Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Long-Term Sustainability / on having children

[sherylcatmom (sheryl]

Racheli, thank you for reminding me about one-to-one replacement.  I
forgot about that concept when I was posting my question.  Even though
I'd prefer to see overall negative population growth, zero certainly
beats any higher numbers.

I admire the way you describe your conscious parenting and
values-transmission through example.  My spouse and I appreciated the
 child-rearing we saw -- and the living children themselves -- at the
cohousing community we stayed at last year.

I like the way you put this:

> It doesn't make sense to me to say that people shouldn't have any
> children,
> in the same way that it doesn't make sense to me to say that people
> should
> have children.

I prefer approaches other than "should" anyway.

Sheryl

--- In cohousing-L [at] yahoogroups.com, Racheli Gai <racheli@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Sheryl,
> I have two kids, so my family's contribution to growth is zero.
> (Because
> my partner and I only replace ourselves).
>
> It doesn't make sense to me to say that people shouldn't have any
> children,
> in the same way that it doesn't make sense to me to say that people
> should
> have children.  IMO people who are really thoughtful and motivated to
> put
> a lot of their time and energy into child- rearing are the ones who are
> more likely to do a good job.
> We started by having one child, and a number of years later decided that
> we seem to enjoy having kids, and are fairly good at it (to the extent
> that
> one can judge regarding oneself...)  So, we ended up having another
> one, and never planned having any more biological offspring.
> I made raising my kids my first priority.  They were unschooled, which
> means that much of my time and energy was spent on being with them,
> interacting with them, facilitating their pursuit of their interests,
> and so on.
>
> We also had a chance to model thoughtfulness in regards to environmental
> issues, something which hopefully will affect how they think and behave
> in the world.
>
> Racheli
> Sonora Cohousing, Tucson