McKibben needs a different title

After reading McKibbens article it seemed that the title of his article did not match what he ending up writing about. He starts off by telling the reader why he choose to undergo a vasectomy and the many statistics that also led him to the procedure. He explains that about 60 percent of births are unintended and that 6 out of 10 women have abortions due to contraceptive failure. Then he goes on about the how much the population increased and still is increasing. After then discussing these issues he finally tells the reader why he and his wife decided to stick with one child because he also found out that children without brothers/sisters achieve the same as children with brothers/sisters. This I agree goes along with the title, but just when i thought it was going to stay that way, he goes and starts discussing different authors and their view of how children impact parents lives. Whether it be parents could no longer be selfish(time for romance, travel...)or how mothers start to loose their sexuality/ identity or even the complete opposite that having more children "makes people better human beings" (John Ryan).


Another aspect of this article i found interesting was that McKibben brings up religion and not only mentions it but also contradicts it.To be more specific he mentions a quote from the 1st commandment in Genesis "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" and then goes on to explain that "we can check this commandment off the list" Again... this does not relate to his title.


It seems that McKibben has chosen to take a personal approach on this article by discussing why he choose to have only one child. Also, I feel like he is trying to persuade others to have less children as well. Especially when he quotes Genesis and goes on to explain that we should check it off our list and go on to the other commandments such as "feeding the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the oppressed...) (p.384)

Okay another thing, I noticed a difference in his use of writing from the beginning to the end of his article. In the beginning he uses "I" to mainly explain his reasons for only having one child, but towards the end he uses "we" and "our" as if he is the voice for everyone. An example would be on p.386, he is explaining that "we have done such a poor job of planning for our numbers..". I really feel he should not use "we" but instead use maybe specific examples instead of just blaming everyone for the growing population.

All in all, i enjoyed reading his article. It's just that when i first read the title I expected to read mainly about single-child families, probably due to the fact that I am a single child myself.