Small Families
Table of Contents
Introduction
This page lists subjects from highest impact choices first. We start with smaller family sizes because this has the most immediate and long-term impact when it comes to "family planning" specifically.
The remaining topics can help you choose products and lifestyle choices that can minimize the impact of having and raising one or more children. You can further reduce your family's impact by buying used items (when safe/legal), using the hand-me-down system between family members for clothes, nappies, bedding, toys, and transport devices such as bike seats.
As our children grow we can also take care to teach them the value of the natural world by helping them explore it, learn to grow in it, and care for it. Some of my fondest family memories include visits to parks, helping in the veggie garden, and hearing the crash of glass bottles inside the collection bin when I helped my grandparents recycle at their local drop-off location.
Human Population Facts vs. Myths
We do want to specifically point out that despite common myths about the human population. Earth doesn't have a human "population problem", so much as a livestock population problem. We feel it important to caution that the "human population problem" myth has long been proposed and supported by groups who then used the myth to support geocide programs, forced sterilization that traumatized entire families and communities. These are things we want to stand against, rather than accidentally encourage.
We Enough Space & Resources for Humans
Enough Space
According to scientists we need an estimated 50% of Earth to remain wild in order for natural processes to provide us with clean air, clean water, medicines and our other basic needs. According to Our World in Data humans only use around 2% of Earth's habitable areas, though the down side is that agriculture already uses 46% of Earth's habitable land. That puts us at around 48%, and only 2% away from our limit.
Considering that 77% of our agricultural land is used for livestock (the least efficient of the organisms we raise for food), scientists propose we can drastically reduce this amount of land by switching to more sustainable agricultural practices including intercropping, cover cropping, creating food forests, and urban or vertical farming. Solar farms can also be combined with food farming for a number of benefits including more efficient land-use. For those who don't want to give up livestock, incorporating silvo-pasture, solar panels, and rotational grazing.
Enough Food
According to this source "According to estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, some 783 million people, almost one in ten, are currently undernourished, regularly not getting enough food in order to lead an active and healthy life. At the same time, agriculture is producing more food than ever before, both in total numbers as well as on a per capita basis, despite the fact that the world population is growing. If the harvest was used entirely and as effectively as possible as food, it could already feed 12 to 14 billion people."
The Livestock Over-Population Problem
"Humans are easily outnumbered by our farm animals. The combined total of chickens (19 billion), cows (1.5 billion), sheep (1 billion) and pigs (1 billion) living at any one time is three times higher than the number of people, according to the Economist.
But those figures are dwarfed by the number of animals we eat.
An estimated 50 billion chickens are slaughtered for food every year – a figure that excludes male chicks and unproductive hens killed in egg production." - World Economic Forum
Human Population
Livestock Populations
Chickens 19,000,000,000 (at any give time or ~50 billion+ per year)
Cows 1,500,000,000
Sheep 1,000,000,000
Pigs 1,000,000,000
Livestock Killed Per Day
Chickens 202,000,000
Cows 900,000
Sheep 1,700,000
Pigs 3,800,000
Ducks 11,800,000
Goats 1,400,000
Fish hundreds of millions
Benefits of Preventing Unwanted Pregnancies
Family size can be a touchy subject, but science has proven over and over again that letting people choose more sustainable family sizes means more resources for the existing family members including enough money for food, clothes, and education, which in turn creates a higher standard of living, with less tax on our limited resources.
Children in smaller families get more attention and resources than if a family has to split those thing, resulting in better education and better emotional outcomes. There's also less risk of parentification
7:13 minute video "Small Families, Small Planet" explores how our choices today will impact our resources tomorrow. The following resources discuss the topic in more detail.
Resources for Family Planning & Health Care
Population Matters believes that everybody should have equal access to sexual and reproductive health education and services. This directory can help you to find family planning resources and services across Australia and New Zealand, India, North America, and the UK.
Please let us know of similar resources for other nations.
This method will not work for everyone but is included for those who won't or can't use medical forms of birth control for religious or other reasons.
Get Involved
The following are organizations that empower individuals to make their own choices, protect their rights, access healthcare, and protect the environment.
How To Reduce Our Impact While Raising Kids
Major Sources of Waste
This article lists the some of the greatest sources of environmental harm per year while raising an average infant as (slightly edited).
~2,500 diapers/nappies which takes 500 years to fully decompose
~3,000 baby wipes in a single year which take 100 years to decompose
Baby food pouches are typically not recyclable and can take hundreds of years to decompose.
More than 20 billion pounds of clothing is thrown away every year. Much of this waste is children’s clothing, as they grow out of garments so quickly. The clothing that ends up in landfills (which is most of it) contributes to the release of greenhouse gases and can leach toxins into the soil and water supply. The same is true for the baby gear that’s thrown out when it’s no longer needed.
The single-use plastic containers that many baby care products come in contribute to the more than 120 billion units of pack.
Simple, Thrifty, Eco-Friendly Solutions
Washable, cloth nappies/diaper's.
Washable, cloth baby wipes.
Some brands sell biodegradable nappies/diapers, and wipes, but these very rarely end up in the the right kind of facilities to biodegrade properly, and without releasing greenhouse gases.
Make your own baby food. This can be as easy as mushing down the same food the rest of the family eats to help get them used to eating healthy veggies, fruit, mashed potatoes, and other healthy foods without the worry of baby food safety recalls or extra, needless packaging.
Give and receive hand me downs or buy secondhand baby clothes. Small babies often never wear half of what they are given because they grow so fast.
Repair small damage to toys and clothing. Stuffed toys should be washed, sewn shut if they split, and can be patched or dyed to hide signs of aging.
Buy used gear and furniture if it is safe to do so. Almost all baby gear can be safely purchased secondhand since most pieces of used so briefly by each child. Check your local safety laws and avoid second hand helmets, car seats, and cribs (certain dates may apply).
"Skip many of the common skin care products. Instead of purchasing diaper creams and moisturizers that often come in single-use plastic containers and can contain harmful ingredients, you can utilize coconut oil for moisturizer and breast milk (or coconut oil) for diaper rashes. For items such as shampoo and sunscreen, purchase products from eco-friendly brands that don’t use toxins.
Purchase wooden or secondhand toys. Instead of buying brand-new plastic toys, you can instead opt for wooden toys manufactured by eco-conscious brands, or buy toys from a secondhand store. Then, when your child outgrows their toys, donate them to a friend or take them back to that secondhand store."
Libraries
Libraries are a great way to give kids access to books, comics, movies, audio books, and more!
A growing number are dropping their late fees, plus they offer year-round entertainment and education opportunities in the forms of reading time, classes, art projects, reading challenges, clubs, and so on.
The following sections explore how to go about these activities.
Nappies/Diapers
"Approximately 90-95% of American babies use 27.4 billion single-use, plastic diapers every year. This generates 7.6 billion pounds of garbage each year—enough waste to fill Yankee Stadium 15 times over, or stretch to the moon and back 9 times. Every year.
Disposable diapers are the 3rd largest consumer item in landfills, and represent 30% of non-biodegradable waste. The only other items that outnumber the amount of disposables in landfills are newspapers and beverage and food containers.
Even though it may seem as if an individual child doesn’t contribute much to those numbers, babies do a lot of pooping. In fact, the average baby goes through 6-8 diapers a day. Unless you practice elimination communication, your baby will use between 6,500–10,000 diapers before potty training around 30 months old, creating about 2000 pounds of garbage over that time! That’s literally a ton of toxic waste." - https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/dangers-of-disposable-diapers
General Info, Guides, & Resources
Click the Nappies/Diapers button to learn more about sustainable alternatives to single-use baby supplies including nappies and wet wipes, as well as elimination communication. There are resources in English and other languages, including guides calculators, infographics, and places to look for second-hand supplies.
Give or Receive Free or Supplies
This directory also includes vouchers & subsidies, as well as programs where you can take a class to qualify for free cloth nappy kits.
Some of the classes do cost some money, but the "free kit" is generally worth more than the money paid to take the class.
Cloth Nappy/Diaper Patterns & Guides
Click the How To: DIY Diapers/Nappies button for a variety of written and video guides in different languages. These include some free patterns, and guides on picking materials or upcycling old textiles including used clothing.
Eco-Friendly Baby Food
The suggestions in the link to the right talk about getting only the best food and using a blender, but the main rules of feeding a baby include starting out slow with simple single-ingredient foods, and avoiding certain foods like peanuts and honey which can be particularly dangerous for infants.
Since the dawn of humanity, mothers have been chewing up food for their babies, but simply using a fork or spoon is just as serviceable so long as the food is soft enough for a baby to eat safely.
Baby food companies have had many recalls and scandals concerning the lead content in baby food as well as other safety scares. The pouches that many baby foods come in are generally not recyclable, and some communities don't have the facilities to recycle or reclaim glass jars or lids. Making food at home, even if not organic or with other fancy labeling can help you save money, protect the environment, and be just as safe or safer than what you can buy from corporations.
Transportation
Travel makes up a big part of our pollution, especially if you drive a fossil fuel vehicle. Taking the bus, train, or using person-powered modes of transit from walking to biking can all make a big impact not only on climate change, but in our personal health, and the air quality around our communities. A growing number of school districts around the world are now banning parents from driving their kids to school as it causes traffic jams and subsequent smog increases around the school grounds, something which is particularly dangerous for growing brains!
New research is even finding that noise pollution from traffic around schools negatively affecting children's cognitive abilities.
Parents might fall prey to the illusion that being inside a vehicle like a car keeps their child safer, but studies have shown surprisingly high levels of tailpipe fumes ending up inside the seating area of cars, especially when stuck in traffic, while pedestrians who have access to fresh air only inhale a fraction of the pollutants being trapped in vehicles during the study.
Exercise and fresh air however have been shown to boost brain's health enough to improve a child's school performance. Kids are forced to sit for long periods at school, and may have limited access to playgrounds or sport opportunities, so walking or rolling to school under their own power can give children a great physical and cognitive advantage, vs what they lose by being strapped into a seat before and after school.
During the research done to create this site, one parent explained that their child's love of their family's bakfiets probably came from the fact that when children are strapped into a baby seat (in a motorized vehicle), with headrests taking up most of their view, they aren't properly stimulated because their view is boring, or even frustrating. By comparison, their child's literal front-row seat in the backfiets gave their child an exciting, first-person experience of their city. The child had learned their community layout (which will help prevent them from getting lost in the future), and has turned their once-boring, family commune into a fully-inclusive adventure every time they go anywhere.
Safety First!
Eco-friendly traveling can require us to consider things we might not have worried about before. Letting kids travel to school on their own can be scary for us adults, but sometimes our fears aren't reflected by the data. For example some people worry about their kids being safe from strangers when out on their bikes, but studies found that girls with bikes were safer than girls without access to bikes, because they could move more freely and faster than children on foot.
Similarly people assume cars keep their kids safe, but the data shows most travel-related deaths being linked to drivers of cars.
Whether you walk or ride with your kid, or let them travel alone, children will be safer if you:
Establish rules and boundaries. Let them know if there is a road they can't pass, this boundary should expand as their become more reliable. Tell them if there is a time they need to be home by, and who to go to if they can't get home or another emergency happens.
If your mode of travel requires safety gear like a helmet or knee pads, make sure these fit properly and that children know they have to wear them every time they want to ride or roll. Click here to learn about properly fitting a helmet and basic bike-safety tips.
Travel around with them before letting them go out alone. Young children need to learn with a trusted adult how to safely cross a road, where important land marks are (the park or library for example), this can help them avoid getting lost.
Make a plan for you child in case they get lost. This should include an up-to date photo of your child, as well as making sure they know who to ask for help, such as a shop clerk or police officer.
Get involved in your community's safety programs.
General Tips for Stress-Free Travel
Don't feel like you have to change 100% of your habits immediately. If you don't usually walk or cycle, then start with one day a week, or just mornings or just afternoons, then build your muscles. Slowly challenge yourself to do more, or choose transport mode according to where else you will need to go on a given day, or with respect to weather conditions.
Try a test trip to places like school or your doctor's office before your scheduled visit. This will let you know if you need to add more time for to cross at intersections, or if a short cut through a park will let you cut off a few minutes that would have been spent sitting in traffic with your regular drive.
Bring water and a snack for long trips.
Wear appropriate protection. A sun hat or cap, umbrella, rain coat, and appropriate shoes or warm clothes can make the difference between a fun journey and extreme discomfort. Check the weather in case a cold front or storm hit in the afternoon.
Use map or app if you are in a new place.
Take breaks! This is especially important if you have a smaller child, or one of you isn't used to the new mode of travel. Little kids may want to be picked up, or get tired of skates before they get to the end of your street. Starting with short trips, with plenty of breaks will help build their muscles, and keep the learning process fun.
Active Transportation
It can include walking, bike riding, pushing a baby or carrying a child. These methods are not only very efficient, but shown to improve human health, air quality, mental health, and children's mental health as well as test scores. Active transportation can also reduce noise pollution.
Click the Active Transit button to learn more about the many passive ways to travel with kids, and the benefits of each.
Organizations
North America
USA
New York
Adopt A House "is a 501(c)3 nonprofit agency and is dedicated to help re-build our local communities by bringing valuable information, solutions and financial assistance to Long Island residents affected by Super Storm Sandy and other emergency situations. Run entirely by volunteers, Adopt A House's simple mission is to support recovery for Long Island's SouthShore by preparing and administering a comprehensive disaster aid and long term recovery program to individuals, families and the community. Adopt A House also contributes assistance to individuals in unfortunate emergency circumstances by easing financial burdens and offering help and guidance. We achieve this mission through multiple avenues including, but not limited to: educational workshops, community outreach, programs for financial assistance, community service, and acting as liaison between elected officials and registered families. We are constantly striving to improve our ability to assess housing needs, improve community services and raise funds that go directly to registered families and our programs."