Only a couple of the kids died; the rest had a GREAT time.

I grew up in a small town, in a neighborhood with lots of kids. We played army games, or hide and seek, or rode bikes around the block, mostly with very little supervision. Sometimes we got hurt. It seemed pretty normal to us.

Some parents today are wondering where that kind of play went, and in response to the trend of helicopter parenting and intense supervision, are trying to actively create a culture of more freedom and independence for their kids. Via NYT:

“Think about your own 10 best memories of childhood, and chances are most of them involve free play outdoors,” Mike is fond of saying. “How many of them took place with a grown-up around? I remember that when the grown-ups came over, we stopped playing and waited for them to go away. But moms nowadays never go away.”

Then he built what many kids would call the coolest yard ever (pictured above) to encourage more physical play and even risk-taking.

Is this a necessary corrective, or an unnecessary risk?

How much danger and freedom is the right amount for healthy kids?

Do you think you had too little, too much, or just the right amount of freedom and danger in your own childhood?

So as long as I go childless, I can commute via stretch Hummer, guilt-free.

My wife, further proving that we are 100% on the same page regarding certain issues, shared this NPR story about the environmental impact of childbearing. Apparently all the things you do to be greener pale in comparison to just not adding another human to the world:

Oregon State University researchers have calculated the savings from all kinds of conservation measures: driving a hybrid, driving less, recycling, using energy-efficient appliances, windows and light bulbs.

For an American, the total metric tons of carbon dioxide saved by all of those measures over an entire lifetime of 80 years: 488. By contrast, the metric tons saved when a person chooses to have one fewer child: 9,441.

But when it comes time to “what do we do about it”, the topic gets even hotter (get it?):

Rieder proposes that richer nations do away with tax breaks for having children and actually penalize new parents. He says the penalty should be progressive, based on income, and could increase with each additional child.

Think of it like a carbon tax, on kids. He knows that sounds crazy.

No big deal, right?

Is it ethically right to try to persuade people not to have kids?

Is it fair to use financial incentives to accomplish this?

Could this ever possibly work in the real world we live in?

[Chart heading this post from original Oregon State University report.]

For your sake, let’s not imagine the biological implications too vividly here.

Once women — and by extension, their partners — reach a certain age, the procreation question becomes inevitable. Should we? Can we? When? How many? How will this affect our careers, our finances, our lifestyle, our happiness? (And this obviously doesn’t even have to be a “we” and “our” conversation; it can just as easily be a “me” and “my” one instead.)

But what if, in the name of equality, this was a less one-sided conversation? What if through some breakthrough, the burdens and privileges of childbirth could be shared equally by both genders, and it was up to each parent to choose who carries each child?

If male, would you want to have this experience?
If female, would you be willing to give it up?

What would the societal side-effects be?
Would there be a weird “favorite child” effect?
Would people fight or even litigate over who gets to, or has to, carry a child?
How else would families work differently?