It's STILL tough and not getting better - so how are we coping?

thriftmonster

Congrats to Mr Kezlou - do you have a celebration planned - OS of course (involving only 1/4oz mince each!!!!)??

thriftmonster

Charis - I wash all my bedding at 60C (and one white wash a week at 90C - although that has kept ds1's school shirts going for a second year and apparently stopped the machine clogging up so I don't feel too guilty)

parsonswife8

thriftmonster wrote: »

Congrats to Mr Kezlou - do you have a celebration planned - OS of course (involving only 1/4oz mince each!!!!)??

Stretched out with some lentils and oats.:rotfl:

LilacLouisa

mardatha wrote: »

I didnt like the sound of the bit about the price of meat rising because of the wheat/winter feed shortage AND the fact that China is buying more meat. The drought is a one-off but China isnt. Maybe thats the age of cheap food gone forever because China and India are taking more and more which will keep the prices high ? Maybe we need to learn how to make a pound of mince last a month :rotfl:

I guess there is always some reason (valid or otherwise) given why various food prices rise.

Might China and India produce more of their own food, and do they export much food here?

The people in the Chinese countryside seem to live on very little, I have read a dreadful account of a famine they had, around the time of the Boxer rebellion IIRC, some had to do things which, to me, were unthinkable and terribly harrowing even to read about.

Your post is a timely reminder to me to keep trying to grow our own fruit and veg. May consider growing carrots in a drainpipe next, just waiting for the book to arrive to tell me how.

mardatha

China and India both had terrible weather this year, but both are beginning to get a higher standard of living, people are better paid now & they naturally want greater variety/better food. China is booming and the workers are even daring to strike in some places for higher pay - unheard of before.
The last of my kale is doing an amazingly useful job. Its in the bloody compost bin, its rightful home !!

northwest1965

gailey wrote: »

Hi guys.

Guess im adding to overpopulating having a 3rd, thanks for all the congrats.
Our 2nd cost us hardly anything as had all stuff from 3rd, breastfed and use cloth
3rd wont cost too much unless its a boy but even then get everything 2nd hand.
We will need bigger car as ours cant fit 3carseats but we only run 1car.
we grow own, veg, buy lot of bristish stuff and recycle a lot so guessing our carbon footprints pretty good.

I think if you wait until you rich to have kids sometimes never happens.
I think if people can afford it then why not its familes where both parents dont work that have huge familes and rely on state for everything that can be a strain.

QUOTE]

Dont defend your right to be pregnant gailey, enjoy it! As a childless woman, this is not by choice or because I'm waiting for the rich man to keep me:) but because I cant have any. You girls who have babies, small & grown up dont know how lucky you are.
Remember, we are only here once, its not a rehearsal and you need to enjoy and cherish these moments. When you are lying on your death bed its the moments you shared with your kids you'll remember, NOT whether you recycled enough or kept your carbon footprint down well.

I have been pleased with what I've grown this year, my cherry tomatoes are really plentiful. I'll be growing so much more next year even though we dont have a garden. Its all pots and baskets.
I'm just wondering if I can do some hydroponics in my bathroom?:)

taplady

lambanana - and crickett - (((hugs))) hope you both get your chance to become mothers in the future x

The news that meat prices will rise is making me glad I'm a veggie!:D unfortunately nobody else in the house is, maybe I will have to convert them;)

flipperOSN

Charis wrote: »

30º wash doesn't do much about the latest epidemic either, it seems. Even a 40º wash doesn't do the business. In case anyone thinks this is a scare story, I have a friend who brought back bed bugs from the US in her luggage. The first she knew about it was when they colonised her new double bed.

It happened to us last year :eek: we think from our holiday. All sheets at a very un-OS 60 degrees. Apparently steam is one of the sure fire ways to get rid of them. Well I don't have a steam cleaner so I used the steam iron on my sons mattress :rotfl:fingers crossed I think it worked.

jackieglasgow

You don't need to make excuses for having another child, gailey, it is your right, Godgiven or whatever you choose to believe, and the fact that you have the ability to choose in the first place is a miracle in itself. As some of the other women have said, many are unable to make the choice, and have to face a childless life which they did not contemplate in their youth. Thank God we live in a democratic society where an individual's right to choose is still upheld in the laws of the land.

In keepingwith this, perhaps a night of celebration a la gailey is in order for MR and Mrs KEZLOU !

katholicos

ceridwen wrote: »

Katholicos

I've not read Malthus myself. Just had a quick glance over t'internet to see what he said - and couldnt spot anything about people being killed:eek:. Scanned several things and saw no evidence of him saying anything like that.

Who are the Population Institute? (ie the ones that produced that video-ette). Who funds them? I've never heard of them.

What I go by is basically the evidence of my own eyes and the increasing population count and the fact that - across the world - most of the population congregate on the most favourable spots.

Having read the first local Energy Descent Plan (ie Totnes Energy Descent Plan for instance - online free for anyone to read) I certainly noticed how much surrounding land Totnes needs to feed itself - followed instantly by the fact that other nearby population centres will be relying on the same land...I suspect many of the other EDAP's (when they come out) will reveal a similar quandary.

My personal viewpoint - one of the reasons I didnt have children personally was because I knew that I couldnt have afforded them with most of the men I might have married (as I certainly dont earn much myself). If I hadnt - then I knew I would be trapped in poverty for decades scraping for pennies - and I couldnt face the thought of being so poor for so long. I knew that having children would have meant that I and they would have even had to do without necessities sometimes - visions of not being able to afford a healthy enough diet, enough fuel to heat the home, any medical necessities that cropped up that weren't covered by the NHS, having to put up with any old treatment/salary employers cared to dish out and lucky if I could change things or even protest about it as I would have to make sure the children were fed today (rather than think about tomorrow), etc. Hence the financial part of the reason for not doing so personally.

I've watched couples with children arguing about literally a few £s (ITRW and latterly on MSE) and been shocked and vowed never to be in a position where I had to literally count the pennies if I could help it. I always assumed that any husband I had would have taken the same view of things as my father did - ie he always felt strongly that the money he earned was for his wife and children, as well as himself and wouldnt have dreamt of taking something for himself at the expense of his wife or children. I have a particularly UNselfish father I know - but I still watched my mother struggle with an inadequate income for the number of children she had and felt the effect (as one of those children).

Thats me - and some of my personal reasons...

Hiya Ceridwen,

I have some cognitive problems sometimes so I may sound a bit dim but the first part of your comment about Malthus... i don't understand.

In answer to your other question....I don't know anything much about the Population Institute, just came across that video online recently and remembered it so because we were talking about the subject of population control, linked to it as i thought someone might find it interesting.

About your personal viewpoint, thanks for sharing it. I have read some comments since your/this post and i get the impression that there are actually many facets to your reasoning for not having children.

Though of course, you are perfectly entitled to have more than one reason for not having/wanting children, I would however say this, in response to the reason mentioned in this post of yours...no one knows what is around the corner. A wealthy man can lose his wealth, a loving husband can be a betrayer, a wonderful soul mate can die leaving you to raise your child/children alone (mine did 18 years ago).

Many women like myself are raising children alone in poverty, or pretty darn near it...because our partners/husbands have died, because of divorce etc...but I don't know or know of any one in my position who for one minute has regretted having children. There is nothing on earth that comes close to the immensity of and depth of love that a mother (or father) has for her child. You mention not having wanted to face a future of being poor and raising children in a poor family...and yet some of the poorest families i know are also the happiest families i know. You mention that poverty would have bought you to a place where you had no choices, or rather no finances to make choices...but though i have little say in so many things because of my personal situation, i have so much that you haven't got and while not intending to infer superiority, it must be said that i consider myself richer than your good self, though obviously not financially.

In my time on earth I have met a fairfew people who are childless through choice, and in almost every single instance i have thought 'thank God for that!' ...the reason? Because so many of them were extremely selfish and self absorbed and thought of children as being a burden on themselves and their finances, on their freedom and yes, on society. Now i am most certainly not tarring you with the same brush because i do not know you personally, but i will say that if a person knows they either don't like or want children then there is certainly a case for them not having children.

Ultimately, as long as you are content with your lot in life, and I'm as content with mine as i can be, then all is well with the world. For myself, I care about the planet and the people and animals and habitats within it...but i know that nothing is more natural than procreation...it is primarily what we were put on earth to do, as well as our mission to be good stewards of the earth, of course. So forgive me, but i balk at any mention of population control.

Finally, let me address the last paragraph you wrote.

You mention your father and how you would have expected your husband, had you married, to be of similar mind to him with regard to finance and the family. This is something i can relate to. My Dad is the yardstick by which i now measure men (i didn't always and i suffered for it). My Dad has been a marvellous husband to my mum and father to me and my brother. I feel truly blessed to have him for my Dad. Having said that, our father's shoes are perhaps rather large to fill and speaking for myself, I would be remiss if i were not capable of overlooking some tendencies in other men that i would consider faults. After all, i have enough faults of my own that i would wish for men to overlook!

I'm not sure i have made any/much sense in this post...i have been writing it for a good while now and my head is hurting, i hope i have managed to convey a fairly comprehensive response though.