to think that when there is a schools place crisis perhaps the government should think of ways to reduce birth rates?

[jellysandwich]

In my area (London) there is already a huge shortfall in places because there has been a baby boom. They are constantly opening new schools or creating bulge classes but this is often at the expense of other children who lose their playing fields and there is just not enough room in London to keep opening new schools and there is already a housing crisis because the country is so overcrowded.

I think perhaps it is time the government thought about limiting child related benefits to 2 children (which is the replacement rate) and those that want to have more can do so but not with taxpayers money. It would go some way to stopping some of the problems that rising birthrates create such as the school places crisis, overcrowding, pollution, increasing struggles for resources such as food and water and in an already overpopulated world I think the government is being negligent in not putting some sort of limit on child related benefits, especially when it seems to be counter-intuitive (if you work you don't get more money each time you have another child).

Move to Scotland! We need immigration.

Only difficulty is that all the jobs are...oh look, they're in the over populated, wealthy south east...

Career women may have reproduce less and later but very few have no children at all and for many that was unintentional rather than deliberate

I would love to see your evidence for this claim.

The statistics point to the fact that the more educated the woman is the less likely she is to have children. It would seem that promoting education and giving women life options is the best way of tackling the massive problem of overpopulation.

And I fundamentally disagree that men and women have a 'right' to as many children as they like - social responsibility has to kick in somewhere.

That dysfunctionallynormal poster has a very individualistic attitude to the way our society should function.

We all have a responsibility for the next generation whether we have children or not. We need each other - children included - otherwise we will fall apart and we all have a responsibility to ensure the next generation is educated, healthy and happy.

I raise my children to be socially responsible, I hope they have jobs which give something back in the future. Most families are doing their best, some parents are terrible,

I know a few childless couples who also cost the state a fortune through alcoholism, prescription drug addiction, unemployment...

"Even if the UK adoptive registers were down to zero there is a whole world outside our shores."

MrsDeVere: I was trying to take the piss out of the argument about there being 'the whole rest of the world' to source adoptive children. I don't actually think it's in any way a good idea. Indeed, I think it's laughably awful.

Ah, I was worried that my attempts at mockery came across as serious.

It's a horrible children as nothing more than commodities argument, and it makes me feel a bit nauseous.

Not read the whole thread but its not about big families or immigration.

After the war massive baby boom, I, e parents of 30 somethings now, who are now having normal amounts of children.

Stopping cb wont stop this, more schools are needed end of.

I know a few childless couples who also cost the state a fortune through alcoholism, prescription drug addiction, unemployment...

Oh yes - there are positively millions of these kinds of families....

I agree that individualistic outlooks are very silly. Arguments about how childless people should be reimbursed for saving money in not having to educate their children (etc) completely miss the point that educating all children and ensuring that they are healthy is good for society as a whole and everyone benefits. Even those who don't actually see children as people or care about anyone but themselves should be able to see that other people's children are important to society.

A vast majority of children in the foster care system are damaged emotionally. They are wonderful lovable children but need so much more than a lot of people can give. They won't suddenly turn into model children with a strict bedtime and 5 portions of fruit. They have seen and experienced things that people should never. A lot of them are available for adoption. I don't see people lining the streets to take them. Throwing adoption around like its the same as browsing the pet shop for a goldfish is sickening. These children deserve a home because they are wanted not because it fills some one biological child ideal.
Ask yourself why people see having children as their only option. Why their situation,lives and prospects are so bleak?.

And I fundamentally disagree that men and women have a 'right' to as many children as they like - social responsibility has to kick in somewhere.

I don't disagree with that - though most parents I know with more than 3 DC have at least one parent working if not both - second part time - but how do you stop people without giving the state the right to decide who can have DC or by punishing the DC born to such families or accounting for drastic and unforeseeable changes in circumstances that can occur?

Even the problem families that have DC taken from them I believe often go on to have more DC who are also often taken from them. What do you do with them ? forced sterilisation ? cause historically such programs end up with massive abuse of them.

If you fine these families with more than allowed DC ? as I believe china does ? that means more DC living in poverty limiting life chances of those DC and if you deny service such as state education who then have a subpopulation who may end up uneducated and much less employable in later life adversly affecting the economy.

MrsD is correct if views like that were expressed or picked up on during an assessment then problems would occur with adoption, I'm also very surprised if formal fostering is happening how it is because it would also raise quite a few red flags.

"It's a horrible children as nothing more than commodities argument, and it makes me feel a bit nauseous."

I think we're slipping backwards into the industrial revolution, or maybe not that far, maybe just the '80s when greed was good and the whole population were viewed for how much money they make as if there isn't more to life than money. Little cogs in the big machine, but the machine is broken. Everything has become about money, what you make and what you take and we multiply it and stockpile it until, fuck me, it's gone. Did it ever exist? People can't afford their own homes anymore, they can't afford food, if they're lucky enough to have a job they'll be working until they drop, hardly being able to afford a pension because they've been paying off their student loans. What happens to us when we are so desperate to accumulate that we can no longer help anyone except the firstborn? The little prince and his siblings, the little scroungers. Value on birth order? Is that what we want?

Bloody pointless argument, given the low birthrate anyway.

littlemog - I don't recall saying that having as many children as you want was a right.

My argument about reproductive rates is based on the Office for National Statistics report, the largest survey of its kind into this (although still based on a comparatively tiny sample size of less than 13,000).

There has been a 7% increase in women choosing not to have children. There is a definite correlation between educational and career status of these women, which I'm not going to deny, but overwhelmingly the main correlation remains "lack of a cohabiting partner".

Furthermore, the study can be criticised for not examining motive. Among those career women who have chosen not to have children, there is also a correlation with them having male partners who earn less than they do, making the woman the breadwinner. Anecdotally the evidence is that some of these women regret being in that position. More work needs to be done on this to determine a more accurate picture.

Not once in this have I rejected the claim that there is a trend for better educated/higher earning women to have fewer children. But it remains the case that only a small number of high-flying career women choose to remain childless completely.

Yy, start by sterilising the poor, & or separating couples in reopened workhouses . If that doesn't work yoi could always try starting ww3. All tried & tested methods of getting the population down. Obviously i'm being very sarcastic.