How many kids are enough?
Oh, boy…this is a loaded question, amirite?
BIOLOGY
Well, let’s at least be biologists for a little bit—start with minor league controversy. For decades, the “population bomb” criers have urged high birth rate regions of the world to find solutions—contraceptives, education, etc.—to bring down their birth rates (see “When Will the Bomb Explode, Dr. Ehrlich” below for an in-depth critique of this idea). What has become increasingly clear (see Hans Rosling video) is that birth rates come down when economic wealth and resources go up. But when people have fewer children, those families, on average, actually consume more than families with lots of children. See article on Reproducing in Cities. This means that lower birth rates actually lead to increases in consumption, at least initially.
So, how does this apply to today’s world. We know that some high consumption countries nowhave birth rates less than 2.0 (less than two children per woman) meaning they are in negative population growth. Italy, Spain and Japan are extreme cases, but most of Western Europe is in this category, and China as well. Other countries, like the U.S., have birth rates that are under 2.0 but immigration keeps population growth positive.
ECONOMICS
As a population, or a country, it’s hard to know which comes first—low resources or high birth rates. We are highly imprinted, at least in the U.S., with the idea that higher resource consumption is always better. But are we sure that the only goal in life should be more consumption, more economic wealth? Increasingly, we see indicators that show life satisfaction, fulfillment, happiness—whatever you want to call it—is maximized at some mid-level of resource use. Some would argue that bigger families and more children are more valuable than high levels of economic wealth.
FAMILIES
So, that brings us to the personal side—the loaded side—of the question. How many kids are enough? No one wants to be handed an answer to this question, and past attempts to control human fertility, through sterility programs and other means, are seen as morally repugnant. But how do we decide, on a personal level, how to answer this question. Is it even right to ask it—some people, some cultures, view having children, and how many, as something the higher powers, or just fate and chance, determine. Other people and cultures find that leaving this to chance is morally questionable, and that each child should be born from a conscious decision by its parents.
What’s your answer–leave it in the comments below.
FROLICH STUDENTS:
Please respond with a comment essay. Your essay should be a well-thought-out and rational article. Your essay, which should be a few paragraphs long, should address all of the following:
- A point of view–what is your answer to the question of how many kids are enough? This might, probably should, be a detailed answer that tells us from a personal, as well as a societal, point of view why you answer the way you do.
- What is the evidence that supports your point of view? Use at least two of the references in the intro above, or any other sources. .
- I recommend writing your essay in a Word document, and then copy it into the Comment box below so that you don’t lose your work and you keep a copy for yourself. Be sure to put a title at the top of your response, and your name in the “by” line.
Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want the class, and the whole world, to read.
This is worth 5 points extra credit towards your final lecture grade. Must be posted by Saturday, April 22 at midnight.
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When will the bomb explode, Dr. Ehrlich?
Ever since publishing The Population Bomb (1968), Paul Ehrlich’s ideas have dominated many approaches to sustainability, despite the fact that many of his predictions have proved wrong. Admittedly, they contain a compelling logic: human populations (or those of any species, for that matter), cannot continue to increase at exponential rates—eventually they will outstrip their resource base, or even their physical environment space.
Thus, this way of thinking has argued, let’s see where human populations are increasing most rapidly? Answer, obviously: in the “Third World.” Then, let’s recognize that this is also where people are apparently suffering the most from famine, and work towards bringing their population growth under control so these poor, breeding-like-rabbits people have enough to eat.
Layer onto this primary argument the wonderfully humanist goal of providing social and economic “equity” and we have a convincingly compassionate set of solutions for achieving resource sustainability.
Except that I don’t buy it.
Turn the logic around
In an update article, Daily and Ehrlich (1996) argue for social and economic equity—within and among households, among regions, and among nations—as a solution to lowering fertility rates. This is the focus of the article, although they also first also look at how the same factors might increase food production. The same old problem Ehrlich has been facing for years: need to provide more food for over-fertile poor people. Maybe, though, the problem is not in controlling fertility rates. Pure ecologists rarely think about fertility as a primary cause of anything, but rather focus on those environmental conditions that determine fertility rate. The food (and other resource) supplies that Daily and Ehrlich want to help increase may be exactly what determine fertility and population growth rates. Factors such as education, access to contraceptives, and whether women consciously choose to have each child, may be secondary (see Moses and Brown, 2003 for an ecological scaling analysis of the strong correlation between energy use and fertility rates). Daily and Ehrlich admit that data about these soft social factors are hard to interpret in terms of their relationship to fertility.
Where does their argument go wrong (and immoral)?
First of all, treating population growth as a problem rarely succeeds as a biological control policy. It might locally contain a pest problem—rat poison, pesticides, open hunting on rattlesnakes, deer, wolves, bears and other ways to bring down population of “wild” animals can make a local difference. And this can greatly improve human quality of life. But direct population control rarely works as a comprehensive program for increasing, decreasing or eliminating populations of animals. It almost always has secondary consequences that might be worse than the initial problem. China has quickly and dramatically brought population growth down. But they are facing serious environmental consequences in terms of resource use and pollution.
In the case of humans, if our goal is to achieve resource sustainability, and we want to apply a “control” approach to the human population “problem,” the solution quickly becomes obvious. And it is not one that I think Daily and Ehrlich would like. Just the idea of selective culling of the human population is morally repugnant. But worse yet, where should we cull? Obviously where resource use is greatest. So, a typical biological pest approach to human overpopulation (relative to resource use) means heading out to the Northern suburbs, starting in the U.S. Where do Paul Ehrlich and his colleagues live? Palo Alto, California, which must rank high on the list of per capita resource use, might be a good place to start.
Secondly, Ehrlich, perhaps because of the cultural bias that informs his worldview, believes that humans worldwide take the same kind of careful decision about conceiving each and every child that he and his culture might. I have a hard time refuting the notion that each child should be a “wanted” child. But I doubt the way this value is understood and applied in Northern suburb culture will work throughout the world. And, in fact, its promotion starts to make Northerners look rather heartless. Is this coincidence?
I don’t think so. Because, thirdly and perhaps most ironically, Ehrlich’s relentless pursuit of population control strikes at what might be a universal human value: children as our most prized possession. Northern suburb culture has largely over-ridden this universal value, and this over-ride allows intellectuals like Daily and Ehrlich to form a worldview that starts with population (and its most obvious and bountiful gift—children) as a problem. It’s hard to disagree that people experiencing famine should have more to eat. But I would hate to be the one to tell them that the solution lies in not having children, or even in having fewer children. And I would have to think that the bearer of this message might well be suffering, psychologically and emotionally, as much or more than those who are in famine. Which leads us to what is most ironic about the Daily and Ehrlich approach: should not the barely fertile, high-resource consumers in the North consider their own level of satisfaction, welfare, and non-economic well-being first; and then decide how to regulate population and increase food resources in the South, and among the economically poor? Or perhaps decide it’s none of their business.
The “caveat” proves the point
Daily and Ehrlich do provide a “caveat,” although they don’t discuss how it might be achieved. The caveat is that the “equity” they promote must come about, not only through increases in economic wealth among poor, but concomitant decreases among the wealthy. Nonetheless, the scant data they provide on how fertility rates might relate to economic and educational levels are all from “Third World” countries. They never look at how these same factors affect fertility among wealthy countries.
The article should start with the caveat and then turn the entire argument on its head. It is not a question of the Northern wealthy sacrificing something about their lifestyle in order to meet the economic equity goal midway. It is about the Northern wealthy recognizing the values which economically poor Southern cultures might teach them. These values include the recognition of children as a sacred gift, not just another statistic that we can push around the chessboard. Then, changes in Northern behavior might lead to resource distribution that will allow for population growth to slow, not through forced behavioral changes imposed on Southern poor, but through Northern wealthy populations realizing that their non-economic welfare might be improved by changing their own behavior.
(Note that logically backward solutions to problems that seriously deplete human satisfaction are common when facing the real logic might be initially painful for the power class. Addictive drug use is a classic example where blame is placed on economically poor suppliers, often without facing the problem of demand from economically rich, but spiritually poor, consumers.)
The reason food supplies are limited where people are poor is probably because the wealthy North has, historically, controlled access and use of capital, both physical and human, in those regions. Searching for and promoting equity in the distribution and use of capital might bring down population growth, or it might not. But it should allow for an increase in human welfare if the Northern, wealthy, power culture recognizes that its own psycho-spiritual-emotional, non-economic welfare and satisfaction depends on it.
Save thyselves first, Drs. Daily and Ehrlich.
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Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His
arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
— The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran (1923), On Children
Ready for Kids
Every indiviual has an amount of kids they would like to have. I do not feel as though there should be a certain set amount of kids you are allowed to have it is up to the person. Sometimes having kids are not even planned, they may just happen. Personally I want two kids because I want my children to have someone around there age to grow up with and be close to. Although i have two brothers and four sisters only one of my sisters grew up with me. Having a sibling around that you could play with talk to whenever is very comforting. Because I have a big family I really do not want to have my own. Although it was fun growing up certain materialistic things I could not get because I either had to share with my siblings or it was way to expensive and if I got it then my siblings would want something too. In a sense it was sort of like a competition. On the one hand, having multiple kids might make you more efficient as a parent. “One 2014 study found that, over a 30-year career, mothers outperformed women without children, and mothers with at least two kids were the most productive of all. One possible reason: mothers tend to be more organized people. And research published in the journal Demography showed that the births of both a first and a second child briefly increased their parents’ happiness levels.”
Some people choose not to have kids based on there financially situation. Raising a child is not easy you have to nurture them mentally and also provide for them. Meaning food, clothes, health anything that your child needs as a parent you want to be financially stable. As a population, or a country, it’s hard to know which comes first low resources or high birth rates. We are highly imprinted, at least in the U.S., with the idea that higher resource consumption is always better. China for instance only allows one per household and that is due to overpopulation of the country. Bringing a baby into the world means facing a number of expenses up front. To help ease the burden, set aside a fund dedicated to immediate and short-term baby care needs. Having a child is a beautiful thing but it does come with a responsibility.
Ready For Kids
Some people choose not to have kids based on there finical situation. Raising a child is not easy you have to nurture them mentally and also provide for them. Meaning food, clothes, health anything that your child needs as a parent you want to be finally stable. As a population, or a country, it’s hard to know which comes first low resources or high birth rates. We are highly imprinted, at least in the U.S., with the idea that higher resource consumption is always better. China for instance only allows one per household and thats due to overpopulation of the country. Bringing a baby into the world means facing a number of expenses up front. To help ease the burden, set aside a fund dedicated to immediate and short-term baby care needs. Having a child is a beautiful thing but it does come with a responsibility.
Although population change affects our lives as a nation the question, how many kids are enough, is not a decision made by a nation in most countries. In China families are limited to one child. In this instance the nation has control over their birth rate which is cruel and unusual. The problem with a question like this one is that it infringes on an induvial personal beliefs and is not up to a nation due to trends in the economy/environment. Personally, I believe that a person should have as many children that they can care for comfortably, but the definition of comfort differs from one family to another. Some people are comfortable barely making it financially, but having a large family is more important to them. Bottom line is it doesn’t really matter how high or low a birth rate is or how it affects society as a whole. Whichever is the case, the population should find a way to deal with any pros and cons that comes from the decisions made by its people.
Of coarse I believe how many children you should have is a personal decision that should be made by husband and wife or two responsible adults. Some would argue that bigger families and more children are more valuable than high levels of economic wealth. From a personal perspective of my own I think two to three children are enough. Why? You might ask. The more children you have the more people you are responsible for. Think about the rising cost of living, that means more people to provide shelter for, and we are not just talking about people, we are talking about your own people, your children. Which means you are going to want a nice home in a safe location, which will cost more. Lets talk education. Everyone will not send their children to private schools for obvious reasons of the financial obligation that come along with private school. So lets look at childcare, daycare and college. According to the Federal Reserve, this measure was $51,939 in 2013, below the 1999 peak of around $57,000. [1] The Census Bureau estimated real median household income at $53,657 for 2014 and $54,462 in 2013.[2] If you are attempting to raise more than 3 children with a median household income than there might be some financial stress or tension on the family as there will be lack in some areas.
You might not be able to send all of your children to college. You might have to make cut back earlier than college they all might now be able to participate in extra curriculum actives. Wow, thinking about extra curriculum actives, what if you had 4 or 5 children who wanted to pick up different hobbies. How do you find time to maintain a full time job to provide for them and attend all practices rehearsals and game days or recitals or events? There is not enough balance between two adults that will make it work without a few set backs here and there. Not saying it cannot be done but it sure will be much harder than if there were 2 or 3. Lets talk about quality time, how much quality time can be given to 4 or 5 children and two adults work stable jobs? Not much you say! I can go on and on for days however I have 2 kids that I have to tend to so I don’t have much time. It’s not easy to work full time, go to school fulltime, be a mom full time and a wife full time. I cannot imagine having 4 or 5.
[1] https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MEHOINUSA672N
[2]http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.pdf
Until you are Satisfied
Although it is tough to say how many kids one should have, there are quite some factors that should be kept in mind when deciding. For instance: personal thoughts or beliefs, economics, and society. However, people should be able to decide for themselves and have their own reasons about how many kids are enough for their families. I believe each person should consider their current circumstances and reflect on the outcome of the amount of children they would like to have, whether is a lot or just one or two. But, I don’t believe that is it right to tell others how they should raise their families, yet tell them how many kids are enough for them. I think this is a decision that families have the right to take.
First, people have many different beliefs and cultures that they were born in. There are cultures where families tend to be big to help each other not just for financial issues, but also for future generations. In the other hand, there are countries like China, where you are not allowed to have more than one children, which I find outrageous. Regardless what people believe in , we as a community have to respect other people’s choices as each person has their own reasons for their actions. If a family wants to have ten kids, it is their choice, just the same as if others just want to have one. I think that when it comes to deciding how many kids are enough, our own personal thoughts and beliefs are very important no matter what others say. Also, a more broad factor plays when thinking how many kids are enough to have, economics. As a family is important to think of the result of greatly expanding your family or not, because money can have a great impact. “What has become clear is that birth rates come down when economic wealth and resources go up. But when people have fewer children, those families, on average, actually consume more than families with lots of children”. When thinking of how many is enough we should also consider what is already happening around the world. Moreover , our society also plays a huge part in our lives. For example : “We are highly imprinted, at least in the U.S., with the idea that higher resource consumption is always better. But are we sure that the only goal in life should be more consumption, more economic wealth?”. Most of the times our society tends to tell us what is the “best” thing we should do or become. And, most of us are taught that the more we have, as of materialistic things, the richer or powerful. I think that sometimes unconsciously we tend to look up to wealthy families and their power, and we don’t take the time to admire the ones who truly make an impact in our world. A lot of people know the U.S as the most powerful country in the world, because it’s great economic wealth..etc. but is wealth really the most valuable thing we could achieve?. “ Some would argue that bigger families and more children are more valuable than high levels of economic wealth ”, now I’m not speaking for everybody but I think this can be because people we aren’t so wealthy and have bigger families, have different values and know that there are more important things in life like family, which can’t be replace for any money in world.
To conclude, when I think of how many kids is enough I think it is a much more of a personal question than anything, because as humans I think we have the right to think for ourselves the answer we think is right for own families. We have the right to make the decisions we believe are right in our hearts. I think that considering the many things that can affect this decision is important, to let us have a clearer view of what our lives could be, but at the end we have to do what feels right and respect others’ choices as well. So how many kids are enough? When we feel that we are satisfied with our lives….
How many kids are enough, you ask?
A question like this cannot be simply answered unless you put in a personal opinion. I am one of four surviving kids that my parents had together, and my mother is also one of four surviving kids. Being the only girl, I have always wanted to get married and have four children – two boys and two girls. When I tell this to people I often get a shocked look followed by a “that’s too much!” response.
Of course, like anyone else, I strive to be well-educated and within a successful career path sometime in the future, but I would also like a family to share these things with, rather than keeping all of it to myself. Personally, my only goal in life is not more consumption, more economic wealth. Money surely does not buy my happiness, and so long as my family has what it needs there will be no reason to require anything more. Supporting my views, research shows that “life satisfaction, fulfillment, happiness—what ever you want to call it—is maximized at some mid-level of resource use.” One does not need to have it all to be content. Sharing my life with family and having the funds to keep the lights on and food in their bellies is equivalent to perfection in my eyes. Some would argue that bigger families and more children are more valuable than high levels of economic wealth. I agree with that because the richest people are usually the unhappiest, with no one to share their fortunes and memories with.
In my opinion, the more the merrier.
How many kids should a person have?
This is a very sensitive question and in my opinion a person should have as many kids that they feel like they can care and provide the necessary living essentials for like food, cloth, shelter and etc. I don’t think that there should be a limit on how many kids a person should have unless it becomes a life threatening situation. In the countries that regulate the number of children a person can have I find it to be unfair. I understand that they don’t want to have an overpopulated country but people do die off and we need to replace them. I find nothing better than carrying on a family name, but how can that happen if you cannot reproduce as you feel. In the article “When will the bomb explode, Dr. Ehrlich?” it shows that in China they have brought down the population drastically. These drastic changes in population make them face serious environmental consequences in terms of resource use and pollution. Now if the people of China were able to reproduce then they wouldn’t have this problem. Will this problem be big enough to have them reconsider each family a limit of 1 or 2 children to maybe 3 or 4? I find it interesting that in the northern suburbs that they don’t apply to the golden rule that children are our most prized possession. It shows selfishness and it looks like they are the type of people who agrees that there should be a limit on how many kids a person can have.
How many children are enough?
This is a question that everybody should answer on a personal level. It is definetly a good discussion a young couple should have when they decided to spent their life together.
However, when scientists look at this question, it can and should easily raise red flags. First of all the desire for children and having them are separate as the many fertility clinics in this country prove. When we look at population growth, from a scientific viewpoint, who is to decide and translate the global goal into a personal goal.
In other words, if a country needs a little over 2 children per family to sustain the population, should we then assign vouchers that people can trade off like carbon offsets?
Should a program be implanted like in China adopting a 1 child per family and then 2 children per family policy with all its horrors of forced abortion, forced sterilization and killing of babies that went over the limit.
Other politicians have been faced with the opposite task of trying to increase population growth. Hitler gave incentives to women bearing at least 4 children, because not only did the government felt, their population was better than any other, they also needed a constant supply of soldiers for their expansion.
Hans Rosling shows the correlation between increased wealth and lower birth rates. But is it really wealth? R. Mace in a recent article also points out that urbanization drives down birth rates. This study points out to early industrialization. It seems logical. People living on a farm had historically a hard time with long work hours. At the same time, they were exposed to the ever changing life cycle, some longer, some shorter. Now, if those people move into the City to get a job that keeps them away from their family, there is now commuting time, more time to purchase food and supplies and live in restricted quarters. The incentives of having children, having to take off work for birth, child rearing is just not as high.
Rosling also show that eventually there will be a higher living standard with fewer children in all countries but Arabic countries. This is a good indication that to more than economic factors, social and moral factors are working. When so called civilized countries do not place a high value on children, they will simply start to produce less. When money is deciding factor for children, children will simply loose. If people are constantly asking, can I afford another child? Can I buy this child a college education and a car, instead of just enjoying the child, there will be fewer. If in the Arab countries the value on human life, the birth of a son is simply more celebrate, people will inspire to have more.
Population problem is one of the most important social problems in today’s world. At present, the world population has reached 6 billion. Does a sharp increase in population affect the number of other living species? Yes, as the population increases, it is necessary to ask for more and more resources to the environment, so that the ecological balance is destroyed, so that the number of other organisms can be reduced, and even become extinct.. Some people might say no. They think human beings have the ability to regulate their own behavior, and other creatures in the biosphere to live in harmony, a sharp increase in the number of population and other biological problems can be solved.
But the population do cause the problem said in article. Food problem: food problem is the most basic material condition for human survival and development. At present, about 30 countries around the world into a food crisis. Water resources: water is the most basic environmental conditions for human survival and development, and is an important factor limiting the growth of the world’s population. Man will die without water, but water must be healthy because many diseases are transmitted by water. Energy problem: the surge in population, the acceleration of energy and material consumption, population explosion will make the ecological environment has been destroyed, the extinction of species.
For a long period of time, the population growth has been very slow. By eighteenth Century, the growth rate of the population was significantly accelerated. After the founding of new China, with the rapid development of socialist construction, the living standards of our people have been improved, the medical and health conditions have been improved, so that the population growth in China has been significantly accelerated.
Population growth on resources, environment and social development produced a huge impact, between the human growing demand and limited resources produced a sharp conflict, human impact on the environment and the pressure is also growing. Therefore, in order to protect the common homeland of all living creatures, the biosphere must be controlled to increase population growth.
Having children is a beautiful thing not only are we made as species to have children but it is also a societal push to have children. The future for most individuals is to create a family and live happily together. I am 1 sibling out of 4 siblings in total for my immediate family from my parents. It has been an amazing journey with my parents and my siblings and I couldn’t imagine my life without any of them. I want children and I know that it is something I want but I’m not sure exactly how many kids are enough. I feel that learning and experiencing from my immediate family, four kids is a lot and brings a lot of responsibility. My parents have worked very hard in their lifetime that wealth has definitely been a factor to why they choose to have at least three children. Having wealth definitely makes it easier to have a lot of children so that they can have access to good health, education and lifestyle. Regardless of the life I have lived I’m still building my career and hopefully will be marrying someone successful. This is a factor I’m still not sure of economically and I know that if I’m not economically stable like I would want to than that would change my answer for how many children I decide to have. I truly feel that around 3 children would be for me if everything goes well in my life and I can give them everything they need to live well and excel.
Evidence that supports my view that was inferred in the article is that with more resources around and being well off can really make a difference for a family. The access that a family will have if smaller is much more than a bigger family with less resources to share. It is also important to note that if a family is wealthy and that doesn’t really interfere with the amount of children they have then this concept from above doesn’t really apply but I’m sure that’s not a majority of the people in the U.S.
I also do believe that the concept that having a family is more important than the economic wealth. Family is people sharing love with each other and being there for each other constantly. I have experienced this and it is the most beneficial part of my life. So I do agree family is more important. For religious reasons, I do believe God has a plan for me and the future family I will have. If he sends me children then those children were meant to be part of my life but I also want to be intelligent and really be able to provide the best life for them. This all makes it difficult again to answer the question, “How many kids are enough?”