- JoNova - https://www.joannenova.com.au -

A vasectomy as a fashion statement

Look who wanted an excuse to justify what he never felt motivated to do anyhow:

When I got engaged, my fiancée, Virginia, and I started planning for the future. It wasn’t just my dog Wiley and me against the world anymore. All of a sudden, I started thinking ten to 20 or more years ahead.

People who want kids don’t mention US presidents, forest management, or generic family pets in their decision-making:

Children are an obvious thing to plan. With a sudden focus on responsible decision-making, it no longer made sense to leave hypothetical future offspring up to chance. When should we have them? What did our careers look like on that timeline? Who’d be responsible for staying home and raising them? Couldn’t we just have one of the dogs do that?

We got engaged in June 2018, a couple months before a wildfire destroyed an entire town in California and another one wiped out sections of Malibu. Shortly after that, most of the Mississippi River basin flooded, something that might be the new normal, virtually eliminating the future for industrial agriculture throughout a region that produces much of this nation’s food. And, of course, the whole Donald Trump thing has been going on.

Is this a world we want to bring kids into? Is this a world it’s responsible to bring kids into?

Since he wasn’t going to have kids, why not score a few fashion points along the way? Carbon accounting will be a big hit on a Saturday night dinner party among unmarried, career oriented people. Might not go down so well in twenty years among a cohort that went on to have kids:

 I’d save the planet 2.4 tons of carbon emissions a year. That’d be a massive sacrifice, but it’s nowhere near the carbon emissions I’ll save by skipping becoming a daddy, which comes in at around 58 tons annually, per kid.

Luckily (for him) he can’t ask his future children what they’d prefer:

That’s because there are simply too many humans on this planet. We’ve all been told that driving an electric car or putting solar panels on our roofs will help, but that involves buying more stuff, which has a terrible impact on the environment, no matter how green the image. Two people deciding to make fewer humans eliminates the entire cycle of consumption that would fuel that kid’s life.

How self-focused is he:

 The worst part was taking a week off from the gym…

I wonder what his parents (and hers) think. He apparently doesn’t.

It might not be enough to save the polar bear

If there is a genetic component to gullible belief there might be a bit less of it in Gen-post-millenial.

h/t Dennis M

 

 

 

8.9 out of 10 based on 53 ratings