Big Families Are the New Green
Reducing Your Carbon Footprint, One Baby at a Time
by Simcha Fisher
in Family
on Friday, April 23, 2010 6:33 AM
(Editor’s note: This article ran in the Spring 2010 issue of Faith & Family magazine, but it elicited such a positive response, we can’t resist sharing it here.)
Got a big family? Then you already know that you’re crazy, a traitor to feminism, and a slave to the pope; you’re neglecting most of your kids and robbing the rest of their childhood; you’re a burden on the system in general, and you probably don’t own a television set.
But wait, there’s more! Don’t forget, you’re also destroying the earth.
Lately, it’s become fashionable for radical environmentalists to denounce large families as irresponsible, even selfish. Maybe you heard the remarks of the chairman of the U.K.’s Sustainable Development Commission, who said that, out of respect for the earth, couples should be legally limited to bearing two “replacement” children.
And yet, if we can get beyond the inflammatory rhetoric, do radical environmentalists have a point? Should we slow down a little? It almost seems like common sense, especially when you’re having one of those days when you do feel a little crowded by the swarms of ravening locusts — uh, I mean, treasured offspring who share your last name.
After all, aren’t Catholics supposed to be good stewards of the earth? Isn’t it true that we “lotsas” are using more than our share of natural resources, burning more than our share of carbon, and just plain taking up too much space?
Probably not. Moms of many already know that the work of caring for seven children is not the same as caring for one child times seven. In some ways, it’s easier. In the same way, many large families actually have a small-er carbon footprint than a typical family with one or two kids. A household of nine is not like a household of three times three. It just doesn’t work that way.
Moreover, when larger families do have an environmentally friendly profile, it often occurs naturally as a result of the family’s large size, not despite it. It’s not the num-bers that count; it’s the lifestyle.
HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES:
Cars Count
Let’s start with that enormous van we drive — could it be eco-friendly? Sure. It’s certainly not fuel efficient; it’s just that it’s usually parked in the driveway. With eight kids in tow,
I leave the house as close to zero times as possible, bringing our weekly mileage to less than half the national average. My husband has a small, fuel-efficient car, which we use if only a few kids are on board.
And how often do we fly? Well, the stewardess is still in therapy from the last time our family boarded a plane together, about eight years ago.
Economy Size
How about electricity? Do nine people use more than three or four? Not necessarily. Six kids playing Dinosaur Wedding do it by the light of a single light bulb, just like one or two kids would. Two or three kids fit in a bathtub at a time. The oven stays on 350 degrees for 45 minutes, no matter how big the meatloaf.
Cozy Quarters
Most large families I know don’t live in energy-hogging gigantic mansions. They live in normal houses, they’re a little crowded, and they have lots of bunk beds. (They do, however, tend to go for big yards, lots of trees, and gardens. Natural wildlife preserves, you might say.)
Reduce and Re-use
Many large families also live with tight budgets. We happily trade a second income for another armful of babies. The quick and easy methods of saving the environment that make the news daily are hardly news to cash-strapped families: Turn down the heat, insulate, avoid anything disposable, buy in bulk, cook from scratch, breastfeed, don’t eat out, don’t waste this, don’t buy that. Turn out the light, close the door, unplug it, wash in cold water, make it do or do without. And if it does not get eaten for dinner, we serve it for lunch.
What a revelation! And so good for the earth.
Make Do
How about consumption of goods? I must admit that my family and many Catholic families I know are almost complete failures as consumers. Our house is mostly furnished, from the couch to the car to the pots and pans and coffee cups, with used goods. We are not, for the most part, consuming new pro-ducts, with all their attendant carbon costs in manufacture and transport. By taking in used things, we’re also preventing an entire houseful of stuff from clogging up the landfills.
Pass It On
Large families tend to buy used clothes, books, and toys, but we hang onto them, passing them down from child to child and even to family. The thermal onesie on my baby today? It started life keeping my nephew and niece warm, then went on to clothe every one of my eight kids so far.
Our family of 10 usually produces only three kitchen-sized bags of trash per week.
If you’re still feeling a little eco-guilt, go ahead and plug your own family’s stats into one of the many carbon calculators available online (try SafeClimate.net). You may be surprised at how “be fruitful and multiply” translates quite naturally into treading lightly on the earth.
According to the first three carbon calculators that Google turned up, my family of 10 consumes and emits less than the national average … the national average, that is, for a family of two. And we were just trying to get through the week.
What the Future Holds
This is all very well, some will say, as long as your many children all live with you in your shoe. You may be very thrifty today, but what about when they all grow up and move out? More people is more people, no matter how you slice it.
For this argument, I have two answers. First is that grown children of large families tend to be what you might call natural conservationists. Children who grow up one of many are likely to have learned that they’ll survive without buying stuff, that itokay to share, that material things come and go, and that, like it or not, we all depend on each other for survival.
So who will I be sending out into the world? A small crowd of perfect environmentalists.
Second, children of families that are open to life also know something much more important, something that rabidly utilitarian environmentalists still don’t seem to realize: A human soul is more than the sum of how many kilowatts he consumes.
Evangelize an Environmentalist
What can we say to people who do not realize that the human family is the very seat of love, and that procreation is the ultimate human imitation of the action of the Holy Trinity?
There is nothing you can say. Satisfy yourself that you’re not being wasteful, and then answer not the fool according to his folly. Love your children, and teach them to love each other; and if you and your brood feel like a sign of contradiction, then that’s a good sign.
The Catholic Church has been teaching this lifestyle for thousands of years. There is no contradiction between loving and caring for the earth and supplying it with inhabitants: We are commanded to do both.
Was it short-sighted when God the Father explained these things to Adam? Was it hyperbole when Christ asked, “What does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul?”
‘A Great Big Yes’
Our beloved Benedict XVI recently said of big families:
“Their Yes to one another in the patience of the journey and in the strength of the sacrament with which Christ had bound them together, had become a great Yes to themselves, their children, to God the Creator and to the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Thus, from the witness of these families a wave of joy reached us, not a superficial and scant gaiety that is all too soon dispelled, but a joy that developed also in suffering, a joy that reaches down to the depths and truly redeems man.”
Of course it’s Catholic to be an environmentalist. Of course it’s our job to care for the earth. But even more, it’s our job to remember, and to teach our children, that this world will not last, and to live accordingly.
“All flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass; the grass withered, and the flower has fallen — but the word of the Lord endures forever” (Isaiah 40:6).
How will it endure, if there is no one to hear it? Let us answer the No of child-fearing radicals with a joyful and ancient Yes. The world needs big families.
—Simcha Fisher enjoys the “green” life with her husband and eight children in New Hampshire.
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The world needs big families, small families, childless couples, and single people!
