posted on January 3, 2002 10:48:54 AM new
This is a controvercial topic, but one that I never can quite understand. (Bear with me )
With the rising costs of living....dentists, doctors, food, college, etc., why do people continue having more than 1 or 2 children nowadays? Unless they have a big stash of money tucked away somewhere, I don't see how people afford it.
We've talked before about poor women that can't afford birth control. That's understandable...up to a point. But what about couples (or single parents) that choose to have large families that they can't afford?
The reason why I brought this up, is they said on the news, that the number of children up for adoption in North America (Canada and the U.S.), is rising.
With all the knowledge we've gained in the past 50 years, how can that be?
posted on January 3, 2002 10:54:46 AM new Kids - How Many Is Too Many?
One would've been too many for me.
Gonna stay far away from the other issues you raised because when I get going on birth control and family planning certain people have a tendency to shriek...
posted on January 3, 2002 11:02:59 AM new
Hi Pat! Well, I'm interested in hearing what you think. I've just never been able to come up with an understanding. Maybe there is no answer, but I'd still like to hear your pov.
posted on January 3, 2002 11:51:33 AM new
My son (and DIL) have two girls. Almost three and 15 months. They have too many because the children are undisciplined and the children are totally in control. It is not a pleasure to be around these grandchildren.
posted on January 3, 2002 12:20:41 PM new
Okay. I'm ready to dodge the brickbats. And , by the way, I have no children and that's the way I wanted it.
I don't think couples should have more than the replacement number of children - two. Some people make great parents to four, six, or more kids, but I think we have to think of the population as a whole - and not just the population of the US. Maybe I'm grouchy because the DC traffic is a killer and open space has been lost so quickly. Jobs are here. Are they there in small towns? Where will the future population work and for what wage?
posted on January 3, 2002 02:50:22 PM new
If you want a vibrant economy, you need a large contingent of young people. American couples having only 2 children is not quite replacement parity with our population.
Part of Japan's economic problems stem from the fact that their population is aging (more old than young, young not having enough children).
The U.S is facing the same problem with the "baby bust". Our population is aging just like Japan's. However, one of the solutions always in the political backround is to open up Latin American immigration into the U.S. The average age in Latin America is something like 15. It will boost our economy and lower wages, which will allow older Americans to get goods and services cheap with their fixed incomes and will also save the Social Security system.
In any event, this age demographic shift that is occurring will have profound effects on the U.S. in the coming decades, not all of them positive.
posted on January 3, 2002 03:40:09 PM new
My brother-in-law is one of those people with (what I personally feel is) too many kids. He and his first wife had a child, then she became pregnant at the same time they filed for divorce. (He is the father.)
Almost immediately after the divorce, his girlfriend became pregant. (Oops!) They got married, and not too long after their first child was born, yep, she got pregant again.
He's now got 4 kids (3 boys, 1 girl). The oldest is 7, the rest are all between 2 - 3-1/2 years old. He pays child support to his first wife for their two kids, and is still married to his new wife, supporting those two kids as well. Having four kids is fine if you can afford them, but they are in a mess.
His new wife can't seem to keep a job ... she works a couple of weeks then quits/gets fired every time. From what I've seen, she's perfectly able to work -- she just doesn't seem to WANT to work. He is unable to work due to a work-related back injury (which, of course, is not his fault), but he is perfectly capable of taking care of the kids while she works. But apparently that's not what they want to do -- they both stay home. He does get a disability check, but it isn't nearly enough to pay child support AND adequately feed and clothe the two children in his own household. They also receive grocery coupons from the state (I think it's called WIC), which helps.
Even still, when their youngest child was born, we all noticed that he wasn't growing as quickly as other children do. His wife said she had taken him to the doctor several times and that there was nothing wrong.
The whole family kept an eye on things for a few more weeks, and after he still didn't improve, my mother-in-law, who was baby-sitting one day, took the baby to the doctor herself, without telling them. Come to find out, the baby wasn't getting enough to eat!
We don't know for sure, but we feel that his wife DIDN'T take him to the doctor at all, and that she was just making up the "everything's fine" story. I don't think she/they were intentionally not feeding him enough -- I think they just honestly couldn't see that there was a problem. Not to be mean, but neither of them were able to get through high school, and neither of them has much common sense. (...sigh...) We've all tried to help them, but it's hard to help someone who won't even attempt to help themselves. They're the type that, if they happen to have an extra $20, they'll go spend every dime of it on the largest steaks they can find, and pig out that night. Nevermind that the money could be spent more wisely (i.e. buy ground beef instead and have enough for 2 or 3 meals!).
Anyway, the baby is doing fine now and is growing, even though he's still small for a 2-year-old and is a bit behind on doing the things a normal 2-year-old does. She's getting free birth control pills from the health department now, and my mother-in-law sat them down in private and gave them quite a "talking-to" about all this.
Unless something happens between now and then, there's no way those children wil be able to go to college, much less have things like new clothes and new toys. They are all undisciplined -- those four kids act and sound like twenty -- and they know full well that THEY'RE the ones in charge. Going to their house is ... well ... an adventure, to put it nicely.
Sure, it's a free country and people can have as many kids as they want, but there is such a thing as "too many".
As far as what the answer is, I don't know. If the government determined the number of children a person is qualified to have, that puts a dent in the whole concept of America being a free country. I just don't know.
posted on January 3, 2002 06:48:12 PM new
People can have as many as they can afford. However they should only get tax breaks for two of them. It isn't right that people with 8 kids are not paying any actual taxes due to deductions. On welfare? You only get enough payments for two and mandatory birth control till you get off the dole.
I think it is moraly wrong for people to overpopulate the earth.I would never tell them not to have those kids. I just am not too keen on paying for it. Which is what we are all doing now by allowing so many tax deductions.
posted on January 3, 2002 06:58:42 PM new
twinsoft -- I tend to believe that unplanned/unwanted/too-many-to-afford children are everybody's business. After all, it's everybody's tax money that goes toward helping them.
posted on January 3, 2002 07:05:49 PM new
I only have two ... count me as a quick learner!
I was one of those Mom's who didn't like to discipline my oldest ... until she started to discipline me! It took a mere two weeks to take control of that child ...
I have two relatives who do not disciple their child. They told me he has an aggression disorder ... that if you tell him to do something he will fight you until you give in. They tell me he needs counseling.
Counseling my butt. They are raising a future inhabitant of our prison system! Both of my girls have scars from where this child bit them. It got so bad that my youngest began to stutter when she would have to be around him. I took a month off of work until I could make sure she was in a safe place again.
Parents who do not discipline their children are not doing the children any favors ....
posted on January 3, 2002 08:05:19 PM new
Sometimes I feel like the rest of you about "paying" for other peoples children.
But then again I think about all those young men who fought in WWII that came from poor families with "too many" children and got support from the government.
I worked with a fellow once, he was usually quiet, and a very hard worker. Sometimes he would talk when we were on third shift.
He told me he fought forest fires out West when he was 15 years old. I asked how he ended up as a smoke jumper at 15 so far from home ?
His parents had 8 kids and were on relief during the depression, but they all worked on the family farm. Too many mouths to feed and not enough income from the farm. The CCC took him and his brother to CCC camps out West to do conservation work and fighting forest fires. The express purpose of the government was to send the CCC wages from the brothers home to help the family, the brothers got to keep $5 a month for themselves. They sent boys as far from home as possible to these camps to keep them in unfamilar surroundings and to keep them from running away back to their homes.
Well, to make a long story short, he and 2 of his brothers won Purple Hearts in WWII.
I guess being poor when a lot of people are poor allows for some leeway, but the poor are the most helpless folks around and sometimes I feel guilty wanting some sort of penitence from them. I guess they are easier and more vulerable than rich people to find fault with.
posted on January 3, 2002 09:44:39 PM new
When economic times are tough, the poor are always a ready and easy target.
This discussion reminds me of the talk around San Francisco lately regarding homelessness. Arguing that public assistance actually encourages homelessness, the city now plans to "cure" homelessness by reducing available services such as food and shelter.
Cutting the amount of assistance to poor families with children will not result in fewer children. It will result in a greater number of sick children.
Take a moment to think and you will see that the poor are not the problem. The average professional basketball player makes enough yearly salary to feed a small country. It's a matter of where your priorities lie.
posted on January 3, 2002 09:51:38 PM new
This has nothing to do with poor. It has to do with too many kids.
I really believe everyone should have no more than two children. We don't need big families to work on the family farm anymore, those days are long gone. BUT since I don't want to dictate to people how many they can have then let them have them as long as they are still paying their fair share of taxes and I am not supporting their family in any way.They should have to pay for education for any over two as well. I am tired of people having huge families and then all the rest of society is supposed to think it's wonderful. IT ISN'T. It is a burden on our overtaxed resources . We don't need more people, we don't need more dogs, we don't need more cats and I wish to goodness that people would get with the times and quit breeding like rabbits and please spay or neuter that pet.
posted on January 3, 2002 10:02:06 PM new
I don't think anyone's really targeting poor people twinsoft. It's just that poor people can least afford to have children, but it seems like that's not a consideration when they decide to have them.
I would say we know as much as we've ever known. Why then is the number of children up for adoption rising? I'm sure the biggest reason is that their parents can't afford to raise them. But with all the information that's available nowadays, why is that number not shrinking?
posted on January 3, 2002 10:36:31 PM newKD, obviously there is a connection in some people's minds. Your first post draws a direct connection between income and number of children.
Perhaps the number of adoptions is rising because fewer women are opting for abortions.
posted on January 4, 2002 05:56:54 AM new
Some observations on the topic...
Some background: we have 8 kids...two biological, the rest are adopted. So I have some experience in this matter.
Other than college costs, having more kids isn't necessarily that much more expensive. Health care costs? My health plans cost me the same whether I have 1...or 100...kids. I pay a few more $ in co-pays, but not that much.
Clothes? hand-me-downs work just fine.
Food? Pasta is pretty cheap.
Cars, Housing, utilities? a few bucks more for hot water, I guess. No biggie.
Even college costs are manageable, to some degree. Public colleges can be reasonably priced. And if you can live on one spouse's income (as we do), the other spouse can work during the college years as needed.
So the "high cost of kids" isn't necessarily a deterrent, especially since the biggest potential cost (college) is years away. We americans often have a hard time worrying about next week, let alone 20 years from now!
Of course, if your lifestyle/values are such that you need to supply your kids with the latest designer clothes, and send them to camps, and go out to dinner and on expensive vacations...then yes, best to think twice about having extra kids around.
As far as more kids up for adoption..besides the possibility of fewer abortions, I think there is a trend towards removing kids from abusive homes faster. Used to be, the birth parents could just about keep kids under almost any circumstances. Some states are starting to realize that the fact that you created them, biologically, shouldn't necessarily give you life-long free reign to abuse them, when there are many people just waiting for kids.
also I wonder if the increased mobility of families means there are fewer local resources to help people like single mothers, making them more likely to place their children for adoption. The trend towards the elderly moving to nursing homes can also be a factor here. If you don't have free/cheap family childcare, your options often narrow considerably.
Its a complicated subject, obviously. Lots of factors going on "behind the scenes".
PS - please don't take away my tax breaks...they were part of the reason we could afford to adopt kids (which, by the way, is a LOT cheaper for taxpapers to have us pay their costs instead of foster homes, etc!). Feel free to lobby for reduced tax breaks for more than two *biological* kids, however. I worry about overpopulation also...
[ edited by captainkirk on Jan 4, 2002 05:59 AM ]
[ edited by captainkirk on Jan 4, 2002 06:00 AM ]
posted on January 4, 2002 09:26:29 AM new
"they said on the news, that the number of children up for adoption in North America (Canada and the U.S.), is rising"
The reason children up for adoption has increased is that not many want an imperfect child.
posted on January 4, 2002 09:35:44 AM new
rawbunzel -
twinsoft, the "connection" in my mind with poor people having kids, is that they can't afford to have them. Rich people can have as many as they want because they can afford to keep and raise them. The math is simple. My question is why do poor people that can't afford to have kids, keep having them only to have more and more put up for adoption? The information is there, help is there, education is there, but the adoption rate is GROWING.
captainkirk, Bravo! to you for adopting these kids. People like you are the salt of the earth imo.
posted on January 4, 2002 11:44:32 AM new
The ironic thing about this is that any pair of hormone-charged teenagers with a chevy can have a kid...but in order for us to adopt, we had to open up our entire life to probing questions from strangers, hand over bank, tax, and employment documents, be researched by local and state police and the FBI (we are actually one of the most fingerprinted people here in vermont!), provide letters of reference from friends, relatives, and clergy, prove that we are immune from every possible disease known to man, and top it all with a large payment. Sheesh.
posted on January 4, 2002 12:24:49 PM new
I was really surprised at most of the posts I'm reading here. But then it occured to me that people with kids to look after are mostly not the ones on this message thread.
My uncle and aunt adopted 24 and raised 96 as foster parents.
I think the question isn't really how many kids is too many, it's really about how many children are people capable of loving and being responsible for.
Some of those people mentioned above, that have many kids, may also own things they can't be responsible for, like big houses or expensive cars. So in those cases it's just that they are irresponsible about everything. I suppose the best number of children will differ with every couple, and if a child can't grow up and go to college because they have lots of siblings their life won't end in despair.
"Your playing small doesn't serve the world...There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you." ~Nelson Mandela
posted on January 4, 2002 03:02:16 PM new
I don't have any kids at home to look after because they are both grown up and moved out.
I had my tubes tied after the birth of my second one because even at age 24 I knew that more than that was just plain not the right thing to do. [Biological kids.] I do not feel that the things I have said before apply to adopted families. I admire people who will adopt and take care of other peoples children. I do wish it weren't necessary. When I wanted to have my tubes done when my son was born the doctor kept asking me "but what if something happens to them what will you do?"I assured him that if something happened to these children I would adopt as these children could never be replaced anyway. There are and always have been way too many children that need homes.
The ones that irk me are the ones that refuse to adopt to have a large family and choose instead to breed and breed .
posted on January 4, 2002 03:15:52 PM new
Having no more than two children may be the intellectualy appropriate thing to do, especially with birth control available. But every society should be prepared and consider it their highest priority to take care of children whose parents, for whatever reason, are unable to limit the number or take care of their children no matter how many they have.
posted on January 5, 2002 11:19:54 AM new
I think the number of children depends on who is raising them. We have no children (although I do consider my 2 dogs and 5 cats my children). When my great-niece was about 2 her mother (my nephews' ex-wife) decided she needed to sow her oats. She was drinking and driving with a 2-year old in the car, left the front door open when "S" was downstairs, and had I don't know how many people living in her apartment. My sister gave her an ultimatum. Either let me have custody until you get your s**t together or I'll take you to court. My sister had legal custody of her for quite awhile. Finally "J" met a guy who really settled her down. Where was her father (my nephew) while all this was going on? Well, he was living with my sister because he was having problems of his own. Thank goodness everyone has matured now. The sad thing is "S" is now 7 years old and has a really smart mouth and attitude.
posted on January 5, 2002 01:33:00 PM new
A dear friend of mine lost her baby on Christmas Eve, during the birth. It was the doctor's fault, the baby was fine. A malpractice suit confirmed that. Now she can't have any more.
Since then, my friend has raised many foster kids, in addition to two of her own. I doubt that anyone could ever convince her that three kids is too many.
No one can tell anyone else how many kids is too many, and allowing children based on income is just plain wrong in so many ways.
posted on January 5, 2002 02:14:15 PM new
I certainly agree that income doesn't guarantee anything, but it should be a start on the parents behalf when considering having a child. Having enough love to share isn't a good enough reason to have a child anymore. You have to consider the financial responsibilty, which I guess some people don't, seeing the number of children available for adoption is so high.
(clarification)
[ edited by kraftdinner on Jan 5, 2002 02:15 PM ]
posted on January 5, 2002 08:49:24 PM new
It's not if or how many, it's what you do with them AFTER you have them.
It absolutely amazes me that my friends allow their kids to get away with stuff they wouldn't allow from their German Shepard.
Many people become "infatuated" with children and treat them like toys.
It is absolutely hysterical watching my friend's 9 yr old control her parents like playing a fiddle. This child MUST be the center of attention all the time. if she detects she is not for 5 minutes, she will do anything necessary: fall down, interrupt constantly, etc, etc. After seemingly forever, my friend will detect this and blow-up (but never his wife) and scream: "Mary, go into the living room and sit in the blue chair and don't come back until I call you!!!!!"
Well you might of guessed but Mary goes in and sits in the RED chair. When I casually point this out, Daddy screams and Mary replies:
"But Daddy, I can't see mommy from there and if she falls down I won't be able to help her!"
)
Why then is the number of children up for adoption rising? I'm sure the biggest reason is that their parents can't afford to raise them. But with all the information that's available nowadays, why is that number not shrinking?