12011 Family and Children

A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. — Carl Sandburg

Families are fundamental, uniting us across generations to care for people, care for the planet, and care for the future.

The family is the most basic social unit in all human societies. It takes many forms across the continents and the centuries. The common thread however is the care and nurturing of children. This is the way that human families and cultures propagate themselves across time into the future.

Families are integral to all human cultural ecologies.

The modern world has not been kind to families. The glorification of the State and the reduction of all values to economic issues has come at the cost of family ties that once bound us together. We see this most strongly in the decline of the importance and utility of the extended family and the exaltation of the nuclear family, living alone in an ideal televised suburbia.

Just when you think you have your children and the whole child-rearing affair figured out, your kids will surprise you. They are at once predictable and changeable, set in their ways but always looking for something new, obedient and rebellious. Raising kids may be many things rolled into one experience, but "boring" is never on the list.

If you are learning about permaculture design before you form a family, you can work on it as a design challenge. As with any new and complex project, the more you understand in advance, and the more plans you can make — design decisions — the better things will go.

All permaculture designs are living documents that grow and develop and evolve as the situations and circumstances change.

If you come to permaculture design when you are already in the midst of family life, the ethics, principles, strategies, and techniques of permaculture will help you to understand what is happening in your family. Your whole family should be involved with your design and learning process, as much as is consistent with their age, development, and understanding.

Children should be a constant reminder to all of us regarding the importance of what we do with permaculture. The design of the world our children will experience happens right now, either as a matter of intentional design or default acceptance of the standard excess consumption design model.

What will our children and grandchildren say about our choices?

• If we do not challenge the political criminality and economic irrationality of our time with better design and practical models,
• if we do not stop the destructive human processes that drive climate instability and curb our insatiable appetites for fuel,
• will they be grateful for the world we leave them?

What that world looks like fifty years from now depends on what you and I do today.