Am I the only one?

How do I make this clear?
We are D.O.N.E.!!!!!
Love our girls, love our life and done!!
Husand was "taken care of" when the girls were infants.
No snippy, no schnookie!

 

No more kids for me. I'm very happy to have a daughter, but 3 is one more than I planned on having, and right now I find it completely overwhelming. With more kids I wouldn't be able to raise them in the way that I wanted. Plus, like Fran said above, I'm longing to get some independence for myself again.

Twinfinite
I agree that we need to curb population growth; the key to that is to keep the total fertility rate (for the society as a whole) at replacement level 2.1 kids per woman. Right now the US is hovering right around 2.1 kids. I'm not too worried about anomalous families like the Duggars (even those I find some elements of their ideology morally suspect), as long we stay at that rate for the whole society, we will be ok population wise. BTW-I'm getting a kick at the irony of your screen name, in relation to this thread. That's great

Me thinks twinfinite needs to join the Den

Yeah, the problems in places like Italy, China, Japan, Russia, and some of the northern European countries is that you don't have enough young people to take care of the elderly. So they are not paying enough taxes into the system to pay for all of the services that the elderly, most of whom are not in the labor force, are using up. Plus, you have the simple problem of caregiving. Think about it, each married couple in China, today potentially has 4 elderly parents to look after. So these couples are burdened with rearing children and caring for the elderly.

That doesn't negate the points that twinfinite was making about overconsumption and overpopulation, but it does tell us, we either need a stable population or the decrease in our population needs to occur over a few generations.

On the issue of education, it is true in pretty much every culture in the world that people who have more education have few kids. That a consistent finding in the research on fertility, but it's not really about being smarter or more contemplative. In contemporary capitalist economies children are an economic asset and wealthier people, especially the upper middle class, have more to lose financially than their poorer counterparts. Furthermore, more educated people tend to have better health care and better access to family planning resources whether it be good quality sex education, health insurance, access to abortion, or access to contraception.

 

Where is the den?

I agree on all of your points, by the way. :thanks:

 

In response to the point that one possibility of reducing human environmental impact would be to not have kids at all --

Well, I find that this is a major example of "either/or" and "black/white" thinking. It's not an all or nothing situation. I never once mentioned that anyone should forgo having their own family at all. If no one had kids, this would lead to the extinction of humans. In fact, the only qualm I had is with those who use an excessive amount of resources to the detriment of the Earth. What this SHOULD be about is moderation; it is about finding a balance that will allow humanity to to live in harmony amidst other animals and plants and to wisely use the limited natural resources on Earth.

This isn't conjecture, this is common sense. Taking into account that there are always exceptions to the rule, it basically is just plain logic that those with larger families use MORE resources, compared to those with smaller families. It should be noted that this is taking into account only those families who live in westernized cultures. "Large" families in third world countries would still consume less than a single person in a western culture. Yet compared to any other animal - great or small - on this Earth, any human (regardless of where you live, or how you live) will still have a larger negative impact on resources -- why? Because the machinations of western society with its hyper-consumption has veritably dribbled into almost every other culture whether they wanted it to or not. Pretty much all of the horrible things that are being done to the Earth (toxic residues, landfills, biochemical byproducts, making an imbalance of ecosystems) are done by humans, except for maybe natural disasters -- volcanoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons,et al.

And yes, it's true that massive corporations creating tons and tons of waste per day is more wasteful than having children -- but let's face it, it is much harder to control what companies are going to do, than it is what YOU can do yourself. (*cue music -- Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" hehe).



In response to how would I ever draw a line as to what constitutes "too many" children and the unintended social fiasco known as China's one-child policy---


I do not intend to ever draw any line. I do not believe in ANY government using such invasive measures to control anybody's lives in such a fashion. Did I ever give a specific or abitrary number as to what constitutes "too many" children? I never did, and I never will. I said that TWO kids is enough for ME at this point. It is really up to the individual. All I have ever mentioned are my opinions for how I intend to live MY OWN life. Have I ever attempted to prescribe a set way for anyone here to live their lives? No, I have not. All I ever have mentioned is the phrase "large families" -- and I never expressly defined exact numbers about what this means to me at all.



My main soreness and what causes extreme vexation to me is the following: social irresponsibility.

I am not saying this is always the case (and I am sure many will agree with me) but, yes, in many instances it is -- that "large families" have a sense of entitlement.

(1) It is not your "right" or "liberty" to use as much of the resources on this Earth as you want. Yes, you may even cloth diaper, eat only organic, and buy only used items -- but the unalterable fact remains -- yes, your family is still using more resources, more energy, than smaller families are.

(2) It is not your "right" or "liberty" to be taken care of by the government if you have a large family. Nor should it be the burden of your church if you have chosen to have a large family and cannot sustain it on your own.

(3) Even if you do not accept social welfare of any kind, you still reap higher dividends by indirect means. You get more tax breaks. And the more children you have, the more the burden is placed on other taxpayers to support your children, whether it be by government healthcare (as in Canada), or using the public school system which is a tremendous drain on the financial assets of westernized countries.

Are these three things fair to everyone else? I don't think so. (Everyone will just go ahead and do whatever it is they want to do anyway. So yeah, this is a really futile discussion, but a fun and meaningless diversion nonetheless.)


Anyway--in the past, having as many children as you could possibly "pop" out was the norm and a natural expectation. Why? Because of extreme infant mortality rates -- many babies did not make it out of infancy. Why? Because advances in the medical world had not taken place yet. Average life spans were much much shorter. People died from a simple cold or fever.

In the present........Newsflash: we don't live in a hunter/gatherer society anymore, and we don't live in an agrarian society anymore either. Your choices about family size affect EVERYONE ELSE's families millions of miles away, not just your own family. This is truly a global society now. All I'm saying is: it's important to think about the bigger picture, and the repercussions it will have on every other family and every other human that will live on Earth someday many centuries from now.

I mean, yeah, we all know that eventually the Earth is on a crash course all the way into this gigantic fireball we know as the Sun, but do we really want the human race to vanish from the face of the Earth before then because of the hyperconsumption of the Earth's resources?


ps
interesting pie chart

interesting stats

more interesting stuff

 

And no need to tell me where the den is. I saw the sign. Thanks ;-)

 

I absolutely agree with this.

 

Yeah twinfinite I couldn't agree more about you about families that keep having children that they can't afford, and that WE end up paying for. Drives me crazy! If they can afford them, it's their business though, it's just something I could never do.