Life's Most Difficult Conversation

How Do You Tell Your Parents That You Are A Malthusian?

For years I concealed a terrible secret. A secret no one knew. Not my classmates, not my friends, not my siblings - not even my Mom and Dad. I tried to deny it. I tried to hide it. But I couldn't keep it locked up inside me any longer. I sensed a building volcanic force of common sense that if not vented, would soon blow me apart. I had to come out of the closet. I had to let someone know. And I knew who needed to know most of all. I had to tell my parents that I was different. Different in a way that society still does not accept. I just had find the right words - and the right moment - to tell them that I was a Malthusian. That I was smitten with a love for sustainability that dare not speak its name. But how could I break the news?

There is no universal formula for making this scandalous revelation. After all, no two families are alike. Even those parents who have long held suspicions that you believed that our species is breeding itself to extinction still feel shocked, sad or angry when confronted with an open declaration of your Malthusian convictions. Many parents have difficulty even talking about the alarming extent of human population overshoot. Many have not come to terms with their own denial. Even more will argue, reflexively, that your Malthusianism is just a youthful "phase". They might say that your ideological attraction is merely a transient adolescent "crush" on Thomas Malthus, Margret Sanger or Paul Ehrlich - a passing infatuation born of an inflated image of puerile perfection. You think you are in love with something real, but in reality is only an abstraction. They will assure you that you will grow out of it, and that you will embrace this growth, for all growth is good, so long you preface it with an adjective like "sustainable", "green" , "smart" or "managed". (Any oxymoronic euphemism to make it palatable will do).

But you must counter their predictable denial by telling them that you have known that you were Malthusian even before puberty. You just weren't attracted to growthists. Tell them that you can't be happy unless you find expression for your deviant environmental orientation. Tell them that you still love them. That you are still the same son or daughter they thought you were and that it is a measure of your love for them that you have been able to reveal such a dark secret to them at such a difficult time.

They may insist that our orientation is a lifestyle choice, and that with Bible study, prayer or reading George Monbiot and Sierra Club newsletters, you will find the strength to repudiate your empirically validated persuasion and return to the warm bosom of counterfeit environmentalism with its futile self-righteous fixation on reducing one's ecological footprint by adopting green living habits. But you must make them understand that for you, Malthusianism was not a "choice". You were born with clear vision and independence of mind. You must tell them that no one would voluntarily risk the scorn and ostracism that open Malthusianism typically brings. Tell them to think of the sheer isolation involved, and of the difficulty of finding other Malthusians to share your life with.

Remember, it took time for you to accept who you are, so it will likely take time for them to come to terms with our opposition to reckless global fecundity and the open borders mentality that encourages it. Realize that some of their anguish reflects legitimate concerns for your future. But you need to make them understand that for you to override your need for a Malthusian partner is more perilous. I mean, just imagine the difficult road that lies ahead for you if you form an intimate partnership with a cornucopian fool. In some states these mixed relationships may still be illegal, and if not, socially unacceptable - particularly in the Bible belt or small rural localities.

Your response to their fears must be that you have considered these difficulties and that until now, rather than face them, you denied your true identity and even took growthists out on dates to cover up your intellectual integrity. But you couldn't keep up the charade any longer. It is about non-capitalist relationships and a love for sustainability. And that the love, trust and affection that they hoped you would find someday as a parent could still be found by adopting kids rather than conceiving them.

Break that news to them gently and incrementally. Understand that at first, they may not be able to cope with an open and shameless physical display of your true affections. Until they come around to the permanence of your orientation, must not openly clap at a speech given by someone from Planned Parenthood or the Population Media Center. That could be fatally traumatic.

If, as the years pass, your parents still have difficulty making the adjustment to your coming out, you can refer them to a counselling service like "Sierra Clubbers Anonymous" (SCA) which assists co-dependents of those trying to overcome their addiction to Green-Left hypocrisy, renewable energy delusions and band aid solutions. Hopefully they will come to the realization that it is pointless to cut our per capita consumption in half and then double our population by immigration-driven population growth. And that open borders policies are a proven fertility stimulant for less developed nations like the Philippines who treat emigration to North America and Europe as a safety valve to relieve population pressure and harvest remittances.

Heck, with enough mental health counselling your parents may become aware of the Multiplier Effect, something apparently unknown to fake Greens who don't know that on average a migrant to North America quadruples his consumption and greenhouse gas emissions merely upon arrival. As St. Suzuki said, bringing third world migrants to Canada [or to America] and turning them into hyper-consumers is "madness". Bluntly put, it is about migration, stupid!