My Child is My Message

Several years ago at an animal rights conference, I was baffled by the near-complete absence of children, despite the fact that it was heavily attended by young couples. When I asked a friend who has been active in the animal rights community for many years about this, she shared her theory that people who become heavily involved with animal issues tend to be misogynistic – they turn to animals because they just plain don’t like people.

At the time of this conference, I was a young and childless newlywed. Since then, I have come to develop my own theory about why many activists, in many different fields, choose not to have children. After bearing witness day after day to the worst that humanity has to offer, these committed people often become bitter. Louise Hart said, “Bringing a child into the world is the greatest act of hoping there is.” People who are hopeless often choose to remain childless as well.

When we became pregnant with our daughter, I knew my priorities would soon change as my time became scarce and my energy drained. I worried that I would have to – or worse, I would want to – give up my studies and the activism that was so fulfilling to me. However, something else began to stir within me. Slowly, the issues I was examining took on a more personal cast. I began to imagine how it must really feel to be a mother in sub-Saharan Africa, going hungry so that I could put an inadequate meal on the table for my starving children. I felt the agony of the mother dying of AIDS, knowing that her young children would soon be orphans in a place that already had more orphans than healthy adults to care for them. I wondered about all the women who were also expecting a child, not because they chose the role of mother but because it was forced upon them by an abusive husband or anonymous attacker. I even feel more of a connection with the mama deer that shares the woods with us. I watch her fawns start at some imaginary predator and tear through the bushes after each other, leaping over fallen trees and rocks, and though she barely pauses from her browsing I can almost hear her thoughts: “Go ahead, run all you want. Maybe then you’ll sleep tonight!”

Sure, my priorities were going to change. I would have less time and energy for the type of activism I had been doing before as I became absorbed in my baby and nurturing my new family. I was grateful to have that luxury, unlike so many other women who had to work exhausting and dangerous jobs just to survive. However, I was also on the threshold of a very powerful chapter of my life, where my understanding of the issues I had been grappling with would become more concrete, more urgent, and more real.

It has been argued that instead of refraining from having children, people who have a deep awareness of the issues of human rights, environmental stewardship, animal welfare and the like should have children who will carry on a legacy of activism. This is certainly not a stance I would personally advocate – I am humbled by people who choose to fully dedicate themselves to a cause they believe in, and grateful for their devotion. That said, it is crucial to imbue the coming generation with the consciousness, creativity, critical thinking skills, and motivation to change the world for the better, and we as parents are uniquely positioned to do just that.

I recently read that the most rapidly growing market for organic food is among new mothers. These women presumably already knew something about the dangers of the various fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides and fungicides that are applied to most of the fruit and vegetables grown in the United States, and of the various antibiotics, growth hormones, and other drugs routinely administered to livestock. What changed, I think, is that while the risk to themselves was one they were willing to take, they were unwilling to risk their children’s health and future for the sake of convenience or saving a few food dollars. I believe that many women experience this type of altered perspective upon entering into motherhood. Consider global warming, which suddenly seems much more imminent when we begin to consider it with respect not just to our own lives but to the lifespans of our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Through our children, we become personally invested in the future of this planet and all those who inhabit it. Parent have “skin in the game”, so to speak.

When a reporter asked Mahatma Gandhi what his message was to the world, his reply was “My life is my message.” For me, I would answer that my child is my message. The choice to bring her into the world was my statement that I believe sustainability and peace will win out over destructiveness and greed. I have made a promise, by having my daughter, that I will do everything in my power to create the just, beautiful, and sustainable world that I for her. Having a child requires great courage and commitment. I have come to see the act of consciously becoming a parent, and of consciously parenting, as an act of rebellion against the forces that are destroying our planet. Choosing to bring something beautiful into the world diminishes the ugliness. My parenting has become my new form of activism.

I may lack the time these days to do all the research and volunteer work that I used to do. What I lack in time, however, I believe I make up for in motivation – the motivation to build a community of supportive, loving and humane people to surround my family, to be aware of the example I am setting for my daughter, and to do the inner work required to become the kind of mother, wife, and human being I want to be.