I'm one of those advocating fewer children in families and nowhere have I said it should be enforced. And certainly not by aborting children - that's the same as saying we have an ageing population so let's bump off a few thousand octogenarians!
What I said was that we need, in effect, to normalise having a smaller family rather than the other way around which we tend to do at the moment.
For example, as a society we tend to think it's OK to ask someone who has, say, a four or five year old child whether they're 'planning a brother or sister for x?' Now why is that? Why does a child need a sibling? Who is that second or third child really for?
There have been many posts on Mumsnet in the past saying that a parent is worried that their only child will be lonely or stating that people have told them that and they're worried. Maybe we need to look at more social activities or alternative ways of living that mean only children have access to other children more easily rather than create siblings for them?
Another example, in my childhood we all used to play in the street. Whether you were one of six or an only child you had friends around morning, noon and night. Now our kids tend to spend more time indoors, on PCs etc. Should we be encouraging more estates where there are pedestrianised areas so kids can play safely? Would that encourage some future parents to think having one child isn't going create a lonely child, because the child would have easy, safe, access to other children? It wouldn't change the minds of some parents but a few may think that suits them and stick at one.
We need to look at making one child families the 'I want that' of our children's generation. So encouraging the thought that 'I want that because with one child we can travel more easily, we'll have more money and more time as the child grows up' ' I want that because with one child we can stay in our smaller house, with a cheaper mortgage, have a smaller car, pay less for childcare'. Accentuating the positives of the smaller family rather than dwelling on potential negatives and changing what we do as a society to encourage that.
My parents were encouraged to have larger families. I'm one of three all born in the 60s. Three children was very, very normal then. It was just at the end of the era of replacing those lost in WWII so the more kids the merrier.
In my mum's childhood it wasn't unusual to have lots of kids. She was one of 10 children. And her family was not unusual. Children were still dying of childhood diseases then so parents would 'hedge their bets'. My dad was one of a small family (!) of four...
Society normalises families depending on their need. My friend, who is an only child, was not looked down upon for coming from a one child family in the 1960s. My parents, though, were considered the norm with three kids and it was something people of their generation aspired to. I would imagine exactly the same thing if society decided small families were the aspiration in future.
I just believe we now need to encourage our children to see it as normal to have a small family. If they have twins or triplets or decide that four kids is for them, that's fine. Just as it was for my friend's parents to decide one was right for them in a time when three or four kids was the norm. But the 'average' family will eventually have to be normalised as smaller. After all, a family of four kids and parents will, in probability, have 6 cars on the road by the time the kids leave home. A family of one child plus parents will have half that.