20 ***^ Thursday 1 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph
FAMILY
Hamilton. “But at the end of the day,
if we hadn’t made that choice, we
would be stealing from every other
child that’s born.”
He strongly believes that “having
fewer children is the single largest
thing that any family can do” to help
safeguard the environment for future
generations.
The Hamiltons are the sort of
family who turn waste orange juice
cartons (which they don’t buy very
regularly) into plastic bricks; take
compostable coffee cups with them
when they’re out; and rarely use
disposable nappies.
As such, they hope that when
Breanne, grows up she will have a
positive impact on the planet. The
four-year-old has already chooses to
be vegetarian and drinks from a steel
water bottle, rather than a plastic
sippy cup.
“You can see the internal battle
she has every time she sees a flower,”
says Hamilton. “She’s a kid and just
wants to pick the flower and own it- but she understands they’re
important to the bees. And she now
tells other children to leave them for
the bees.”
Breanne’s clothes come from
Frugi, a sustainable company that
pays workers fairly, and most of her
toys are wooden or recycled. When
she was younger, the Hamiltons
bought her reusable bamboo fibre
nappies. Although they require a lot
of electricity and water for regular
washes, he calculated that it was still
better for the environment than
disposable ones.
“That was the least possible fun
you can have,” he says. “We bought
50 nappies [which are sold on to
another family afterwards] and for a
very long time our washing line was
just them. We were very happy when
she got out of nappies at a young
age.”
The lifestyle choices might be
small, but when added up across a
population and lifetime, they start to
have an impact. Hamilton, who is
now a vegan save for the occasional
egg, became a vegetarian at 13 after a
friend questioned whether one
person doing it could make a real
environmental difference. He
thought: “If everyone thinks like
that, then nothing will change.”
Hamilton maintains this steadfast
belief, which aids him when his
lifestyle feels cumbersome. “We do
things that are a real pain in the bum,
but if every family lived this way, it
would solve a lot of problems.”
Last year, he and Katherine
decided to avoid air travel, because if
everybody flew all the time, “the
planet would be gone in 10 years”.
This year, they holidayed in Wales.
“I’m looking forward to someone
making an electric plane and I can go
on holiday again,” he laughs.
‘I haven’t bought anything
new for my third baby’Emma Ross, 33, an eco-blogger from
north London and mother of two –
with another on the wayFor 33-year-old Emma Ross – who is
known as Mamalina to her 42,
Instagram followers – having an
environmentally friendly lifestyle is
enough to offset her desire for a large
family. Known for championing cloth
nappies, recycled toys and homemade
oat milk, Ross is 39 weeks’ pregnant
with her third child.
“I get asked a lot: ‘How can you call
yourself an environmentalist if you’re
having children?’” says Ross. “It’s a
responsibility I take really seriously. I
want to raise Earth-conscious people
who will be the next generation of
environmentalists. People associate
children with a lot of waste and
resource use, but it doesn’t have to be.”Ross has three siblings herself and
has always wanted a large family. She
discussed the concerns of having a
third child with her husband, a lawyer,
and together they decided that adding
another to their brood wouldn’t be too
damaging. For one, they plan to reuse
nappies, clothing and toys from their
first two children.
“I haven’t bought anything new for
this baby,” she says. “New babies are a
bit like weddings: everyone gets
overexcited and rushes out to buy new
things. But all that babies need is milk,
to be kept warm and allowed to sleep.”
Ross’s children – Jack, five, and
Sonny, three – will have second-hand
uniforms, food from the back garden
and toys made from natural materials.
“We’ve opted not to go to play
groups so we can spend our time doing
educational things,” she says, adding
that they go to the supermarket
together, where she teaches them to
buy things that aren’t wrapped in
plastic. She was recently criticised forKeeping things small: Emma Ross, above, with children Jack and Sonny, and Blythe Pepino, below, with partner JoshuaEmma
hopes to
introduce
her
children
to a vegan
diet
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newslettersharing a picture of her child with a
plastic dummy. In response, she says:
“Everyone has plastic in their lives.
I’m not saying we should ditch all
plastic; it’s about being more
conscious and why you’re using
more materials.”
In the future, she hopes to get an
electric car and introduce her
children to a vegan diet. For their next
holiday, rather than flying (they offset
their last trip, to Australia, through
the Woodland Trust), they will be
going to Scotland or Cornwall.‘I’m not having a child so
I can fight for change’Blythe Pepino, 33, founder of eco
pressure group BirthStrike and
mother of noneA growing number of ecologically
minded people think having even one
child is too many. The “birth-striker”
movement has earnt prominent
followers, notably Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, rising star of the US
Democrats, who has asked if it is “still
OK” to have children.
London-based Blythe Pepino, 33
and the founder of BirthStrike,
decided last year that the
environmental crisis is so pressing
that she cannot, in all conscience,
bring a child into the world. “One of
the reasons I’m not having a child is
because I want to focus on creating
the systematic change,” she says.
“We’ve gone past the point of no
return.”
The decision has been difficult for
her partner, Joshua Hallam, 28, and
her mother, both of whom were
excited at the prospect of her
starting a family. Hallam admits he
had loved the idea of having a child
together – but is supportive of her
decision.
Pepino’s mother was “very upset”,
and is still grieving for the grandchild
she may never meet. “Then again, she
knows I’m fighting for my niece,
who’s nine,” says Pepino. “A lot of my
friends are starting to have children
and it’s wonderful – but I’m seriously
worried about their safety and
security in the future.”
Formerly lead vocalist in Vaults, the
electronica band behind the 2016
John Lewis Christmas advert, Pepino
now devotes the majority of her time
to climate activism. She hopes that
through organisations like BirthStrike
and Extinction Rebellion, of which
she is an active member, we will start
to see real change to the way we eat,
shop and travel.
She doesn’t give up hope that she
might one day become a parent,
either by having a baby or adopting.
“If things improve, we still hold out
for the possibility of having a child,”
she says. “But we’re both so rational
that we’re not going to do it if we’re
going to be fighting for food in a
couple of decades.”MODERN LIFE
SHANE WATSON
Age gap
The things
I need thatmy 92-year-
old fatherdefinitely
doesn’tY
ou may be
aware that the
latest thing you
didn’t know
you needed is
a smart pillow.
Possibly you’ve already been
sucked into the search for
this, what with them being
the ultimate sleeping aid,
and sleep being the new
work/life balance. Either
way, the Simba Hybrid
(favoured by the Saracens
rugby team) or the Nanu
personalised pillow are
now on the list of Things I
Need, that my 92-year-old
dad definitely doesn’t. Other
things on this list include:A tip-top bed and
special bedding
I made Dad get a new bed
(the last one was 30 years
old at least) and then special
pillows, in the last round
of pillow upmanship (he
can’t see much difference
between them and the
“perfectly good” pillows he
already owned). I also got a
topper, which he rejected
on the grounds that a) he
already had a mattress
cover, b) it made him hot
and c) he felt over-
pampered.
The anti-
allergy pillow
protectors also
didn’t make the cut,
for reasons that don’t
need explaining.Super-comfy clothes
(using modern fabric
technology)
I thought the light, slip-on,
trainer-style shoes I got
him had worked, but lately
he has been spotted back
in the lethal-as-water-on-
marble Docksiders. I tried
to get him to wear comfier
socks, rather than scratchy
boiled wool ones, but he has
declined on the grounds that
they were “too thick”, and
also because he discovered
they were made of bamboo.
Fancy socks plus woo-hoo.
He does get the point of light
yet warm clothing – like aUniqlo down gilet – after a
lifetime of keeping warm in
lead-heavy wet tweed and
a cloth cap. But not if you
reveal the price.Vitamin and
mineral
supplements
such as
turmeric
The rest of us are
taking all sorts of
supplements for joint
pain and digestion
and nails and hair,
because the experts
told us to. My dad is
not interested, because he’s
already taking handfuls of
pills, morning and evening,
rubbing in creams, wearing
wrist splints at night, and he
is of the opinion that blood
thinners beat curry spices in
the pill hierarchy. Turmeric
in my dad’s mind is entry
level. He’s way beyond that.The latest household
technology
Obviously a top-of-the-range
fan is a medical necessity
once the Saharan weather
beds in. And naturally
you want the best –
not a flimsy one
that sounds
like a B
propeller and
then promptly
breaks. When
it gets
serious,you want a Dyson. But Dad
refused one on the basis
that reviews on the internet
demonstrated the superior
performance of a
Meacofan 1056, and
it cost a third of
the price. (That’s
one to him).
He also won’t
countenance the
introduction of
flexible ice trays. He
thinks if you’ve got
to the point where
you’re prepared to
upgrade an ice tray
simply to avoid the
hassle of running it under
the tap, slamming it three
times on the kitchen work
top and then easing out the
cubes one by one with a
knife, you need your head
examined. He definitely does
not need a new ice tray.Top of the list of
things he can’t believe
I don’t need
� A tooth mug. This is as
essential to his bathroom as
a toothbrush, and the fact
that I am tooth mug-less is a
source of concern to him.
� A dressing gown. And
slippers.
� An umbrella.
� A proper
reading light.
� A travel
documents pouch.
� A fountain pen.
� A file for household
bills.
� A de-icer and a
jack... that is, basic
car-maintenance tools.
� Real butter (as in butter
that doesn’t arrive in
a spreadable Lurpak
container).
� Table mats and napkins.
� A comb.
� A better grasp of which
trees are which.
� A thermometer.He’s right on all counts, of
course.He rejected
a mattress
topper
because it
made him
feel ‘over-
pampered’Don’t forget your tooth mug: for
Shane’s father, this is an essential
item. A fan, top, is nottress
him hotut,
on’tlothes
fabrict, slip-on,
s I got
but lately
ed back
ater-on-
rs. I tried
r comfier
n scratchy
buthehehahas
rounounds that
ick”ck, and
iscocoverved
f bammboobo.
woo-hooo.
oint of light
g – like abeds in. And naturally
you want the best –
not a flimsy one
that sounds
like a B 52
propeller and
then promptly
breaks. When
it gets
serious,source of c
�A dres
slip�
do
�A f
�A file
bills.
�A de-ice
jack... that
car-mainte
�Real butt
that doesn
a spreadab
container)
�Table ma
�A comb.
�A better g
trees are w
�A thermoHe’s right o
course.Don’t forget
Shane’s fath
GETTY item. A fan,perfo
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