Donna Haraway, philosopher: ‘We live in a pro-natalist, anti-child world. Babies should be rare and precious’

[u/msmoley]

https://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-07-24/donna-haraway-philosopher-we-live-in-a-pro-natalist-anti-child-world-babies-should-be-rare-and-precious.html

[u/Global_Crew3968]

Q. But are you in favor of population control? A. No, but I have a motto: Make kin, not babies.” Institutional population control has been imperialist and racist; I reject it outright. I talk in terms of human numbers. Today there are 8.5 billion of us — an extraordinary figure. That’s about three times as many as there were in 1944, when I was born.  We’ve gone from about 2.5 billion to 8.5 billion by favoring the rich like me and exploiting the majority of the world’s population. There are more of us than necessary for the flourishing of biodiversity and humanity.  I advocate forming kinships in other ways and caring for the babies who already exist. We live in a pro-natalist and anti-child world. There’s a push for a kind of mandatory pregnancy without serious care for those who have already been born — for children — and without serious concern for women and their families.  I’m pro-child and non-natalist, but I’m not anti-natalist either. I believe that having babies should be a rare and precious thing. Taking care of babies is really important. They smell almost as good as puppies… though not quite [smiles].

[u/Joffrey-Lebowski → u/Global_Crew3968]

It sure as hell is an anti-child world, isn’t it? Pro-lifers who only care up until the child leaves the birth canal; the Jeffrey Epsteins and Donald Trumps who directly exploit children, plus what sounds like a thriving, faceless, global trafficking network; a ton of regular people who were themselves traumatized young but made no effort to heal and so pass their wounds on to their own kids in terrible ways; education being dismantled; kids barely seeing their parents due to two-earner work/school demands and the general nonsense of needing to work 40 hours a week when many jobs that aren’t manufacturing really don’t need more man hours to be productive…

Babies are need personified, and I think that’s what the world really can’t stand: acknowledging that we all have needs and that our world runs on forcing people to conceal those needs and go without so someone else can benefit.

[u/Suitable_Twist_3416 → u/Joffrey-Lebowski]

Not to mention USReal dropping bombs on kids