To be fed up when people have an opinion on how many children you have or want

[brummiegirl1]

I have 2 young boys aged 2 and 7 months and would like 4 children if i'm lucky enough as i was an only child and knew i wanted a big family. Before i went off on maternity leave with my youngest a woman at work said are you done now and i said i would like more children in the future and she said im mad.

Other people have also asked the same thing. Is it me? I wouldn't dream commenting on how many children someone wants or has as it's up to them, when im asked now i feel all defensive about it and don't want to tell them like im a naughty teenager not a 33 year old married woman!

Well we're using almost no oil so maybe ask someone else? Maybe a high octane two DC mum?

Yellow You have not lived a frugal life environmentally if you have chosen to have 8 children.

Nothing else you ever do - small house, one car, no holidays etc -will make up for having so many children. Source www.livescience.

I don't care how bright, clever etc your children are. At the end of the day, they will all need housing,feeding clothing, educating. Its about numbers. Its about the future.

No Panda those arguments are all about utilitarianism and are quite dull.

Sorry Ariel but I stopped taking this thread seriously at all many pages back after certain posters called my family and I ugly and unitelligent.

I would suggest you read the whole thing and then step away and maybe start a new thread so that your sensible arguments (regardless of whether I agree with them or not) can be discussed properly instead of on this farce of a prejudiced thread, because as it stands you are unfortunately going to be tarred with the same brush as the idiots who posted in your absence.

"Well we're using almost no oil so maybe ask someone else?"

Yellow So you don't have a car, use no petrol, don't use public transport, and don't use much heating?

Yellow well sorry you think they're dull. My source was livescience. It deals with stupid stuff like facts and statistics. Why not at least take a look?

Or maybe its easier not too?

twatish remarks by one of what 30 adding to the debate = end of discussion

best mn delete all threats once they have reached 100 posts becaue by then a twatish post has nearly always been made

Yellow - you are being childish now. it seems that everything that is logical, in your mind equals dull. That screams of denial. It's like those kids at school who think certain subjects are "uncool" and "boring". They aren't really. It's more that those subjects are more difficult than others, and by saying that, they believe they can avoid those subjects...

From livescience
" In 1968, biologist Paul Ehrlich and his wife, Anne, published "The Population Bomb" (Sierra Club/Ballentine Books), sounding a doleful alarm about overpopulation and predicting mass famine in the 1970s.
Those predictions didn't come to pass,"

Perhaps things like this have made people sceptical of doomsayers. The end of he world is always just around the corner. Only it turns out time and again not to be.
If we were to be overly concerned with every doomsday/ end of the world scenario we wouldn't be able to live out our short lives for being paralysed by fear.

OK I'm not a scientist or statistician but it's easy enough to look at my brother's family (one DC) and my sister's (two DC) and the family of my BIL (two DC) and my SIL (two DC) and to see how much more each of those units is sucking from the planet than my own. Partly because they have more money to spend per person , and indulge it, and partly because they have more time to spare, so feel a gap to indulge. Your very worthy arguments are too black and white.i

It's to Panda, not too.

Totally agree that it is nowhere near as black and white as some are saying.

OK I'm not a scientist or statistician but it's easy enough to look at my brother's family (one DC) and my sister's (two DC) and the family of my BIL (two DC) and my SIL (two DC) and to see how much more each of those units is sucking from the planet than my own.

Incorrect. Yelllow I think you are wilfully trying to misunderstand, as I find it hard to believe that your kids are going to be quite as useful to society as you think, given you can't do very simple maths and calculate that even given your current frugal lifestyle, your eight children are still going to consume more resources than someone else's two children, purely because of the multiplier effect.

eg calculate how many extra people your family will create vs (say) your SIL within 3 generations if everyone has 2 children (32 vs 8= 26 extra people)

Also, your lifestyle might be frugal by western standards but by global standards it's really not. Like just the fact that you have a car, and most probably a fridge and a washing machine and possibly a tumble drier and dishwasher makes you a huge consumer by global standards. You have running water and electricity, and probably heating in your (3 bed) home.

Now, obviously I'm not saying that we should all go and live in a one bedroom shack BUT, as you yourself say, the crux of life is quality vs. quantity, and it's quality for everybody on the planet, not just those that "have" at the moment. If we want everyone to enjoy what would be termed a simple western lifestyle, we need there to be fewer of us, because the planet cannot support everyone living like you, however, frugal you think you are.

24 even. Damn you MN and your lack of edit button. Anyway, am claiming it's not statistically significant

I saw an interesting video a while ago on the topic of food/ hunger.
www.ted.com/talks/josette_sheeran_ending_hunger_now.html?quote=1017 which is worth a watch.
I have a feeling that the evils of the world would exsist with any size population and many people arguing for urgent reduction in growth and population do so because they see it as the easy way out . They don't want a life without a car, they don't want to stop buying imported food and god help suggesting they stop taking foreign holidays. It's of course much easier to point the finger somewhere else

Quite an amusing mistake, though, Richmanpoorman given that you had just commented to Yellowtip that you "find it hard to believe that your kids are going to be quite as useful to society as you think, given you can't do very simple maths"

I suspect that is closer to the truth too havingamadmomemt

What I find really odd is that yellowtip thinks she can justify having eight children by saying that they are beautiful, clever, and so far none of them have needed to trouble a doctor much. I just find it a really peculiar and disturbing way to look at things. I don't really want to think about the flip side of that argument....

Fellatio would it help if I said of my five one had speech/ language delays and one has dyslexia. One is doing pretty well at schoo ( has been doing some work with an older class)l but is starting what we have been told is an "assessment process" because of real social and interaction problems.
I still think they deserve to exsist.

Cheer up Fellatio, that was purely a direct response to the ludicrous statement that mothers having a large children must be ugly and thick. It jarred rather, since I'm neither. Obviously it was just as ludicrous and since you couldn't see that, I suggest it might be you who perhaps has the edge on thick? :). Of course the flip side, if that were a justification, is not appropriate to mention.

But the chararacterisation of leeches sucking the economy and environment dry is a weak stereotype. To that extent it is relevant that mine are likely to be productive adults.

having a large number of children etc.

One of mine was born deaf but we haven't used the NHS to deal with it since there's nothing we can do which will be of any use to her except for an aid which the NHS doesn't provide .

I really think that the idea of taxing parents for any children over the 'allotted' 2 is rediculous. What if the second or even first pregnancy results in a mulitliple birth? You're either going to force poorer families into poverty or you will see selective terminations. Both scenarios are pretty unacceptable in my view.

And what about those that live on benefit handouts? Again, you'd be punishing innocent children if you cut the benefit. Clearly if they're on benefits they will not be able to afford the tax, so as others have said this would become a tax for the comfortably off. They very rich and very poor would not adjust there lifestyle.

In practice, this type of tax would never work.

havinghadamoment

Yes, there is actually - at the moment - enough food for everyone on the planet, but it's not just about food though, is it?

In an ideal and fair world, the UK would be living on food that is grown here in this country - and other countries would be doing the same, too. That would actually make some poorer countries a lot better off than the UK, which relies heavily on others to produce it. So if we were heading that way, it would just be obvious, that we need less mouths to feed here in this country.

And yes, enough food is being produced to feed the world, but the Western Standard of Living is not just about food really, is it?

It is about electricity, running water, infrastructure, transport... all this (and more) is needed for economic development. The above is a lot more difficult to deal with than food alone because the main source of energy (fossil fuels) is finite. Yes, there are renewable sources, but they are at an early stage, and do not account for much of the energy production. They are also very unlikely to be able to replace fossil fuels. Nuclear fusion would really be the answer to this, but given that people already get worked up by the thought of nuclear power plants alone, I'm not sure they would want anything else with the word "nuclear" attached to it.

With regards to water - yes, we have a lot of sea water around us. This is not freshwater though, it needs desalination for us to be able to drink it. This goes back to the previous paragraph - because that process wastes a lot of energy...

So there's more to this than just food.

BinarySolo It did say that if there were multiple births, you tax by birth. So if you did have quadruplets, you would not get taxed for the first four, but if you chose to have more afterwards, you would be charged the full amount.

How do you force poorer families into poverty? That is basically making the assertion that it is poorer families that have more kids. And if so, why???