Going Green God’s Way: The Environmental Irony of a Large Family
Every now and then I suppose it’s fun to get to hear my southern accent and see first hand why I prefer to write instead of speak 😉
I recorded this video about 3 years ago (Kyla, the baby is now 4) but decided to resurrect it.
Here is my disclaimer:
“I forgot to make the point with the divorce statistics that it is true that the more children a couple has, the more likely they are to remain together.
Of course there are exceptions–this is a “blanket observation”, primarily to point out the irony of the typical environmentalist’s gripe with large families, and not to be taken specifically for all families…not all large families are resourceful, and many single people are very resourceful. That, of course, is not the point.” 
Tags: large family, pregnancy, pregnancy/birth control
large families, pregnancy/birth control | Kelly Crawford | 
April 19, 2012 4:12 pm
I love this! So true. I hadn’t really given this a whole lot of thought, but it makes so much sense! Thanks for posting this.
This is great! Love the video content ( it is logical) & love your accent ~ it is so cute!
Have a wonderful day
Blessings
Renata:)
First of all, I love your thoughts here. They are certainly true for our family of 12, with 10 of us still at home. We live in a very rural area, and try to be as conservative as we can as far as going to town, and just spending in general.
Secondly, I was born and raised and still live in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, so to me you have no accent at all. 🙂 You sound delightfully “normal”.
Man is the crown of creation. It also bothers me very much when those enviromentalists see people as something bothersome for planet earth.
One of them, an author, was complaining that USA families have too many children and thus, leave too much “ecological print”. How could he be so narrow minded?
In most places the problem is not the amount of people, but the amount of waste and the overproduction of things we do not need. We do not need to have the latest electronical toy.
I do not know what to tell you about countries like India, that seem to be really overpopulated.
I forgot to add that it is really true that large families do not fly so often.
I could not cross the Atlantic with my children to visit my family if I had a large one.
Love this! Love your accent too 🙂
I’m from Australia, and I was thinking the other day about how we went from a little backwater country to a really strong economy over the last few decades due to (in part) the breakdown of the family (particularly divorce and women abandoning the home for a career). It seems like a good thing from the outside I suppose, but I think it’s created a cycle of bondage whereby families ‘need’ two incomes to enter the property market etc.
And of course, more women working and multiplying households (via divorce) IS good for the economy, but it does mean more car use, more take away meals and convenience food, more disposable nappies etc. There IS an environmental effect.
You have such a charming accent, Kelly. And you make very good points in your video, too.
It is so refreshing to read your blog and see the logic, Biblical truth, and perspective like in this video. I have thoughts like this all of the time as well, although I end up reading someone’s blog instead of writing my own 🙂 You say it all better than I do! It’s amazing how blind we are apart from God, and how we (people) are like sheep without a good shepherd, headed off a cliff. But once we have the wisdom that God alone can give, our eyes are opened and we see how preposterous it all is.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
GREAT points Kelly! SO fun to “SEE” you! ; ) I loled a few times…and I don’t think you were trying to be funny…but I enjoy you so much! Have a groovy week end sister!
😀
So good to see your sweet face and hear your voice! This is so true! Makes me smile thinking of you enjoying your home and being resourceful!:) We must get together soon!!!
Love to all the fam,
jen
So true! We only have 6 children, but we strive to be resourceful, to stretch what we have as stewards of what we’ve been given. I don’t go to town NEARLY as much as I did when we had only 2 children. With every meal I cook I am thinking about how I can use what I have in the pantry, can I use anything from this meal to carry over to the next meal {like broth} and hmmm… what should we plant in the garden this year. There are 31 chickens in route so we can have some egg layers, and the kids have been doing some serious research on raising milk goats!
Love your thoughts! Agree 100%!!! Also – – – LOVE your southern accent! 😀 He! HE!
Since moving to Portland, I have had such good influences in the “green is clean” direction. Now, I feel ashamed for all the waste we created for all years since our kids were born! I can only continue in my efforts to reduce, re-use and recycle. It truly has given me this odd sense of liberation from the need for “things.”
MY hubby and i have been kicking around the idea of starting different home businesses, and one of them is reupholstery. The thing is, my brain is like, “could we cut costs by using dryer lint as stuffing? Or shredded walmart bags? Could we recycle used discarded furniture (where we are in PA lots of rural areas have them as roadside decorations!) and snag it up and redo it cheaper and resell it for profit? Sometimes being entreprenurial can be frustrating, because you see all you could do, and how to do it cheaper(and sneakier!).
Lol, “like”!
Thank you for sharing. I agree with you 100 %.
I often say that we’re better environmentalists than the self-proclaimed ones. We use things over and over again, and glue and tape are among our best friends! We DO, though, have five cars. My son bought himself a 1974 VW, and I’m proud of him for saving his money to buy it. The car that he was driving was a 1998 Ford Escort, of which we were the original owners, but last year, the poor girl just couldn’t do it anymore, and gave up the ghost. It had over 200,000 M on it, so we drive our cars into the ground. However, I definitely agree that as a large family, we are very conscious of living cost effectively, and not wasting resources. There are certain luxuries, though, that we enjoy…like cable TV…my husband likes lots of different sports, so we subscribe to several sports networks, and we do indulge for the grandkids’ birthdays. While we live frugally, I don’t want to paint a picture of severe austerity. My husband makes a decent salary (although in NorCal where we live, decent salaries don’t go very far–think gas over 4 bucks a gallon), and while we believe that we need to give to God for the advancement of His kingdom, and that we need to be careful with how we spend, money is merely one of the resources that God gives us to enjoy. I’m getting far afield from the main gist of your point, so I’ll stop. Good to hear from you. It’s nice to put a voice to a face.
AMEN!
When I originally left a comment I seem to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a comment is added I receive 4 emails with the exact same comment. Perhaps there is a means you can remove me from that service? Kudos!
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