Sunday morning before Church I decided to stop by Twitter, where I saw this tweet from Grist:
Can you have kids and still be a good person?
The article it links to asks:
“How, in a world where we are increasingly aware of how our carbon footprint is dooming the planet to uninhabitability, do we make the decision to have a child? Or two children? Or three?”
And I know it’s difficult to see the poor, especially children, suffering around the world, and not ask this question. However, depopulating is not the answer!
The overpopulation myth has been debunked so many times, but it just won’t die. I’ll let other moms who have answered that charge before speak for me:
Big families, the new green
“Are You Done Yet?” In Defense of our 5th Child
Why My Big Family Is Not Overpopulating the Earth
You gotta love God’s timing, though. We left for Mass and I was still upset over the Grist tweet, but the Gospel that day was about the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. Various homilies I’ve heard through the years focus on the Miracle, and Jesus’ divine power to multiply the loaves and fishes to feed the multitude; others focus on the generosity of those who contributed the loaves and fishes to be multiplied. And coming out of Mass that day, I decided that the answer to Grist’s question is yes, you can have children, and still be virtuous, and actually have the well-being of the planet in mind.
Jesus continues to give Himself to us daily, in the Holy Eucharist. This Gift of all gifts is multiplied through us. We are called to be part of that miracle by being good stewards of this earth and sharing the gifts we are blessed with. Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si’ talks about this stewardship. The Vatican (and in essence, the Church) has always been concerned about world hunger, as this 1996 document illustrates: World Hunger a Challenge for All: Development in Solidarity.
What’s puzzling to me is that we’ve made so many scientific and technological advances that we are now to the point where we can develop artificial uteri, but we can’t seem to think of better ways to end world hunger and get safe drinking water to those who need it most! We excel in finding ARTIFICIAL solutions, but for some reason we always balk at NATURAL solutions. Why can we not find ways to work WITH God’s creation instead of AGAINST it?
Is it because people stand to lose money if we were to end world hunger? Are bottled water companies not paying attention?
Here in the US, we are obsessed with “perfect food”, when billions out there would be happy with just any real food. I’ve seen the video I linked to above so many times, and it still disturbs me. But we can’t just say “too many people” and leave it at that. Food waste is a huge problem, not just here in the US, but in places like China and India as well. Clearly it’s a problem of distribution too. I’m glad to see solutions like this one and would love to see it implemented all over.
At the same time, giving the poor access to healthy food doesn’t solve everything. People these days are so dependent on processed food, and so disconnected from the food that they eat, they don’t even know where it comes from.
I personally would love to downgrade from our large refrigerator and get a smaller one. Things get lost in there. Ten years ago when we got it it made sense for our family of six living in a small town in Pennsylvania, stocking up on Asian food from two hours away. These days we have access to local farmers, and the international store is just ten minutes away. We’re also trying to grow more food for ourselves than we have before. These Nanofarms in San Francisco sound wonderful!
If you’ve got a favorite charity or group that works specifically on world hunger and water distribution, especially if it’s one you’ve worked with personally and can vouch for, please comment so we can check them out.
Recent Comments