The Case For Single-Child Families By Bill Mckibben

Bill McKibben in the essay, The Case for Single-Child Families, argues that the human race is overpopulated. He thinks that smaller families are better for the environment and suggests that not all parents are good parents. There are such things as bad parents and their parenting styles aren't always good. McKibben points out that it might be a good idea to start talking about overpopulation and maybe start rethinking opinions about only having a certain amount of children in attempts to prevent overpopulation.
McKibben's goal is to inform the general population about the human race becoming overpopulated and suggests that humans begin to think about what they could possibly do to handle the situation or prevent it from getting worse. He
He thinks it's probably a good time to start talking about the issue and think of ways to fix it before it gets too out of control. He says, "We live on a planet where 3 billion people do not have clean water, where species die by the score each day, where kids grow up without fathers, where violence overwhelms us, where people judge each other by the color of their skin, where a hypersexualized culture poisons the adolescence of girls, where old people and young people need each others support. (McKibben 228)" His point is to get the readers to think about taking care of the humans the planet currently has before populating it with even more to deal with later. He wants us to actually do something about the problem instead of sending a check to a business that has a really sad advertisement playing on television with sad music that makes the audience feel like they have to donate. McKibben's argument is overall successful. He not only has facts and statistics in his piece, but he has experience with having a child of his own. The author definitely states his feelings on the subject but also uses rebuttal when he talks about having only one child isn't going to hurt the child, that humans often equate parenting with virtue too often, and that it's not necessarily selfish to act childish