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What does applying the Fair Start model accomplish?

The Fair Start model seeks to protect our future, as well as maximize well-being and equality, by making changes in the way we think about having children. Currently, the focus tends to be exclusively on the parents’ decision making. This doesn’t guarantee future children a minimum level of well-being or equal opportunities in life. Instead, the Fair Start model is child-centered and reframes the way we think about having and raising children from something we do apart from the community around us to something we do collectively. By refocusing family planning on children rather than parents, and on what children need and deserve, we can incentivize families to plan, and communities to invest, in ways that secure a fair start in life for every child.

Why do we need to think differently about having children?

We want to help people think differently about the way we have kids so we can create a better future for every child. We developed the Fair Start model with these questions in mind:

What is the minimum level of well-being, in terms of things like food, love, attention, health care, etc., every child deserves?

How can we better ensure equality of opportunity and a fair start for all children?

How can parents and the community work together to make a better future for all children?

Why advocate for a family planning model at all?

We believe that the Fair Start model is the most effective way to create a world that offers equal opportunities to everyone. All parents want their children to have successful and have fulfilling lives. But the quality of one person’s life is determined by the other people in it, and those people’s behaviors and values are influenced by how they were raised. Everyone is connected, and parents who want to make the world a better place for their children will fail if other parents don’t do the same. Therefore, all parents, to get what they want, have to work together to ensure that every child born will pass through the vital array of resources necessary for their development. A model or suggested best practice, like the Fair Start model, is one way for parents to work together. The model helps parents protect their investment in the future and ensure that their children have a fair shot at a great life.

What does Having Kids do?

Having Kids works with families, communities, political institutions, and corporations to maximize the well-being of every child. By promoting the Fair Start Model, we help shift the conversation to a more holistic dialogue about creating a better future for every child. We promote a family model that a) helps parents plan their family and actualize that plan based on how they can best provide for their children if they choose to have them, b) encourages communities to promote a norm of having smaller families so that more resources can go to each child to provide a better future for every child, and c) supports democracies that create programs to offer a better future for every child while considering the nonhuman world that community lives in. In order to fix larger problems that our world faces, poverty, environmental degradation, wealth inequality, and educational gaps between groups, we need to start thinking holistically and raise those that are least well off in each community. That is what Having Kids helps facilitate.

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