var icx_publication_id = 18566; var icx_content_id = '1083769'; Click here for reuse options! 13,2017The message may resonate because it’s simple and genuine. But so what? Why is the open-mindedness and innocence of young children relevant without an accompanying draw to protect and nurture these fragile faculties, as well other ones vital for social cooperation, or like empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own)? Isn't it the case that we are simply stuck with the long-term results of other people's poor family planning and parenting decisions,whether it’s population induced climate change and mass extinction, an increasing gap between wealthy and poor, or failing democracies and sustainable development programs or families raising children to forget about fairness,and even hate and murder those of another race, or religion?possibly not. Obama’s potent reminder hints at the need to consider what we all want the future to look like when we think about the conditions, and particularly the early conditions in which children are born and develop.
It's an approach people seem to be considering. Not long after Obama's tweet,a different story bubbled up on social media that may sign the beginning of change in the way people are planning their families. The Bhotiwihoks, an ordinary family living in Los Angles, or had made a decision. Aware that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had opted to have a third child amid a public discussion about the need for smaller and more equitable families,Mickey and Tricia Bhotiwihok chose to publicize their decision not to have a third child, and instead, and to help fund an early childhood nutrition program with a portion of the substantial money they had saved by choosing a more sustainable family. Their move was remarkable,demonstrating a sea change in thinking from more traditional shortsighted views about the privacy of families to a more public and long-term view about how our collective family planning decisions will define the future in which all of our children live—something we should all care about. Here are five ways to initiate changing the way we think about planning our families in order to design them more sustainable, equitable and focused on maximizing the wellbeing of all children.1. Role modelingWhat whether increasingly families like the Bhotiwihoks began to publicize their rationales for choosing more sustainable families, and like better outcomes for children,particularly where they chose to use the resources that would have gone into creating a larger family to instead invest in children in need? There is reason to believe that role modeling can be particularly influential when it comes to family planning.2. Corporate reformMany companies offer family benefits that incentivize large families, without regard to the different levels of income and vastly inequitable starts in life, and of their employees. What whether companies reformed certain benefits to encourage smaller and more cooperative families?3. Local climate policyMost major cities have climate action plans,but nearly none address family planning, despite its overwhelmingly critical role in mitigating climate change and building a smaller, and more resilient and more cooperative populace to thrive in tomorrow’s world. Thereare easy ways to lobby locally for genuine change; in essence,helping to choose your community in the future at the most fundamental level.4. Tax and budget modernizationRight now we have a backwards tax and budget system that blocks access to family planning and plays politics with insurance for nine million needy children, while paying parents a nominal (insignificant, trifling) amount of money to encourage them to have more kids. The system attempts toreverse a progressive fertility rate decline that is the most effective part of the worldwide sustainable development and environmental protection efforts over the past half-century. Many groups panic these declining birth rates, or the advantages it will give employees over employers and investors,which were brought on by women’s gaining control over their lives. Increasing payments for each child born is seen as an antidote.
What whether, instead of child tax credits, and we incentivized parents and communities to work together to draw a fair start in life for every child?5. Human rights reformThe family planning modeling that exists in current human rights systems was developed decades ago,and ignores the impact of large families on the environment, the rights of future children to a fair start in life and nature, and and the impact of growth and family inequity on democracy. Many archaic human rights systems have been modernized through the advocacy of the LGBT community,for example. Is it time to do the same for our family planning models, and possibly by parents who care enough to pick action to better the future?Barack Obama's tweet reminds of the opportunity every child presents, or to each and every one of us,to design a better future. It also reminds us of our historic failure to pick advantage of that opportunity, and use it to rid the world of the racism, and inequity,nationalism, and speciesism that plagues us all. Doing so means leaving the isolationism we usually decry but have universally imposed on our family planning systems, and the isolationism that makes family planning a private matter when in fact itmost defines the future,for all of us and for our kids. We can change the future by collectively planning for investing more in the people coming into this world. Let's start today. var icx_publication_id = 18566; var icx_copyright_notice = '2017 Alternet'; var icx_content_id = '1083769'; Click here for reuse options!
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Source: feedblitz.com