Environmental & economic resources and only children

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Environmental & economic resources and only children

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It is funny we spend a lot of time thinking about resources both economically and environmentally, and it is interesting that our notion that an only child is a bad choice persists when we look at what´s happening to the environment. When I think about the carbon footprint of my own child who is just one child and that that would double if there were two children and it would triple if there were three children, the issue isn´t so much population around the world. In developing countries, kids of course consume a lot less but as long as my child flies on airplanes and drives around in my car and enjoys air conditioning and likes cheese burgers, it is going to be pretty big. And it is true that the quickest, easiest possible way is to reduce that impact on the environment is simply to have fewer children. Simultaneously, there is a question of micro-resources which is how much I can devote to her in terms of time and energy but in terms of money. I mean there are so many of us who are living in such debt and what it costs to maintain just even a place in the middle class right now for a child with all of the uniforms and afterschool and birthday parties not to mention the number of toys and books that we purchase. All of these things that really add up, it is no wonder that children have become one of our principal costs. And so, the more kids you have, the more money they cost and that is before college. So when you look at what it costs a family and when you look at what it costs the environment, it does seem to be a pretty logical choice.

View Lauren Sandler, MA's video on Environmental & economic resources and only children...

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Lauren Sandler, MA

Journalist & Author

Lauren Sandler is the author of One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child and the Joy of Being One, and a journalist who writes on cultural politics and gender issues for publications like Time, The New York Times, and Slate. And she’s as an only child and the mother of one herself. 

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