Becoming a parent, the opportunity to change your lifestyle?

Valère Corréard is an author, producer and journalist specializing in ecological transitions.

He works in various media and founded the

Changer d'ère, air de rien

Mathilde Golla is a journalist, she has published

100 days without a supermarket

Together they publish

A baby to change everything, 9 months to make a successful ecological transition

FIGAROVOX.

- September 23 is the peak birth day in France.

Some, by ecological commitment refuse today to have one or more children.

Is your book a way of relieving parents of guilt and asserting that welcoming children remains possible, if you adapt your lifestyle?

Valère CORRÉARD and Mathilde GOLLA.

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Welcoming a child remains and must remain an extraordinary event in life.

Let us not forget that we are programmed to procreate and ensure the continuity of our species, it is characteristic of living things.

The fact that some people make a very personal choice not to have children is a symptom of a model who has lived.

Giving up for ecological reasons is a radical act that shows how deadlock some and some feel.

it makes you think, it challenges, and they should not be caricatured because it is undoubtedly a very difficult decision to make.

Our book can modestly contribute to seeing things differently.

Yes, in absolute terms, having a child can preempt a little more resources, worsen our carbon footprint, pollution ... But it can also be a great opportunity to review your priorities, to consider your daily life differently, to commit to the future, beyond our own existence, it is from this unprecedented situation that we set out to offer keys that are accessible and adapted to parents who do not want to close their eyes.

Welcoming a child can be a great opportunity to review their priorities, to see their daily life differently, to commit to the future, beyond our own existence.

This feeling of guilt should not be denied either.

Many of the parents interviewed for the book evoke this feeling.

But it is a matter of making it constructive.

Instead of brushing it aside, these parents decide to take action to shape a more sustainable world for their children.

Birth thus becomes a powerful driving force for adopting a lifestyle in line with the new responsibilities of parents.

We first explain that the transition to parenthood can support the ecological transition (nascent or committed), we get in motion, this little being needs us and our love for her or him is unconditional, visceral, existential .

It will sometimes make life difficult for us, asking us to change individually, but also within our relationship, in our social relations, our vision of the world, it's a big bang.

The period can (because in some cases it is also too much of a challenge) open our minds to change, but also push us to review our priorities: refocus on the family, the health of this child, the world in which he is going. living, and the ecological transition when approached with kindness and without guilt will provide support.

This is how we hypothesized that the ecological transition can in turn support the transition to parenthood, thanks to daily changes, we recreate a world more adapted to the child, reassuring.

Two mutually supportive transitions.

Finally, we go through the last months of pregnancy and the first months of the child on a daily basis to provide keys without injunction, each at their own pace for the issue of diapers, clothes, toys or even childcare.

Not everyone knows the pitfalls to avoid, the actions that really matter, the labels but also the possible savings.

We have laid down the main lines to welcome babies in the healthiest possible environment, considering that very often less is better.

Pablo Servigne, agricultural engineer, doctor of biology and thinker of collapsology, prefaces your book, he explains that having two sons "deeply anchored" him.

Do you think welcoming a child can help the ecological transition?

Entering into an ecological transition is this crucial moment when we modify our lifestyle to take better care of the planet, and ultimately of ourselves.

The arrival of a child is therefore an incomparable opportunity to initiate this transition.

Becoming a parent upsets habits anyway, so it's an opportunity to choose a more sustainable lifestyle.

This is what Pablo Servigne confirms.

We asked him to sign this preface because it brought an additional philosophical stone to the work.

He is now known to many people for his multidisciplinary work on collapse theories, which he speaks in a practical book on babies shows that he believes in the future of humanity!

Moreover, his point is rather that of an accomplished dad who explains with transparency how fatherhood seems to have put his feet on the ground, as is the case for many dads elsewhere.

And it illustrates our point well… The transition to parenthood supports the ecological transition and vice versa.

You put forward a "global approach", both philosophical and material.

What does it consist of?

It is first of all about trusting yourself.

Becoming a parent or becoming a parent again (sometimes also grandpa, grandma, auntie, uncle, etc.) encourages us to go and look deep within ourselves, in our history, in our stories, our instinct takes over, it is powerful and it s 'inspires a human heritage that is beyond us doubtless.

Nature has been researching and developing for millions of years so that life always wins.

It is from this hypothesis that we started to see parents as sensitive and fertile human beings.

In the society in which we live, becoming a parent is a very creative period, faced with injunctions, constraints, speed, this is a dream opportunity to regain control of this daily life that escapes us.

And in the society in which we live, it is a very creative period, faced with injunctions, constraints, speed, this is a dream opportunity to regain control of this daily life that escapes us.

Because the baby will not run away, he is there, he needs us, and we will give him everything, as never in the vast majority of cases.

In the sense of this "global approach", do you also recommend, more broadly, to act for a change of economic and social model?

We are not recommending anything, we are making the most objective observations possible.

But the experience of parenthood hardly leaves you indifferent.

So much suffering, injustice, violence and frustrations, it questions our model, right?

We must recognize that becoming a parent can put us back on the ground there too and put us back in the direction we want to give to our lives.

To run always faster, further, to go somewhere without knowing very well where with all that that implies, or to find a time at human height, a rhythm favoring the exchange, a more resilient and sustainable path.

This will indeed undoubtedly involve a questioning of the dominant features of the current model.