Dear follow readers,
Please note the link at this end of this article in the "Related Coverage" section for the excellent companion piece, "Here’s How You Can Help People Devastated by Cyclone Idai." After reading about the devastation here, I'm sure many of you would appreciate it. I did. Thank you NYTimes.
“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”
― Abraham Lincoln
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Now it starts: the criticism over the size of these poor people's families. When will we understand the psychological underpinnings that motivate the world's poorest to have large families as a way to assure the future--survival? We in the U.S. who produce one or two children inflict far more harm on the environment with just those few because they will be far more damaging consumers/polluters than seven or eight people who have next to nothing.
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@Sarah
but the distribution of scarce resources in a mozambican family causes significant stress and risk for all family members.
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@Sarah
It is very small-minded to criticize people during a catastrophe. I'm all for birth control, but right now, this is about saving people who are already born!
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Moz is beyond poor. People still live in huts made from sticks and thatching for roofs. What they own in total, most Western people have more in their closets. Right now they don't need "thoughts and prayers". They need money to rebuild. Make a donation to UNICEF or your choice of an NGO to help.
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I sympathize, but I have to admit I get pretty exhausted of the 'father of eight' - 'mother of seven' scenarios that are in of themselves catastrophic impacts upon the land and the ecosystems. Are these customs ever going to face that fact? And I can hear the backlash already, but I don't care. We humans are too many everywhere, period.
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@Marilyn
Marilyn, I am sure you are a well meaning person, but yeah, you need some backlash. Save you judgement for things more dire. Population is stabilizing, there is plenty of food (its waste and distribution that's the issue). Kids aren't the problem. It's what we do as adults that create problems. Especially those of us of influence.
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@MarilynUsually people without running water of electricity also lack access to family planning resources. There is a correlation of poverty, lack of medical care and lots of children. This isn't Sherman Oaks California.
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@Marilyn - really? They live in a place where capitalism doesn't matter to their daily lives. Putting their family first is exceedingly different. These are people living off the land. It was rather straight forward with respect to crops being devastated. Go lobby for a ban on styrofoam to make a real impact versus insensitive comments about a disaster thousands of miles away.
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