Is having children totally selfish?

While it seems some people reproduce with nary a care, there are others who weigh up more than their own financial or relationship status before diving into the gene pool. Photo / Getty

Sixty million babies have been born globally so far this year.

Only 24.9 million people have died, meaning the population is exploding with no sign of slowing down. Our society consumes boundless "stuff", creating endless waste, while an estimated 795 million people starve.

It begs the question: Is bringing a child into this insanity selfish?

Polly Snowden, 36, and her husband, Jamie, welcomed their daughter, Jupiter, into their lives, but put serious consideration into having more children.

"My husband and I had our relationship tested as most couple do, but the other main reason we chose to stop at one child is that we looked at our own footprint, the population of the planet and the state of the planet and we didn't want to contribute to that. As soon as we decided we were 'one and done', it felt right for us," says Ms Snowdon.

"We need to start thinking about the world we are leaving our children, I find myself creating the world in which I want my daughter to grow up in," says Ms Snowdon, who creates community events to raise awareness about political and environmental issues.

"I think if we think globally and act locally we can create the world we want to live in."
Vanessa, 39, decided mid-teens that she never wanted to bring children into this world we live in after seeing the waste they create.

"After living with a woman who had two teenagers and two younger children I got a first hand view of the amount of waste children contribute daily. It really shocked me. A first world child consumes the equivalent in resources as three third-world children," she says.

While it seems some people reproduce with nary a care, there are others who weigh up more than their own financial or relationship status before diving into the gene pool.

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For the founders of Conceivable Future, a network which draws "awareness to the threat climate change poses to reproductive justice," the question is "how do you decide to have a baby when opportunities for leading a healthy and productive life are increasingly jeopardised?"

"We do not ever tell people whether or not to have children. To us, that's not the point. Rather, we believe that to stop and draw political attention to child-bearing and to ask hard questions about it helps break up the idea that we should absorb the sins and fallacies of a corrupt political and economic system as our own," says sociologist, climate activist and founder, Meghan Kallman.

In Kallman's experience, sometimes a woman choosing not to have children is considered selfish as though "thumbing their noses at their sacred duty by seeing themselves as something other than mothers."

"Occasionally, too, the charge is slung back in the opposite direction - you're 'selfish' if you choose to exercise your human right to bear a child in the face of a messed up world. In other words: we need to forget for a minute who we think is 'selfish', and get mad that we have to be having this discussion at all," says Kallman.

Aside from the selfish charge, we come back to the matter of the planet. The Population Reference Bureau reported in 2016 that the global population would increase by 33 per cent in the coming 35 years. An earlier study by the World Wildlife Fund predicted that by 2050 we would need a new planet to live on.

"Every Australian family should be limited to just two children to curb the population explosion," millionaire and one time Australian of the Year, Dick Smith, famously said in 2011.

Although "capping" the amount of children people are allowed is one solution, it's not a very sound one according to environmental and sustainability consultant, Mark Robinson.

"In my personal opinion, that's brutal, unrealistic and creates perverse incentives for sex selection," says Mr Robinson who feels this is not a viable solution for the environment.

We need to start thinking about the world we are leaving our children

Polly Snowden

"Fundamentally, [the solution] requires honest recognition of the interdependence of social, financial, biological and physical systems. Most people accept these notions generally but there is an unwillingness to accurately account for some costs like pollution.

"There's clearly been a huge overlap of the resources we demand to deliver our needs and wants versus what's left for the natural environment to provide clean air, water and the biodiversity that makes life for us possible and enjoyable."

Basically, the demands we are placing on the planet are not looking optimistic for our future. In view of these increasing demands, is creating more population adding to the problem or the solution?

"Sitting back in an Italian leather chair, drinking Indonesian Java coffee, wearing shoes made out of crude oil and feeling guilty about fulfilling your basic human function is kind of missing the point if you ask me," says Robinson.

Regardless of whether we fix the social and environmental issues we have on this planet, or blast off and colonise a new one, chances are it will be the future generations who come up with the solutions for problems they've inherited.