Korean Job Discussion Forums

[hamlet712]

So, i was very bored and watched an episode of Nanny 911 on my cable box, and there was a family with 6 kids. My first thought was I hate these families that have 6 or 7, or 8 kids (or more)

Now I know we are free to have as many children as we want or can afford, but I find parents who have more than 4 on purpose to be socially selfish and irresponsible. With the increases in health care and technology people live much longer than before and our world has seen an exponential population explosion in the last 100 years.

There's a couple in America somewhere ( many of them I am sure, but this one couple in particular is advertised a lot) who have 16 or 17 children.

We are not in the 19th century anymore where having 10 kids was often a necessity to run a farm, or to assure the family would go on as death before the age of ten (from a flu or a fever) was a strong possibility.

I am not trying to impose a socialist agenda or suggest the governments step in and limit the number of kids a family have, but it kind of sickens me that some people have so many children.

I know I will get a lot of hate mail, but does anyone out there agree?

[NightSky]

http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/18-kids-and-counting/duggar-family.html

[beercanman]

My friend in my small hometown comes from a family of 18 kids, same parents for all. Quite a family photo. And I believe there was another family with more than that. Things were a bit different when the parents got married around 50 years ago.

[Sleepy in Seoul]

To the OP; I imagine that you are not Catholic. My dad is one of seven sons in his family and his mother was the youngest of 12 children (six boys and 6 girls). Nothing wrong with that, but they were never rich. Didn't want to be either.

[hamlet712]

Actually I am a catholic, well kind of. Ive evolved into an agnostic but I was raised Catholic. My Father is a catholic and is the youngest of 10 children ( 2 died before the age of 18, hence my example)

However, My grandparents started having children In like 1926 or something like that and my father was born in 1946. They also had a farm to run ( again hence my example)

Thats being said, times were a little different back then.

That being said, there is something socially wrong with it in my opinion, and it bugs me that people dont accept this as a socially irresponsible thing to do. People dont think ahead a couple hundred years because they dont care about a future they will be long dead for, but we are heading for a MAJOR poulation problem, and the world is so apathetic that they dont even take care of the people on the planet that are starving and dying now.

Whats it going to be like when there are 20 Billion people on the planet and a chunk of the planet is under water after the irresponsible industrialisation we continue to expand on.

In my opinion there is not a single family on Earth that needs more than 4 children.

And the Duggar Family who is on the 18th is just sickening to me.

Between the rate we are destroying our planet and how fast we are populating it we better develop a really advanced space program in the next 2 or 3 hundred years, otherwise I am reasonably confident humanity is going to head for a critical survival threshold

[JMO]

I was in the last generation of large families in my part of ireland. most kids in my class were the last or second/third last of 6,7,8,9 children families.

Being in a big family is great. You always have people to make up teams for games in your neighborhood, you have people to look out for you, you don't become a spoiled little prat like alot of only children/children from small families. It also in my opinion allows the parents to give their children more freedom. You can police each other in a way.

I am amazed that a 6 person family is tv worthy.

[hamlet712]

I am not saying that being from a big family would not be great, I imagine it would be. I myself come from a family of 4 children, would have been 3 but there was a surprise right as they were going in for the operation, what can you do.

BUt i mean you just have to look at history and educate yourself.

Since the dawn of Mans existence people have likely had 10 to 15 children on a regular basis ( not sure how accurate that number is but all well, I am just shooting out a number to make the point)

And the global population for al of that time barely reached 100 million ( again, i may be out by a lot on that, i dont have the figure handy, but it was much, much, much much, lower than what we have today)

Thats because the average age was like 30 and half of these children were lucky to reach age 10.

Now we have people living to an average of 72 or 76, in some countries the average is over 80,

Its a different life now.

[Cheonmunka]

It's not fair to blame the small numbers of American couples who have lots of kids for encouraging the Global population boom and the taxing of resources.
And then, many western countries are very concerned about low fertility rates.

[Joe666]

I was recently E-mailed a video of birth statistics and how many children it takes to continually propogate a people. It takes 2-4 children per family for a complete continuation. The video stated at this point, European immigrants of the U.S. and the top 5 or 6 countries in Europe are finished if the birth rate does not increase NOW!!! Japan done! It stated that it takes about 100 years of continual 2-4 children per family to re-establish a people.

The main theme of said video. People of Arabic and Middle Eastern decent will flood the U.S. and Europe in another 2-4 generations. I deleted the video. I will try to get it re-sent and post it on this thread. Scary stats!!

[Joe666]

Youtube search - Muslim Demographics!!

[The Gipkik]

Yes, Muslim demographics. One of my colleagues at a Muslim high school I worked at in Malaysia, a really cool guy named Zak, told me it was his bound duty to have as many children as possible to worship and praise Allah. It is a quick way to convert as many people as possible to a religion, that is true, but the sad reality is that Zak came from a very poor part of the country where families could barely afford 2 kids. The large families perpetuated the poverty cycle, which, as we all know, leads to all kinds of social collapse.

As for anyone having large families? We live on a planet that is environmentally capable of supporting and sustaining a population of roughly 3 billion people before environmental degradation and accelerated rates of extinction set in.

What makes the 2 kid maximum rule so intractable is that resources are not distributed equally--not to mention wealth and technology. So we've got a situation where undeveloped and developing countries are bearing the burden of population.

People in developed countries feel little pressure to downsize when space and resources are not at a premium. The argument just doesn't make sense to them. Hey, we've got the money or some kind of assistance, why not just roll 'em out. It's probably a good way to gauge how conservative a family is these days by how many kids they have. Eventually, space and resources are going to be concentrated in the hands of oligarchies and wealthy individuals and the rest of the world is going to be clamoring at the electrified gates trying to get in.

And don't get me started about the negatives of coming from a large family. I've got 5 siblings!

[Sergio Stefanuto]

The problem is not just numbers. It's the social class and beliefs/values systems of those who tend to have large families - the poor, the religious (usually the same) - that's the problem. Eventually they're just going to swamp us and civilization as we know it will be little more than a worldwide socialist theocracy. Gosh, can you imagine how miserable future generations are gonna be? Socialism is miserable enough, and theocracy even worse, but a combination?

The very least sophisticated humans breed a lot more than the professional classes, the educated, the civilized. If it were the reverse, I wouldn't consider family size very important.

[Kikomom]

[D.D.]

Stupid people having stupid children is the greatest threat to our species. I always freak when I hear of women rushing to have sex with troops who are in port. Just what the world needs is the genetics of people who are willing to kill being passed on.

Maybe green thinkers should start a religion and blast the world with millions of little enviroment loving hippy kids.

[madoka]