..to consider social impact of family size?

[nornironrock]

I'm wondering if anyone else ever gives consideration to the social impact of their family size? I'm thinking about allocation of public resources, consumption of limited resources (such as water), and in the longer term issues such as housing and healthcare provision.

I certainly believe everyone should be free to have the family size they want insofar as they are able to support that number of people, but I sometimes wonder what the future holds if we don't get a handle on population.

In the past, before we had medical science to keep people like my son alive, and to allow us all to live past 50, a bigger family was often required to enable the family to generate income, and look after older members. This requirement doesn't exist now.

I'm genuinely interested to hear peoples thoughts on this.

Iam Are they the families who can utilise the fabled MN chicken for 5 meals and a buffet? I always think of the Monty Python sketch where the banker wants to be a lion tamer, but is actually thinking about anteaters, and think possibly these masters of frugality have mixed up chickens and cows.

I personally quite like the idea of a family of 6 - I have a couple of friends who are 1 of 4 and their families are lovely. However, none of the now grown up children are intending to have that many, even though they liked having a big family. Limiting factors of cost, age at which they started trying for children and the physical strain on the mother are all much more important factors for most people than liking the idea of a big family. The picture of a lovely family round a big table and running about in the garden is certainly not as persuasive as how grim I feel now pregnant with our second.

I only have one and she was a wee surprise love her but don't want more, I don't even understand the urge to have more. The thought of lots of kids and that being my whole life depresses me. I can't be the only woman who thinks this way? So the pps above having 3 are helping the balance that way? I don't know I'm not particularly smart 🤔

I'm sure they do Crumbs, but you can't deny that more people = more physical resources required. A family of 6 will require more food and use more water than a family of 3 no matter how careful they are to reduce their impact.

One of the reasons I asked the question, is that as well as being a parent, I work in the extractive industries. Which produce everything people consume that doesn't come from a farm. In my experience, the rate at which these resources are being exploited and consumed is not sustainable. And the costs of many will get very high, and quite quickly....

Oh lord, another self righteous judgey waffler who doesn't actually understand anything about population distribution yet feels the need to tell the rest of us that there is something wrong with our family.

Bore off.

Why so defensive Will? How many children do you have?

People tend to be quick to anger when they know deep down the other side has a point...

Personally I'd rather highly qualified high earning families had more children and Vicky Pollard had less...

Fewer, not less.

As that puts you into the uneducated Vicky Pollard category, it's a relief to know that you've decided not to have children, on that basis.

47 and a half.

If everyone who wants children has 2 we won't even replace the population. This is really basic stats come on

Then there's the people who plan for 2 and either can't have 2, or even 1, or the people who decide against a second. They massively outnumber the ones who plan for two but have multiples

you can look up our birth rate fgs it's 1.8 ie we are losing people unless we import them (which is about as responsible as importing any other resources from struggling countries)

I'll have as many children as I like and so should every other woman in this country and everywhere on earth, whether that's 7 or none or however many. Just because we produce the world's most important commodity doesn't mean we can be nationalised and told how many to produce for fuck's sake

how you vote is far more important for our future than how many kids you have. But it's okay to act like this about having the 'right' number of kids but not about voting the 'right' way. Maybe because one is just bullying women and one is actually going to change the exploitation and destruction of our home

I know a mum locally who is a strong advocate for green living and environmental causes in general. She has five children and that does seem to contradict her environmentalist stance somewhat

To be honest I hear more sanctimony about population from people who claim to have decided to have no children for the good of the planet. Their environmental concerns seem to be alleviated by telling women what to do before cutting down on meat and long haul flights, though.

The cases of this happening are rare - most people who don't have children either don't want them, or can't have them. Other concerns are secondary.

We've stopped at 2 despite both DH and I liking the idea of a bigger family and environmental concerns were definitely one of our considerations in making that decision. Not the only one but certainly a factor. I very much hope we're raising our children to be net contributors but of course I can't guarantee it. And I worry about the world they are growing up in, and that will be there for their children & future generations.

""Personally I'd rather highly qualified high earning families had more children and Vicky Pollard had less""

So who will do the cleaning, shop work, maintenance, security, bin emptying, making and serving food. The factory and distribution/warehousing? Who will mind their children will they earn and then do the Caring when they become old/ill? High Earners don't keep society ticking over.

We've had posts that say big families are jobless and then that big families have big cars and go on lots of holidays. It can't be both.

The final battles are happening in Mosul/Syria over the coming weeks. Then we will have a whole country empty, once again. The intellectuals and those that want £30+ per hour, won't be the one's rebuilding it.

I'm Vegan and minimalist for environmental reasons.

If we want to tackle our Planet dying, we need to stop consuming crap that we don't need. The holiday industry/Governments need to really tackle this, as well.

It isn't the Vicky Pollards of the world that are convincing us all that we need to be buying and eating stuff, constantly. Selling us a lifestyle that the Planet can't sustain.

There were Parents with Babies and young children running from sniper fire this morning. That War has raged since 2003, should they be having children?

Underdeveloped countries were not seen as an issue. But there's been advances in the fight against Malaria, HIV and other diseases, that will be a lot of extra people surviving into adulthood.

China,the US and Korea aren't willing to tackle their pollution, the answer isn't to tell people in the UK to not have a third child.

I do agree, Birds, but would also say that due to necessity, many Syrian intellectuals will be doing the manual work to rebuild the country. In our part of London there are a lot of Afghan taxi drivers who were doctors and lecturers at home - I've had many interesting conversations with them about what their families still in Afghanistan are doing, and their lives and jobs have altered with many now doing manual work.

China had a one-child policy and estimate this saved the country needing to support around 400 million additional people. This has now been scrapped in favour of a two-child policy in order to ensure an aging population can be supported and replaced.

The US population growth is (according to the figures I found) 91% due to immigrant populations - who traditionally have bigger families.

The South Korean population growth rate is currently 0.5%, with average births per female at 1.4

I'm also not aware of anyone telling people int he UK what they can and cannot do in terms of family size.

So, overall Birds I am not too sure what you're referring to above?

I do agree thought that some of the posters above can't have it both ways. I know a family with four kids who will never want for anything. I also know a woman with 5 kids by four father, none of whom are around, and who as far as I can tell has never worked. I'm not commenting on whether either of those women are entitled to have children.

Such an interesting thread! I often consider sticking to one for the reason, but do also worry about them being lonely etc.

Is the issue not that people are having too many people but instead that people are living longer?

There's not a great deal we can do about the rest of the world, other than support free contraception and attempt to stem the influence of medieval religions in women's lives.

But for the UK, I have definitely seen a decrease in quality of life for the majority over the past 20-odd years, which is due to too many people and not enough resources (housing, public services, transport, etc). Governments of all flavours have clung to economic growth as an indicator of their success, and this growth has been entirely fuelled by increasing population (so just more people buying stuff) rather than increasing productivity or wealth.

I have 4 and we did not consider environmental factors (twins in the mix so not exactly planned). That said, I do now. We have a large car by necessity for instance and quite rightly pay lots of tax for that priviledge, generate more waste, use more water and so on. Both DP and I are higher rate tax payers and quite comfortably off so are pretty self sufficient. It is my good fortune to live in a society that enables me to make the choice to have a larger family and support them comfortably but in the main a large family is impractical really.

The world is overpopulated. However it's clear that policy's such as China's one child didn't work.

That being said, I think you should have the number of kids that you are able to support.

We are overpopulated because people are living longer. There aren't enough children being born in the UK to sustain the current working population in their retirement.

Birth control and education for women have been huge contributers to the decline in birth rates across many many countries.

In my experience, the rate at which these resources are being exploited and consumed is not sustainable.

Because we do so inefficiently and wastefully.

Honestly - no. We considered (and still do) the impact on us as a family.
Obviously we are hopefully raising valuable members of society, we educate and instill values that will benefit the wider circles of their lives. We teach environmental issues and solutions, we encourage personal responsibility for these things.

I would love more, but as a family the impact would impair our current lifestyle, basic things like not fitting into our already giant car. Being able to go on holiday, fitting into caravans etc.
Also the actual one to one time spent with each child is not at a level either of us are happy with due to work commitments, another child would further diminish this and stop us doing the aforementioned teachings.

I don't believe anyone should be discouraged from 'breeding' and am happy to live in a society that supports those who need it to do so.

This does interest me. I have no children but definitely want a couple - I often think that I'd like three but then wonder about my own contributions (holidays, treats etc) and also the effect on the world.
I think a lot of people with more than two children are getting very defensive on here - and taking the discussion as a personal attack on their life choices. Personally, I think families should stick to a couple of children if we are looking at it from a purely resource/environmental standpoint, but I am also against the recent changes in child benefit. I don't think the children (or the parents) should be punished for family size. I guess, it should be more of a collective decisions amongst human kind to limit these things. Very much a whole picture thing than individual.
The only thing I do stand firm on though, is that no matter how little meat you eat, how much you walk, etc, that will never make up for the environmental impact of another person. But, if we wanted to get rid of all of the environmental impacts of humans, that would mean getting rid of humans altogether. (I don't think you can get an 'eco-positive' human being no matter how hard you try).