How many children should couples have?

[Zeke]

Or, be allowed to have. I know that statement right there opens Pandora's box.

But, this isn't so much about totalitarian family control as it is about the sustainable world population. There simply isn't and won't be a solution to the energy situation. It takes energy to make energy, even if that's oil to make solar panels, etc.

The fastest and easiest way out is to reduce the demand. Short of becoming a nation of Amish, we just need less people.

Oh, and you think if a couple were to only have one child that they might pay attention to the quality of upbringing? You never know....

It'll never happen, but it's something to think about.

(BTW, I have no children of my own, so two families can now have 3 and we're still even. Someone double check that theory for me, I never pondered it much. )

[island911]

Not to worry, Milt, death always keeps up with birth. . . .okay, sometimes lagging a bit, but at least we have plagues, war, ....

[fumanchu]

One.

Death does not always keep pace with birth. Population growth tends to be exponential.

[The Gaijin]

They should have as many as they want.

In the in the free and economically sucessful part of this world the birthrate is not even at replacement.

[Scott R]

One, and I'm with Milt, you'll can have any I might have had. No time, and too selfish.

[Rick Lee]

I don't really want to have kids. There are enough people in the world and my taxes already pay for plenty of them. Japan is doomed because of their low birthrate and long-living population. China has more than enough to go around, though a way, way too many boys per girls ratio. Western Europe's birthrate is declining. The third world is where it's at. If their demographics take over ours, pretty soon, there won't be anyone left to pay for them.

[island911]

Originally Posted by fumanchu

One.

Death does not always keep pace with birth. Population growth tends to be exponential.

...only when resources and conditions will support that growth rate.

I find it a bit short sighted to think that we should limit birth to somehow encourage life. I mean, I can see how staggering it is to contemplate ALL the ******* people replicating. But then, mother nature gets a twitch, and wipes out 250,000+ people w/ one tsunami. We have a self correcting system.

[legion]

What happens when we cure all disease? We get assigned to our 2' x 2' chunk of the world.

[Nostril Cheese]

A more appropriate question would be..

What people should be allowed to be parents?

[daepp]

Couples should have at least two children.

If you doubt this, take a look at the problems that Europe is having. Italy and Russia are in a terminal spiral.

Or read a little Mark Steyn.

THE CENTURY AHEAD
It's the Demography, Stupid
The real reason the West is in danger of extinction.

BY MARK STEYN
Wednesday, January 4, 2006 12:01 a.m.

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.

One obstacle to doing that is that, in the typical election campaign in your advanced industrial democracy, the political platforms of at least one party in the United States and pretty much all parties in the rest of the West are largely about what one would call the secondary impulses of society--government health care, government day care (which Canada's thinking of introducing), government paternity leave (which Britain's just introduced). We've prioritized the secondary impulse over the primary ones: national defense, family, faith and, most basic of all, reproductive activity--"Go forth and multiply," because if you don't you won't be able to afford all those secondary-impulse issues, like cradle-to-grave welfare.

Americans sometimes don't understand how far gone most of the rest of the developed world is down this path: In the Canadian and most Continental cabinets, the defense ministry is somewhere an ambitious politician passes through on his way up to important jobs like the health department. I don't think Don Rumsfeld would regard it as a promotion if he were moved to Health and Human Services.

The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyperrationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion. The problem is that secondary-impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengths--or, at any rate, virtues--and that's why they're proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam.

Speaking of which, if we are at war--and half the American people and significantly higher percentages in Britain, Canada and Europe don't accept that proposition--then what exactly is the war about?

We know it's not really a "war on terror." Nor is it, at heart, a war against Islam, or even "radical Islam." The Muslim faith, whatever its merits for the believers, is a problematic business for the rest of us. There are many trouble spots around the world, but as a general rule, it's easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Jews in "Palestine," Muslims vs. Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs. Christians in Africa, Muslims vs. Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs. Russians in the Caucasus, Muslims vs. backpacking tourists in Bali. Like the environmentalists, these guys think globally but act locally.

Yet while Islamism is the enemy, it's not what this thing's about. Radical Islam is an opportunistic infection, like AIDS: It's not the HIV that kills you, it's the pneumonia you get when your body's too weak to fight it off. When the jihadists engage with the U.S. military, they lose--as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. If this were like World War I with those fellows in one trench and us in ours facing them over some boggy piece of terrain, it would be over very quickly. Which the smarter Islamists have figured out. They know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there's an excellent chance they can drag things out until Western civilization collapses in on itself and Islam inherits by default.

More Here

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Nostril Cheese

A more appropriate question would be..

What people should be allowed to be parents?

We can't go there....

It's universal or nothing and I know you know that.

I'm still not sure I understand 2 people getting together and having one offspring keeping the world populated without a decrease. And, AFA the death thing, sure, it takes nowadays about 4 generations of lag time, whereas 2 generations ago, it was 3. But, everyone born dies. So, let's take that back out of the discussion. I'm not talking about a 1 or 2 generation fix.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Zero.

Unless they ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY want them and are 100% certain that they can absorb the financial, emotional and psychological hell that is going to come out of it. IMO they should do foster parent duties for a couple of months to "try out" parenting on a part-time, non-committal basis first before deciding to have their own too. I imagine if this was required, there'd be a precipitous decline in birthrate, which actually would be a good thing.

IMHO the LAST friggin' thing the world needs is more humans. . . But if that's what a couple REALLY wants (some people ARE wired up for it and that's fine and good for the survival of our species), then go for it. Provided they have the means to care for them and provide for them without impacting me or penalizing me for MY choices.

I'll take my two cats any day thank you very much. But that's just me.

[JavaBrewer]

Yep depends on the circumstances. I think 2-3 kids is a good number. I'm an only child and now as I'm older wish I had a sibling or two - assuming that we got along.

I don't see over-population as a future problem but more that it's the welfare/uneducated folks that are producing the lion's share of kids. Puts a huge strain on the community to feed, educate, and keep healthy all these kids whose parents can barely provide the minimum to subsist.

[Aerkuld]

2.2

[M.D. Holloway]

The number of humans is not the issue, the number of productive, kind and passionate ones are. The more of those the better. Lazy, mean and cold need not apply.

[livi]

Seems I risk finding my self on the black list here. I had one child three children ago..

No, the problem globally is the forces and environments in many development countries that make it very difficult to avoid having "too many" children. Where the women have no saying and birth control is either prohibited by the imbecille Pope or hard to come by.

Like many other species, man has historically practiced a strategy where spawning in great number will make it more likely that at least some survive in a cruel environment of poverty and desease.

In many Western countries, on the other hand, there are almost a shortage of children.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Go sit in L.A. traffic on a Friday afternoon sometime and tell me the world needs more people.

Go to Hong Kong or take a ride on the Tokyo subway sometime and tell me the world needs more people.

Go to NYC sometime and try to cross Manhattan at rush hour and tell me the world needs more people.

Take a stroll through the quaint and lovely streets of Mumbai or New Delhi and tell me the world needs more people.

My hats off to the Mayans for inventing "0" as a concept. It applies well to this problem/situation. People create more problems than they solve. Conclusion: Fewer people are better.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by milt

Or, be allowed to have. I know that statement right there opens Pandora's box....

If Pandora didn't open her box it would be a moot question wouldn't it ?

[island911]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

... People create more problems than they solve. Conclusion: Fewer people are better.

pfft, So then what are YOU doing here? Obviously, if you are here, you are part of the problem.



. . . or are you needed here to provide the solution? ...the final solution?


heh-heh.

[cstreit]

My take:

You should have no more children that you can reasonably support and give a good chance to have a better life than you. Have only the means to put one kid through college, then don't have 5.

I'm sickened by one of these reality shows where this couple has cranked out around 20 kids. Unless they are all brilliant and get full rides to college, they've just spawned a generation kids who will have to struggle to better themselves. Sure, they can work (as I did) their way thru college, but the chance of them all doing it? These people struggle every day to house and feed, and clothe them... To what benefit?

I have two kids, and that will be it, because I don't feel like I could give the time, focus, and financial support to any more than that.