model anymore. They want to have these conversations, they want to feel included, they want to feel supported. It's terrifying to bring a child into this world. So why are we asking people to do it in private? So yeah, we're really excited and really welcome people into this conversation, and I hope folks will reach out to us.
Dave Gardner 32:15
Very nice. Yeah, I want to share a couple of passages from the paper that really just I just wanted to get out my highlighter. And so I want to share a little bit but then give you a chance to comment on them if you have any comments. So here's one. It is only through this upside down moral framework that a twenty-nine year old woman was unable to find a doctor willing to sterilize her in accordance with her desire not to procreate, whereas a child bride received IVF treatment at a major university hospital. Why are we more concerned about an adult who chooses to be sterilized, thereby affecting the welfare of zero children, then the millions of unplanned pregnancies that result in childbirth each year, where another life is permanently created, and more often than not, repeatedly placed in harm's way? Very well said.
Sarah Bexell 33:09
Yeah. I have thoughts about it, you know. But I want to say that this is half-baked and I think it's important for Cat to contribute to this too. But to me, that really speaks of our male-dominated society. And again, this is half baked, this is not my area of expertise to think about, you know, gender roles and whatnot. But I and it also speaks to machismo a little bit, you know, in in the right now, we still live in almost every single culture on Earth in a male-dominated world. And to me, this is really talks to the point of that both of these women in both of these situations are being belittled by the system. Again, that tends to be male-dominated at this point in time in human history. With the first woman saying, "No, you silly woman, at some point in time, you're going to change your mind." Totally belittling her choice. And with the other child bride, also saying, "You know, you will have children for me, and it needs to start right now." And so that's what that passage says to me. And I'm also open to hearing, you know, other's thoughts about that.
Cat Graff-Hughey 34:28
Yeah, I mean, I think that you said it really well, Sarah, that I would say the same thing. It comes down to choice, which really comes down to what we're talking about what the Fair Start Model is people having the ability to make choices if they want to have kids or not. But there is a conversation that's overarching and trying to choose when and whether to start a family should be made by an outside source, instead of it being a conversation, and people legitimately having their rights respected. You know, I think the Fair Start Model, we focus on the child-centered right. But really, we're talking about human rights overall, that everybody should be able to have this conversation and feel safe to make a decision. I think that it really is frustrating and one of the reasons I came onto this project was just always hearing, "You'll change your mind, you know, if you don't want to have kids, like, just wait, just think about it. You don't know." It's like, well, we're, it just blows my mind, we're just we're such a more educated, you know, society in a whole. What we can get from the internet, you know, what you used to have a library where we could read a certain books, and now we can look at like fifteen articles, published journal articles, in an hour. It's just, it's diminishing of our intelligence, and that we can be forward-thinkers. And it's really sad, though, that it's a child bride and that kind of breaks my heart, because she's not getting a say in that, and that goes right back to what we were saying, is that that child-centered right, isn't being upheld here.
Sarah Bexell 36:21
Yeah, and there's two other things that this passage brings to mind to me, is also that, you know, when I read, you know, about these kinds of things happening, it also, you know, as a woman myself, makes me feel like there's a large contingency that feels like that's the only reason I'm here, you know, that, that I'm a woman, I have a uterus, so that's what I'm supposed to be here for, and that I don't have anything else to contribute to, you know, our society. And then another thing that that makes me think about, and this is a more a very recent occurrence, and I think it happened earlier this year, when AOC may, I think she tweeted this, I'm not a big Twitter-er, but I thought that this was a really apropos tweet that she made very recently, was something along the lines of, "If men were the ones who got pregnant, and then more often than not, were burdened with the raising and the nurturing and paying for that child, there would be, you know, a family planning clinic on every corner, just like Starbucks." And I thought, wow, yeah, that pretty much sums it up right there.
Dave Gardner 37:36
Well, and speaking of putting your uterus to work, just in recent, just recently, Tanzania, Iran, and the United States come to mind as places where political leaders have basically said that. You women get busy and put your uterus to work. Or what's the plural of uterus? Uteri?
Sarah Bexell 37:57
I think it would be. I don't know. That's a great question. In all my biological training, I haven't heard the plural of uterus.
Dave Gardner 38:05
There is. There's all this concern about the aging of the population because fertility rates have come down in most of the world and are continuing to drop in a lot of cases. And so the economists, especially, and the political leaders - two groups that I would advise our listeners to pay as little attention to as possible, really. And in this subject, at least. They are wringing their hands about this birth dearth and they want women to get busy incubating new workers, new consumers, new taxpayers, because they're concerned about the devastation to the economy. What's going to happen when the Ponzi scheme is not still in play? Where we have more young people with each generation who can pay in to the pension plans, social security, and all that and support this aging population? So related to that, well first of all, let me just ask you, you know, give you a chance to comment on that.
Cat Graff-Hughey 39:04
I think that goes back to what we were just talking about too, of how, as women are more informed and have more access, they are making a different choice, and it's naturally happening, this decline in fertility. One of the reasons we did the research in Colorado is because of the Colorado Family Planning Initiative, which offered LARC at a very substantial level, and they saw a decline of almost like 50% of people having children.
Dave Gardner 39:32
Lark being...
Cat Graff-Hughey 39:33
A long acting reversible contraceptive. Yes. And I think that that pushback that's coming from politicians from, you know, the economy saying have more kids is them reacting to us getting smarter and being able to have more choice, and that's interesting, right? Like, wow, I actually can make this decision on my own, when and where I want to do this. And yet now, we're having this big push that says, "Oh, no, you're hurting us. You're, you know, this is bad for the economy. Have kids, you're so selfish," which then comes up, you know. And you're like, wow, that's really interesting, you know? What we know about when you do offer higher education and access to reproductive contraceptive, that we see the rate go down. What's that saying? What, where's that side of the story? Why are we only hearing this one side of the story that's pushing us to make babies?
Dave Gardner 40:32
So this concern about having a larger portion of the population being over sixty-five, being in that kind of retirement years, although a lot of people aren't retiring at sixty-five. But the term dependency ratio comes into the conversation and where they're talking about, kind of really needs a reset, because most of the economists, when they talk about dependency ratio, when they're talking about demographics, they're talking about the ratio of working age population to the number of people who are in retirement age, or vice versa. That's the dependency ratio. And I think you addressed dependency ratio a little bit in the paper, do you remember that section and what you were trying to get across?
Sarah Bexell 41:12
I actually don't remember writing about that. And it's, you know, it's something that we, one of the aspects of in the paper that we do talk about, is flawed economic models. And I don't know if that that takes us maybe in an in a different direction. But when we, you know, most global economic models are dependent upon growth. And so I think that's that knee jerk reaction that we're hearing from politicians and, and people in in leadership positions is, "Oh gosh, we have to keep growing. And the only way to do that is, you know, to continue to have a large labor force. So we need to continue to have human beings being brought into this world to continue that growth." And now what we're seeing is, obviously, we're hitting up, and you mentioned this at the start of our podcast, Dave, of these tipping points, or thresholds in terms of just how much human activity can continue to happen, and have the Earth still be a habitable and healthy place for us. And so some economic economists, I should say, have come in saying, "Okay, our current economic models of continued growth, continued growth in GDP, and whatnot, those are flawed because they make the assumption of infinite resources upon which that growth can happen." And so some of the models that are being introduced to us are things and you've probably talked with these folks, you know, are the other steady state economists that are saying that we need to rewrite all of our economic models and create a steady state economy. But now the degrowth folks that are talking about, you know, slowly decreasing the overall human impact, including our economy, it's not just the economy that maybe needs to scale back, or even now the the wellbeing economies. And that's a really exciting movement, and even is being adopted in several nations, primarily by nations who are led by women, just have to throw that in, in looking at not just measuring the health and the wealth of a nation based on growing GDP, but how well are our people? How healthy are they? How mentally, you know, fulfilled? Are they enjoying some free time? Are they enjoying time with family? Do they have access to a healthy environment? Can we change that focus towards GDP to something that's focused on wellbeing?
Cat Graff-Hughey 43:33
I also want to, thinking about this section, I put a note for myself, and it was universal income. And I think when we're thinking about this question, like you were just saying, you know, you want to bring in people so they're able to put in for the older population. It's funny, the people that are arguing, and this is a general statement, arguing for more children, would I would say, most likely not argue for universal income. And my question would be for them, "Do we pay now? Or do we pay later?" So we could right now, you know, help people with social security that are getting older and limit the population that's coming in, because that population, though, is also going to need either some kind of social security, or what we're really hearing is universal income, because there are not going to be enough jobs for everyone. That's just the fact that we're seeing it right now. I know that labor of employment, just like released their numbers, and it's kind of staggering. There's no new jobs. And if anything else, we're also seeing artificial intelligence. And I know that this goes off into a way different part of the conversation, but my question is, pay now or pay later? That, you're not going to get around that. So why not think, and this is like asking people to be future-thinking and I know we are not the best with delayed gratification and we think of policy in two terms, four terms, get re-elected. But I'm like, "Okay, well, if we go ahead and we have all these new kids, they will also be adults that need to go into a workforce, they will also be aging and have retirement at some point, we're gonna then what? Make another two billion people? No, we can't sustain that."
Dave Gardner 45:19
You've touched on this a little bit, the fact that we can't go a day without hearing about this growing wealth gap, that we've got this huge disparity between the lion's share of the population who aren't materially as well off as they used to be. And I think everybody knows what we're talking about when we talk about the wealth gap. How does this model address that? How does this reduce the wealth gap? Or does this have an impact on that?
Sarah Bexell 45:47
We hope that it does, yes, absolutely. And and a lot of it then boils down to really thinking about, you know, sort of that fairness aspect to the Fair Start Model is what we are advocating is can humans sort of change their mindset to really focus on how we bring children into this world on a fair playing field. And in order for that to happen, everybody's going to have to cooperate and work together and pool resources. And not just financial, but even that access to clean water, to healthy food sources, all of those. If we pool those resources, and if the whole, all of the human community starts to think about the fact that if I want to prepare, you know, to bring a child into this world and make sure that they have access to all of what we think, and I think every human being would agree, is what every child should have access to, those five key elements that we talked about earlier in the podcast, then everybody's going to have to cooperate. We're going to have to create and pool our resources so that we can can do this in a fair and reasonable way. And in order to do that, we can't have just rich people and poor people and rich people giving to the poor. We've been doing that for a long time now. And it's obviously not working. How do we get parents to cooperate?
Dave Gardner 47:10
I should have challenged that earlier and asked if you were implying with that part of the human rights approach that only people who are well off should have children, because their children are born into a world where they have access to a lot of those things. That's not what you're saying. But I think we need more of an explanation of how this cooperation, how do we, how do we get there? What does that look like?
Sarah Bexell 47:36
We talked about this a lot. This is something Cat and I used to sit at that time, I literally had an office the size of a closet. This will make Cat and I both laugh and reminisce. And we would just sit there and actually talk about this part. I think this is one of the parts that Cat and I used to get stuck on the most and challenge our co-writers on this too. And we would push back and say exactly what you're asking us, Dave. But how do we make this happen? Because we wanted it to come to fruition as quickly as possible. We both work in a graduate school of social work, and we hear constantly about the suffering of humans, and especially of child suffering all over the planet. How can we hurry this up? So I think for that, I would almost turn it back on our listeners and say, and Cat, you know, please contribute to this. We want to know how to make this come to a reality. If this is something that first and foremost, we want people to read our paper, read about the Fair Start Model and decide is this something that we want to help these folks to advance? Is it something they want to participate in? And then we need to as a community, as a global community, but I think we need to start small and locally, come together. And you know, Cat and I used to talked about, is it parent meetings? Is it you know, gatherings at churches and community centers? Is it you know, everybody getting together in a bar and chatting about these problems? Those are some some questions that I don't think we have a lot of clarity around. And then one of the things that Cat and I have always dreamed about is finding a pot of money so that we can literally start actually writing what we've been calling sort of playfully a workbook. You know, like, what are the steps that need to happen in order to create these sharing communities, these cooperative communities? That's kind of where we're at, and Cat jump in if I'm forgetting anything that we've talked about.
Cat Graff-Hughey 49:24
I think definitely having those conversations and even when I've had these conversations with friends and family, there's always somebody in the group that says, "But I can afford to have three, four kids like why should, you know, I have to only have one or two?" And then the second part of what we do mention in the Fair Start Model is sharing resources. And that's where you start to get this like hands up like, "Well, no. I worked for it. It's mine, you know, not gonna pass this on to somebody else's kid." I think that, you know, for me in practical thinking how that looks is quality, affordable childcare in the beginning because we do know that wealth gap can be closed with the education gap. And what we see with wealthier kids is that they're gonna have access to education a lot earlier, and a lot more quality education. And if we could find a way, that we're asking parents who are wealthier to say that we want quality, affordable education for all children, maybe that could be a place to start. And maybe that would be a place that goes back to the continuity we're talking in the Fair Start Model, that I can't imagine that there's a parent out there who has a kid, or looks at a kid and says, "I don't want better for them, no, I don't want it." You know, I would be really surprised with that. And if there was a way to, if there was a way to make that shift of resources feel like it was having a large enough impact and felt more spread out, I would, in my world see that way of how wealth could be redistributed to be shared among smaller families. And that if your kid's sitting in a classroom where there's another kid that's just up to par, every kid is winning in that situation, you know, and going to a school where they can all contribute at the same level, and that can all be competitive for jobs, that makes it better for everyone.
Dave Gardner 51:23
Yeah, you're making me think about it, the very thing that these economists and political leaders are wringing their hands over is actually a huge part of the solution, that if we continue this shrinking of family size and shrinking of the portion of the population that our children, that gives us the resources to take better care of those kids. And we're talking about poor families having fewer children, and we're talking about rich families having fewer children, so that all those resources that are, I don't want to say squandered, but that we're having to put into taking care of the child number three, child number six, child number nine, we could put them into taking care of child number one, maybe child number two in a few cases. I mean, the resources would be phenomenal.
Sarah Bexell 52:10
Yeah, it would free up the needed resources so that every child can have access to them.
Dave Gardner 52:16
Make sense. So that was a great accidental segue into really kind of the, what I think needs to be our final topic, and that is just, you know, and I think you've already given me the answer. But let's explore that a little bit more. So what are the next steps? What needs to be done? How do we make this happen? Do you have other ideas that we haven't floated already in this conversation?
Sarah Bexell 52:36
Yeah, so I think, you know, one of the first and foremost, we want to get this information out. So Dave, thank you for giving us this platform to share. And I think that to be totally transparent and honest, there's going to be a little bit of time right now, to get the information out, help, you know, allow the public to digest it, and to let it sort of simmer in their minds, and then provide us feedback. We need to build almost a social movement in this area to open and welcome people into this conversation. So that's, I think our most immediate next step is welcoming people into this conversation, having that conversation, and getting participation.
Dave Gardner 53:18
So I'm gonna have to be patient, we're gonna have to wait a couple of weeks before we see results?
Sarah Bexell 53:22
Maybe a couple, yeah. We just have to get a lot of people to read our paper. And then I think we also are working on a next sort of follow up paper that's on delayed parenthood, and that also being, you know, a key contributor to all of this is allowing women, you know, to have access to education, access to developing their career, access to, you know, contributing into society in multiple ways, and then maybe choosing if and when they want to contribute to society by creating another human, or perhaps adopting a human. And so that will be another paper that will be coming out shortly, we hope. And then in terms of the Fair Start Model, you know, it could be that we create that workbook, it could be that we create similar to the Conceivable Future Group where they have house parties where folks come together and have these conversations. And Cat, what do you want to add to that in terms of thinking about next steps?
Cat Graff-Hughey 54:22
Yeah, I think that was a great overview of like, Fair Start's next steps. And I would also add that there is a thought process that's taking change already, that's happening, you know? Like, I think, I'm hopeful because I do see fertility rates declining on their own naturally, right? Like there's something that's already happening, there's something that's already in the air, where people are thinking about this. And even if you have certain people screaming an opinion at you, it goes back to what I said earlier, we have access to a lot of information and education. And for people to go out and look for it. And I think that, you know, even for me, I just heard and I know what's been going on since the Obama administration, but the Juliana versus the United States, which is about them filing suit that the government violated future generations constitutional right to live in a climate system that is capable of sustaining human life. And that one's picking up momentum right now. There are several pieces going on right now that are picking up momentum. And we're going to see them come together. And I hope that the Fair Start Model and hearing from people and their input of how we can, you know, contribute to that and make an impact to what's already happening. It's exciting.
Dave Gardner 55:41
You worked with Carter Dillard of Having Kids on this paper, and you're both listed on the website of Having Kids. And of course, we're going to include links to everything valuable that we want you to have access to. So be sure to check the show notes for links. But I wanted to ask you two about your role at Having Kids and what you see going forward just with that organization. What do you hope to be doing with Carter?
Sarah Bexell 56:07
Yeah, so Carter has become a great friend and colleague to both of us. And you know, Having Kids is a an interesting organization, you know, Carter sort of likens it to the Occupy movement. We're all there on a volunteer basis, we're all working towards these goals that we all, with our different backgrounds and areas of expertise that we bring to it, as well as our skill sets, are working together towards really creating sort of a more humane presence on our planet, through protecting of child rights, protecting the environment, protecting other species. And so, yeah, that's kind of our relationship with Having Kids. And I think we're both committed to helping them grow in their reach and in their capacities through our skill sets.
Cat Graff-Hughey 56:53
Absolutely, I think that it is really innovative, that they're allowing us to raise the Fair Start Model in our own fields and take it instead of it just being dominated by one sector, one field of education, field of profession. I think for me, continuing to advocate it here in Colorado with groups that work around childcare and childcare rights is what I'm doing with it. I also just think that the Fair Shart Model for me, and why I want to continue on with this is that I hold it in the back of my mind, with all the decisions that I make, and all of my work areas, is always keeping this holistic idea of how we can better society. And I love to say the more than human world benefits as well. And it's interesting to bring that perspective in a room a lot of times when it isn't there yet. And so I hope to continue to do that with the Fair Start Model.
Sarah Bexell 57:55
I think one thing that really drives me in my career, as well as my personal life, is also trying to navigate finding a way to create safe places for young people to have these conversations. You know, I think that many people, I can't tell you how many students, even if we're not talking about, you know, sort of population and its impact on the environment or on gross inequalities, all of these things. Sometimes I have students come to me or even say in front of the entire class, you know, that they feel such tremendous pressure to have children once they're done, because my students are all graduate students, you know that that's the next step, "I'm going to have this pressure and my Mom's already asking me when is the child coming? You know, when are you going to get married? And all these kinds of things." And some of these young people have already made the decision, or they're really wanting to have these conversations about, you know, childbearing, and about all of the pressures that that brings. And so how do we create and how do we sort of bring back what I've heard, at least from my parents, was a popular topic back in the sixties and seventies, was to talk about this problem. How do we make it okay to have this conversation again? And so that's what another thing that I hope, and I think the Fair Start Model opens up for people, because it feels so safe, it feels so wonderful and warm and rich and nurturing. There's nothing scary about it. So I'm hoping that that's something that we can contribute to the world is creating that safe place.
Dave Gardner 59:28
Well, thank you. Thank you both for doing that. That's such an important thing that this movement really needs. So I'm pretty excited about it. What do you think? I'm curious. And Sarah and Catharina are both very interested in feedback on this proposed new approach to planning a family. Email your thoughts to podcast@worldpopulationbalance.org. I'll be sure to pass them along to the authors. You can also comment on the World Population Balance Facebook page. I like to include listener feedback in every episode of the podcast, so I'll share responses to this episode in the next episode of the Overpopulation Podcast. For now, here are a couple of shareworthy comments from the past several weeks. Following episode twenty-five, titled Too Nervous to Discuss Overpopulation, we got a nice note from Robin Maynard, Director of Population Matters. Great podcast, Dave, all the best from us over here in the United Kingdom. In response to episode twenty-six, playing whack-a-mole with pro-growth bias, Roland emailed, economic growth based on fossil fuels in the countries with the 10% richest people on Earth is really playing whack-a-mole with pro-growth bias. Well, that's it for this edition of the Overpopulation Podcast. Be sure to visit worldpopulationbalance.org to learn more about how we can solve world overpopulation. There you can sign the Sustainable Population Pledge, listen to all of our podcasts, get on our email list, and become a supporting member, make a donation to support our vital work. You can also find World Population Balance on Facebook and Twitter. Please recommend the podcast to others. I'm sure you know some people that you'll want to share this episode with. And be sure to subscribe to the podcast. It's free and that way you won't miss an episode. Until next time, I'm Dave Gardner reminding you we know how to solve overpopulation. Let's get on with it.
