Is Zero Population Really The Answer?

    For any of you other fellow Mormons out there, you might have been reminded by the title of this blog of that incredibly old, cheesy movie musical called "Saturday's Warrior", made in the 70's and then re-done in 2016. The main protagonist, Jimmy, is conflicted with his faith and has a particularly hard time choosing between the values of his friends who support birth control and abortion or his traditional family who believe the total opposite. By the end everything works out- as we'd expect an LDS film to do, of course- and Jimmy chooses to believe in the value of families. This week in class, we were discussing the world's population- its history of ups and downs and what caused/still causes those rollercoasters. Our teacher jokingly mentioned  one of the numbers from this musical called "Zero Population"(click on the link if you wanna have a good laugh and see what I'm talking about). It takes place when Jimmy and his friends are all hanging out and it basically leads to a discussion about how the world needs downsizing. Frankly the cheesiness of the number makes me cringe a little, but if you take the subjects out of context and really think about what's being asked, there are some very interesting points to ponder. For example, how legitimate is it of this group to question, "Who can survive? Not one of us will be alive! Who can be strong when all the oil/food/energy is gone?"
     Now, I can sympathize a little with this Jimmy character; I also come from a family of eight children, and I was teased some while growing up in that kind of family. I couldn't tell you how many times people of nearly all ages- my teachers, other friends, coaches, etc.- have asked me when I revealed how many siblings I have, "Did all those kids come from the same parents?"; frankly I was just as surprised to hear that question nearly every time it happened. I thought, 'Is it really that unfathomable that two people can choose to have more than 2 or 3 or 4 or, heaven forbid, 6 children and still go on living their own kind of happily ever after? Why is it so weird for people to think that a big, happy family is even possible?' Sometimes I'd even wonder for those few who seemed particularly bothered or afraid for me, 'Why is the size of my family any of your business?'Now, I never felt ashamed of how large my family is, like Jimmy; in fact I take great pride in having such a large family. I love that it makes me unique and different from other people, and I think I can speak on behalf of my siblings that we're all pretty proud of that. I've never questioned if my parents weren't happy with how many kids they chose to have or if our family wasn't fulfilling enough for them; I never grew up feeling poor because by the time hand-me-down's came through six girls to me they were already way too worn or sometimes even slightly out of style, and I learned to appreciate the value menu at Wendy's for family dinners out of the house (nothing can beat their chocolate frosties!); I never felt like we missed out on much because even though none of us have ever been to Disneyland or been on a cruise while living under our parent's roof, we made our own special memories on family road trip vacations, and those are some of my most treasured memories of my childhood.
    But enough about me, let's get to the educational nitty-gritty stuff.
    This week I learned that the idea of downsizing the population actually stems from a book- a book that's become like a bible to those who support its ideas- called The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich. It was originally published in 1968 (what better time to publish a book like this?!) and it's written to suggest that in order for the human race to survive and thrive, for our natural resources to not run out on us, and for there to be enough food and land to go around for everybody, then we need less people in the world. I'd never heard of this book before this week, and frankly when the main ideas of this iconic novel were being introduced to us I couldn't help but think about that new Avengers 2 movie when the villain, Thanos, literally killed off exactly half of the world's population once he obtained all the power stones. Anywho, I also learned that the inspiration for this book came when Ehrlich visited Bombay, India with his wife a short time before writing his famous book. He was beyond shocked at the kind of depravity and lowly lifestyles these Indians were living- their quality of health and medical care, food, how many people were living in or below the poverty line, etc. To him, all of this seemed a direct result of having too many people in one place. Ehrlich promotes the idea that population downsizing is the smarter choice because less people means more employment opportunities and more resources to go around. He even goes so far as to say that having multiple children is equivalent to robbing a bank- the more money used to provide for just one family, the less money there is to be used to help the poor.
     ............ so my parents are criminals.

    I'll be completely honest, I've never taken a serious interest in studying these kinds of topics like natural resources and land availability, but from what I have observed of the world around me, I have never felt afraid to live in this world or felt in danger of having the entire human race be starving. I still remember on those long road trips all the way from Houston, TX to Provo, UT (where my parents are originally from) when we'd be passing open land for what seemed like endless miles, I often wondered, "What would it be like if people lived out here?" I was only thinking about all that backyard space to play, but even now I still wonder about that. Y'all, there is SO MUCH OPEN LAND IN OUR COUNTRY ALONE. What if we did the same thing as the early Pilgrims-- when they came to America and literally blazed the trail for others to come and settle an unsettled land? What about the early Mormon Saints who traveled to a swampland they lovingly named Nauvoo (Hebrew for "beautiful") and literally built a city- the most thriving city in Illinois at the time, in fact- from the ground up? Is it truly impossible for us to just keep branching out and settle unsettled places? Again, I wouldn't know about the logistics to embark on such a project, but I do believe that something like that is possible. Here's a fun fact: if you took every single family unit in the world-- let me repeat, every single family unit in the WORLD- and gave each one an acre of land to live on, everyone would fit in the state of Texas.
    Y'ALL BETTER COME ON DOWN TO TEXAS!!!!!
    I can't tell you how proud I was to hear that statement from our teacher during class and know that that's my state <3

   Here's the real question I wanted to get at: we discussed in class whether or not the number of children we have is anyone's business. A vast majority of the students (including me) that it is NOT anyone else's business how many children we choose to have. A lovely young lady who was in my group discussion mentioned that she agrees with both sides; she explained that being asked how many kids one wants is ok- as far as research goes. If we're going to keep track of our world population it's good to have an idea of where it could go based on what people are wanting. But as far as people trying to decide whether or not having a certain number of kids is right or wrong, THAT is when it goes too far, and I completely agree with that. I don't mind telling people how many kids I'd like to have (right now it's 3-6), frankly I don't even mind being asked that question on a first date! I see it as a way of gauging how people view the ideal family, what that looks like in their eyes.
   And ultimately, that's what I'm doing in my Marriage & Family studies; I'm learning how people view the family and what they see as ideal living in our world. I'm learning to see the history of how the world views the family, and I've been fascinated with what I've discovered in this short time already. Going back to Jimmy's friends question, "Who can survive?",  I think the point of this life is not just to survive, to scrimp and scrape for enough to get by as if that kind of suffering is good for us to learn the value of sacrifice; on the other hand, I don't believe that the point of living in this world is to thrive on luxury and having an ENDLESS supply of anything we want, just cuz we want it. I believe both of those can be combined and we can all trust the age-old adage, that everything will work itself out-- "the universe is looking out for you" in 'hippie' terms and 'the earth will be renewed in its fullness' in LDS terms.
   
    Join me next week in my discoveries :)

Introducing... Me!

My name is Sarah. I'm a student at BYU-Idaho and I've just embarked on a new journey of studying Marriage & Family in the hopes of becoming a therapist someday. I've created this blog as a way to publish what I learn in my Family Relations (FAM160) class and hopefully to help inspire others to see the concept of "the family" in a different, brighter light. Let's do this!