Should we give up having children?

“I don’t want to take responsibility for looking a child straight in the eye and telling him that I know that his life would be difficult. At 33, Bilal has long matured his resolution not to be a father. Engineer in the water field, he took “a big slap” during a mission to the Ministry of the Environment ten years ago. “I realized that policies did not manage the situation. We are going to meet energy shortages that risk turning society in violence. »»

Give up starting a family for fear of an unlivable future? The question is in tune with the times and the forefront activists in the defense of the planet are no longer the only ones to ask it. “For three years, the evolution has been notorious, testifies Xavier de Bénazé, a Jesuit and coordinator of the spiritual ecocentre of the Châtelard, near Lyon (Rhône). At the end of my conferences, parents or grandparents come to question me no longer theoretically on the subject, but by showing concrete concern, because young people around them tell them not wanting children for ecological concern. »»

This concern also resonates in the firms of psychologists. “More and more women are entering therapy, torn by this question: can I decently make the decision to give birth or to have another child in such a context? Relates Charline Schmerber, psychopractor in Montpellier (Hérault), specializing in eco-anxiety. This anxiety has become even more acute because of the political reverse operated in recent months on ecological issues; challenges that the war in Ukraine or the Trump government have largely overshadowed. »»

One more consumer

In 2021, a study carried out in ten countries and published in the scientific journal The Lancet, We learned that in France, 37 % of the 16-25 year olds hesitated to have children due to global warming. A percentage roughly in the average of the states analyzed (39 %). How is this case of conscience that works and bodies is expressed? What are the elements put forward in one direction and in the other?

The ecological consequences of the arrival of a new human on earth often are among the reasons invoked. Humanity having damaged the planet, a simple way to reduce environmental pressure would be to limit the birth rate … Lou-André, 29, thus explains, among other reasons, its decision to submit to final sterilization (Read the “Read also” below).

It is also the argument of the humorist Florent Peyre, author of the show Nature. On the set of the show What an era! In November 2024, he mentioned his life choices with his partner. “We don’t want a second child because we consider it a second consumer,” he explained. And the real problem is overconsumption, overcrowding. »»

The term overcrowding, although overlapping, poses a major philosophical question: can there be over too much human beings in the “banquet of nature”, as the 13th century stated in the 18th century? Recycled in the middle of the 20th century in the essay The bomb p (“P” for population) of Paul R. Ehrlich, Malthusian theses considering that earthly resources are insufficient to feed everyone still permeates spirits.

A political question

“The planet is not a big cake to share, where the more we would be, the less we would have shares,” refutes the engineer Emmanuel Pont, author of the test Should you stop having children to save the planet?. In reality, the shares are extremely disproportionate. If we were twice as numerous on earth, it is not at all obvious that we would pollute half as much. With identical economic model, there would still be winners and losers, very rich and very poor. We would not have resolved any of the major ecological problems that are above all political, not demographic. »»

By their mode of consumption, in fact, the richest 10 % of the globe are at the origin of 48 % of greenhouse gas emissions – causing climatic deregulation – while the poorest half of the world population emits only 12 %, as indicated by the 2023 report of the global inequality laboratory. The stake therefore consists first of all in upsetting our lifestyles and reducing inequalities at the root of disaster.

The fact remains that everyone is free to make their arbitrations. What would be the “carbon weight” of a child in our latitudes? In 2017, a study by researchers from the University of Lund, Sweden, and the University of British Columbia in Canada made a big noise. Its object was to determine the individual actions with stronger impact in developed countries. His conclusion? A person of childbearing age can reduce their carbon footprint up to 58 t of CO2 per year if they decide to “have one child less” (sic).

A considerable figure, compared to the other actions mentioned in the article: Living without petrol car (2.4 t of CO2) or not taking a transcontinental flight (1.6 t). And for good reason: the authors have chosen to integrate into their calculation the future emissions of the descendants of this hypothetical child … without even considering that they can decrease in time, which is likely in view of the future energy constraints.

A very questionable figure therefore, but regularly quoted in the public debate. “I often come across people who tell me not wanting a child because that’s what they think of doing the best for the environment,” says Emmanuel Pont. It is sad to make this choice on the database completely false. The engineer has embarked on a thesis to provide more fair encrypted benchmarks allowing those who wish to better discern their responsibility as a future parent or not.

Rethink your lifestyle

But the first ethical dilemma among young people most attentive to ecological issues is that expressed by Louise, 27 years old: “Giving birth to a child on a so damaged planet is a huge responsibility, she testifies. It is a choice that it is impossible for me to pose lightly. Obviously, humanity has already crossed many crises and wars, while continuing to give birth. But until then, we were talking about destroyed human lives; From now on, it is the very conditions of our existence that are strongly threatened, ”says this researcher in physics.

For the same reason, Charlotte Meyer had drawn a line, from the age of 20, on her desire for maternity. But a few years later, the young woman fell pregnant unexpectedly. After considering abortion, she changed her mind at the last moment. “That day, it seemed to me to have more strength to draw an enviable future for my child than to let him go,” she says in The children of the apocalypse. Making kids does not prevent being green (Ed. Tana).

A book where she goes to meet a dozen families who have found a path between their ecological consciousness and their desire to become a parent. At the cost of an upheaval in their lifestyle, their work also sometimes. “Parenting contains a range of unimaginable actions to deal with the crisis we are going through at the moment,” concludes Charlotte Meyer. By what she creates tomorrow, she invites us to rethink our educational, social, economic models. It can allow an invisible revolution. »»

Prepare for the future

Far from a selfish choice, as some sometimes believe, giving life to a child to raise him in all ecological conscience implies a daily fight. “When you have grown up in the consumer society, you have to constantly fight against automatisms, such as buying disposable products, fruits transported by plane or new clothes,” says Aude-Hélène, who moved to the countryside with her husband Guillaume on a land shared with Héloïse and Julian. These are renunciations; And a way of preparing another world for our children. »»

The couples interviewed on the occasion of this investigation testify to this: becoming a parent is a powerful engine of ecological conversion. “Only the arrival in the world of new human beings can motivate the mortals that we are to engage in a world intended to survive them,” underlines Marianne Durano in her Be born or nothingness (Ed. Desclée de Brouwer), where she addresses in a chapter the thought of the German philosopher Hannah Arendt on the subject. “If we persist in acting in a world dedicated to death, it is because each new human being carries in him a part of unpredictability which saves us from the sad repetition of the same”, enlightens the essayist.

Choosing to give birth in time of collapse takes on a very particular meaning in the light of the Mystery of Easter. Behind the deadly reality of the cross pierces a world transfigured by a force of love which goes beyond all reason. “Eco-anxiety responds to a real and major fact,” says Alexandre Huon de Kermadec, engineer and Christian engaged in the ecological transition. For a year, I was very closed to the speeches on Hope, which seemed to me to be blissful optimism and a good excuse to continue to live as we do. But another hope is set up: I believe that my children were called in this world, despite its injuries. They have a vocation and I think they will act. This is my strong hope. »»