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Should there be limits set on the amount of children parents can have?

Tokis-Phoenix

先輩
23 Sep 2005
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As the title says, Should there be limits set on the amount of children parents can have? Also your opinions on issues concerning benefits?
I know this is a very controversial and serious issue, but i think its something where more needs to be done about it.
In my country, parents can apply for child benefits if the parents are not working. The culture of benefits in general in my culture has created a culture of benefit scroungers i.e. people who can work but choose not to because they can apply for money from the government. This has partly arised out of there not being enough properly enforced rules and regulations concerning the application for benefits from the general public. For example/more info;
"illegal immigrants 4million pound benefit fraud empire";
BBC NEWS | England | London | Benefit fraud funded £4m empire
"Anti-fraud schemes 'too costly'";
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7203296.stm
The whole philosophy of benefits is to reduce the amount of homeless people living on the streets and to help reduce child poverty and improve the living standards of children whose parents are poor etc.
"Fifth of young 'in benefit homes'"
"One in five children are living in households claiming out-of-work benefit, according to government figures released by the Conservatives.
They say 2.2 million youngsters are affected, which means the UK has the Europe's highest proportion of children who live in workless households.
In some parts almost half were said to be in households dependent on benefits - 49.2% in central Manchester.
But the government said the rate was one of the fastest falling in Europe"
;
BBC NEWS | UK | Fifth of young 'in benefit homes'
"'Work or lose home' says minister";
BBC NEWS | UK | 'Work or lose home' says minister
Etc...

If a girl gets pregnant and doesn't have a home or a job, she can apply for a council house (where she will be given priority on the waiting list) and child benefits so she can afford to pay for her child's needs.
Not surprisingly though, a lot of young women/girls who live in area's where work opportunities are not fantastic, many young women now see having a baby as a way to have their own home.
I am sure there are many women who have babies not because they want a council house and benefits but rather just because they end up getting pregnant for whatever reasons. However unsurprisingly many people who work very hard to try and save up money to have a home and afford a child of their own before they have a child, and spend the rest of their lives working hard to support their child/ren, look at such mothers on benefits with disdain.
Society is currently very unfair in this respect- if you don't work and get pregnant at a young age, the government will give you a house and money to spend for free, but if you work really hard and practice safe sex and try to pay for your own child, prospects of ever owning a house of your own or paying off debts before you're 40 are quite unlikely/very difficult to achieve.
So naturally people are getting p*ssed off with the system- people who don't work at all get an easier/freer life than those who work really hard.
The problem now is that with more and more people going on benefits, people are able to afford children due to benefits that they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to have unless they worked very hard.
At current there is no restriction on the amount of children people can have in this country, and the more children benefits people have the more money and larger houses they can apply for from the government.
I remember seeing a couple on the Jeremy Kyle show who had 12 children together- and all of their children were being payed for via benefits from the government. People are becoming more and more unhappy with these sorts of parents, they understandably think "Why should my tax have to pay for other people's children whose parents are not working at all but are rather just producing more and more children, when i have to work to pay for my own children?"
IMHO, in life i think you should pay for what you have and not rely on other hard working people's tax to pay for the lifestyle which you choose to have.
But with the 12 children couple, apart from the massive amount of benefits they were claiming for their children, i also think there's an issue of welfare as well when it comes to so many children. For example, if the couple spent 1hr of quality time with each child a day, then they would spend 12hrs alone on just spending quality time with their children, which is not really possible when you consider all else that the parents will need to do in that day. So at the end of the day, one or more of the children will inevitably end up getting neglected/ignored by his/her parents because they don't have time for him/her.
How is this possibly fair on the child? They didn't ask to be brought into the world.
I remember seeing this program on one of America's largest families. I am not kidding you, this couple had 24 children (and were planning on having more)! As the program followed the couple and children's hectic lives, i remember one of the reporters interviewed one of the younger boys (he was about 7years old). The reported asked this little boy that "if he could choose to have less brothers and sisters, would he?" and the little boy answered "yes", he said "i don't like having so many brothers and sisters because sometimes they pick on me and my parents don't have the time to help me, my parents hardly ever spend time with me and i hardly ever get to be with my mum on my own".
I found this pretty heartbreaking to be honest, considering that this was coming from one of the many children these parents had had- the mother was pregnant for the 25th time. When she and her husband was asked why they had so many children, she just replied "i just love having babies".
I think such people are selfish and irresponsible to continuously bring more and more children into the world, regardless of whether its in their current children's best interests or not.



Its not so bad when you have a single un-working mother with just 2 or 3 children or less, but when you get mothers who have been on benefits for years and years and have like 5 children and have never done a proper days work in their lives, it starts to take the p*ss.
I think more needs to be done about this sort of problem. The problem is, is that if you set limits on the amount of children a couple produces, then how do you go about enforcing the law when couples have children regardless.
I do think more support needs to go towards working couples though, particularly those paying off expensive things like house mortgages.
What do you think on all of this? Do you think there should be limits set on the amount of children parents can have (as is the case in countries like China)? Or do you think we should be taking different courses of action etc?
I feel strongly about this issues, but am quite undecided on what exactly to do about them.
 
1, Hell yeah! There are already too many humans on the surface of the Earth. Actually we could start using much instead of many for us lol.
2, Pay penalty, much, much, dirty much penalty.
For having too many brats that is.
 
1, Hell yeah! There are already too many humans on the surface of the Earth. Actually we could start using much instead of many for us lol.
2, Pay penalty, much, much, dirty much penalty.
For having too many brats that is.



The problem with forcing penalties (by that i assume you mean fines of money) is that many people who have loads of kids are poor- if you take their money away from them for disobeying the law, then they'll have even less money to spend on their legal kids (kids will end up suffering for their parents irresponsable actions).

In China they simply sterilize women after their first or second child, and if the woman still manages to have kids after that, then they just get taken away from her. Its quite an efficient systems however many people have looked down upon it for being too heavy handed/heartless.
 
It has to be considered, if there are too many in one country and the birthrate (once) exploding like China itself (that was their reason), but not, when the birthrate is low or going backwards though.

In China, minorities are still allowed to have more children, by the way.
 
I don't think people have the right to ban the number of kids you have. That's just wrong. But I do agree there are too many people already. But hey: As long as people are dying as much as they are being born we might be good. Right?
 
In China, minorities are still allowed to have more children, by the way.


Really? I thought that the system was, that if a woman has a girl first time round she can have one more baby/try for a boy again, but if her second child is also a girl then she can't have anymore babies- if a woman has a boy first time round, then no more babies after that.

I don't think people have the right to ban the number of kids you have. That's just wrong. But I do agree there are too many people already. But hey: As long as people are dying as much as they are being born we might be good. Right?

Unfortunately, as far as i am aware, every 1 second a child is born in the world but every 5 seconds someone dies. So a lot more people are being born than dying.

Nature's way to control human population was things like viruses, bacterial and fungal diseases, famine etc- but we're finding cures more and more for these things, so less people are dying through these natural means.
 
Really? I thought that the system was, that if a woman has a girl first time round she can have one more baby/try for a boy again, but if her second child is also a girl then she can't have anymore babies- if a woman has a boy first time round, then no more babies after that.



Unfortunately, as far as i am aware, every 1 a child is born in the world but every 5 seconds someone dies. So a lot more people are being born than dying.

Nature's way to control human population was things like viruses, bacterial and fungal diseases, famine etc- but we're finding cures more and more for these things, so less people are dying through these natural means.
Wow, I didn't know that. It's amazing how ignorant I can be!
 
Really? I thought that the system was, that if a woman has a girl first time round she can have one more baby/try for a boy again, but if her second child is also a girl then she can't have anymore babies- if a woman has a boy first time round, then no more babies after that.

To my actual knowledge, it goes, that you can in general only have two children, no mater which sex.
It is more often so, that the Chinese themselves decide the way you describe it, which once more makes it two. The last point is unknown to me, I doubt it very much. But some may decide so for themselves.

Anyhow, any such rules do not apply to minorities.
 
To my actual knowledge, it goes, that you can in general only have two children, no mater which sex.
It is more often so, that the Chinese themselves decide the way you describe it, which once more makes it two. The last point is unknown to me, I doubt it very much. But some may decide so for themselves.
Anyhow, any such rules do not apply to minorities.


No i am pretty sure it is the case;

"Since 1979, families in China have been allowed to have just one child, or two in the countryside if the first is a girl";

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | China in rural birth control bid

There may be families in rural area's who have more children than that, but that is most likely because social security is not very good in rural area's so people find it easier to break the one-child policy rules.
What minorities exactly do you speak of?
 
You may be partly right though, although not exactly. Here is the link for more details:

China - Population Control Programs

a very interesting and detailed description!

I just happen to know as many with one as with two children everywhere. . .also two girls, right.

One of the say is, they grow little dictators, referring to those with only one child.
A real problem is the high death rate of female babies, because they are still considered to be unwanted under such circumstances. Their once so highly praised equality of gender system suffers deeply under this!
 
Having kids isn't the problem.

Governments that pay money out to people instead of encouraging them to find careers is the problem.
 
You may be partly right though, although not exactly. Here is the link for more details:
China - Population Control Programs
a very interesting and detailed description!
I just happen to know as many with one as with two children everywhere. . .also two girls, right.
One of the say is, they grow little dictators, referring to those with only one child.
A real problem is the high death rate of female babies, because they are still considered to be unwanted under such circumstances. Their once so highly praised equality of gender system suffers deeply under this!


Taken from your link;

"Since 1979 the government has advocated a onechild limit for both rural and urban areas and has generally set a maximum of two children in special circumstances. As of 1986 the policy for minority nationalities was two children per couple, three in special circumstances, and no limit for ethnic groups with very small populations."

From what i understand, "special circumstances" are if the women has a girl rather than a boy first time round.
I still wonder whose these "ethnic minorities" exactly are though.

As far as i am aware, the no more children after first son is the case;

""In most of the countryside in China we have what we call one-and-a-half-child policy. That means if a young couple's first child is a male, they must stop child-bearing. If the child is a female they may have a second child," he said";

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China fears bachelor future


I agree the problem with female baby abortions is a really bad problem though- Hainan island has the highest boy-to-girl ratio in the whole country, with 135 boys born for every 100 girls (see above link).
 
Having kids isn't the problem.

Governments that pay money out to people instead of encouraging them to find careers is the problem.



Yes if the government didn't hand out so many benefits to non-working couple's, then its likely that there would be a lot of couple's with a lot less kids.
But then again, there are always going to be some stupid/selfish/irresponsible/unfortunate mothers who have kids regardless of whether they can afford to have them or not. In these situations, i think more needs to be done than just handing money and homes out to such mothers.

I also think that regardless of whether a couple can afford to look after their kids or not, i think there needs to be some basic limits set down- say like for example, "a couple/parent/s can have no more than 10 children"; when a couple have like 12children, there's no way they can spend decent quality time with all their kids.
Particularly in poorer area's, birth rates can be very high in comparison to area's or greater wealth. If people in poorer area's stopped having so many kids, then their money problems might not be so bad and the local economies can be given a chance to prosper, and so everyone would benefit etc.
 
But how would you prevent people from having children? Enforce vasectomies? What right does the government have to make laws regarding a person's body, let alone their reproductive systems? Moral issues aside, how could this possibly be dealt with practically?

If people in poorer area's stopped having so many kids, then their money problems might not be so bad and the local economies can be given a chance to prosper, and so everyone would benefit etc.

It's usually not that simple. Poorer families often need children so that when they grow older, they can help with the family business, work in fields, and become another source of income. While they are another mouth to feed, they often become a crucial source of income for the entire household.
 
But how would you prevent people from having children? Enforce vasectomies? What right does the government have to make laws regarding a person's body, let alone their reproductive systems? Moral issues aside, how could this possibly be dealt with practically?




I do think the government does have some degree of right over what someone can do with their body- if it didn't, then it wouldn't be able to effectively enforce laws against drugs.

I think if the government managed to impose laws against the amount of children couples can have, it would have these benefits;

a. It would save the government money, which could be spent on the community as a whole, like on things like improving health services or building more prisons and old people's homes etc.

b. It would be better for the kids- the less brothers and sisters a kid has, the more energy, time and money the kids parents can devote on the child. Its not a problem when a couple has 2-3 children, but when a couple has like 8 kids, then the kids suffer for it.

c. It would be better for the environment- human beings are placing a massive strain on natural resources and the environment in general. We can't turn a blind eye to this stuff anymore- we need to start looking at the bigger picture of our societies and the whole world and say, "hey, why don't we stop being so selfish and concentrating on ourselves all the time, why don't we start doing things more for the benefit of society, the country, the whole world?".


I think something like a 6-7 child policy in my country would be good, and the system should be gone about similar to that of China's system. I don't think expecting couples to have less than 7 kids is unreasonable.

It's usually not that simple. Poorer families often need children so that when they grow older, they can help with the family business, work in fields, and become another source of income. While they are another mouth to feed, they often become a crucial source of income for the entire household.


On the other hand though, if people have a lot of kids, then they practically resign themselves to a life of poverty/not having much money (unless they have well paid careers before they have kids which they can continue working at after having kids), which they will have no hope of getting out of until their kids leave home.

In countries like Africa, a major part of their poverty issues are a vicious cycle started by people not having enough access to good birth control, which leads to people having too many children, which leads to the parents not having enough money to lead a good life, which leads to the children being raised in the same poverty their parents live in, which leads to children who grow up having no better prospects in life than their parents. These kids then have too many kids of their own, and so the cycle repeats itself.

The fact of the matter is that if Africa was able to control its population/birth rates better, then its poverty problems would not be so bad.

People shouldn't be made to rely on having kids so they can have a comfortable retirement. Couples shouldn't have kids because they're an investment, couple's should have kids because they want to have have them and can afford to have them and plan them in advance etc.
If health care, old people's homes and pensions are improved, then there wouldn't be the need for parents to have lots of kids to look after their parents in their old age. If less money was being spent of non-working couple's and their kids, then these things really could be improved.

Population control is good for the economy, environment and social order and prosperity (it is also good for reducing the wealth gaps between poor and rich).
 
We're ok you say? We need to work out how to feed the hungry mouths?
Thats cool, but sooner or later this planet will reach its limit, and to be honest, I really wouldn't want to starve so some retard can have a hundred brats just like his parents, and their parents and their parents.
Make a law that if the parents have too many children, they'll be outlawed. Unlike in olden times they don't have get hunted down, simply they'll be denied the "blessings" of modern society.
Without hospitals, almons from the government, right to vote, etc. they can go and collect herbs and roots for TBC, they can grow their own food, and they can bloody go to Guyana, buy some huge land and commit suicide together.
We're not living in the age where a vigorous youth can go grow potatoes and live on the same level as his "urbanized" counterparts, in this day and age stupidity is a crime.
I honestly don't care if they live in filth and misery, but if it starts to affect those who have the brains to lead better lives, I say something must be done.
You either offer them your whole arm, or make sanctions.
 
We're ok you say? We need to work out how to feed the hungry mouths?
Thats cool, but sooner or later this planet will reach its limit, and to be honest, I really wouldn't want to starve so some retard can have a hundred brats just like his parents, and their parents and their parents.
Make a law that if the parents have too many children, they'll be outlawed. Unlike in olden times they don't have get hunted down, simply they'll be denied the "blessings" of modern society.
Without hospitals, almons from the government, right to vote, etc. they can go and collect herbs and roots for TBC, they can grow their own food, and they can bloody go to Guyana, buy some huge land and commit suicide together.
We're not living in the age where a vigorous youth can go grow potatoes and live on the same level as his "urbanized" counterparts, in this day and age stupidity is a crime.
I honestly don't care if they live in filth and misery, but if it starts to affect those who have the brains to lead better lives, I say something must be done.
You either offer them your whole arm, or make sanctions.


I agree that more needs to be done to lower/control the worlds human population, however i disagree that people's rights like free health care should be denied to people that break the child policies- why should the kids suffer for their parents irresponsible actions?

I think that whatever punishment is enforced on the parents for breaking the child limit policy, it should be one that doesn't ruin the kids chances of leading a good life.

Personally i think that if couples keep on having kids despite the child policy laws, they should simply have their extra children taken away from them, and these children should be put up for adoption- there are thousands of couples in my country that desperately want to have children but can't and so have to spend months, even years, waiting on child adoption lists; there is more demand for babies/toddlers/young children in adoption than supply of such children at current. It would be better if extra children were put up for adoption to make it easier for the good couples to have the children that they so desperately want, deserve and can afford etc.
 
That might be so, however, the main problem we will (are?) be facing is the burst growth, that is actual now, but will be a hundred times worse soon.
We don't have the luxury to feel morally nice and be absolutely humane.
Its not that torturing kids is a good thing, but in my opinion, in this case, in our situation, even if the end doesn't justify the means, it soon will.
One child, even in good care is one more child.
 
Taken from your link;
"Since 1979 the government has advocated a onechild limit for both rural and urban areas and has generally set a maximum of two children in special circumstances. As of 1986 the policy for minority nationalities was two children per couple, three in special circumstances, and no limit for ethnic groups with very small populations."
From what i understand, "special circumstances" are if the women has a girl rather than a boy first time round.
I still wonder whose these "ethnic minorities" exactly are though.
As far as i am aware, the no more children after first son is the case;
""In most of the countryside in China we have what we call one-and-a-half-child policy. That means if a young couple's first child is a male, they must stop child-bearing. If the child is a female they may have a second child," he said";

From what I see, you get a certain "one-child" family certificate, but this does not necessarily mean, that you have to live up to this. Its more an encouragement (strange word here, but true) to live up to this.
But I also know, that many were forced to by their community, be it by being left out, if they did not play by the "rule", which wasn't a fixed one. Also forced to be sterilised, often even without them knowing this! There are several films about this, plus books. Heartbreaking, indeed!

Minorities are mainly non Han (original, roots along the yellow river)-Chinese, thus most of the south of China (Miao, for example) and the west (Uiguires for example and other non Han-Chinese). Probably also some in the north, but I have not yet heard about them all, except the Mongolians and some siberian tribes. (It should be interesting, how they handle the plenty Mongolians and their mix there, mixes in general, since there are many!)
 
Personally i think that if couples keep on having kids despite the child policy laws, they should simply have their extra children taken away from them

You have got to be kidding.
That would be a sad day for humanity.
 
I don't want somebody telling me how many children I can or can't have. It's my choice. Plus I always feel that this is against women. It tends to be the women who are sterilized (or mutilated) to prevent pregnancy, but usually not the men. Men are allowed to stay fertile.

extra children...what is that? It's not like they are a surplus commodity to be taken away. These are humans not "extras".
 
Rather than state-sponsored kidnapping that favors the rich and tearing apart families, wouldn't it be far more prudent to simply spend more money on sex education in and out of public schools and make condoms and other contraceptives more widely available?

a. It would save the government money, which could be spent on the community as a whole, like on things like improving health services or building more prisons and old people's homes etc.

How would your plan save the government money? It sounds like they would need to increase costs to build orphanages for all the children you advocate kidnapping. Taken away from their families, these children will still need to be fed and clothed. They will also need to have a new home found for them, which will require lots of new social workers and caretakers. This would be a huge expenditure.

b. It would be better for the kids- the less brothers and sisters a kid has, the more energy, time and money the kids parents can devote on the child. Its not a problem when a couple has 2-3 children, but when a couple has like 8 kids, then the kids suffer for it.

This is just your opinion. I know people who grew up with lots of siblings and had a great time. I also know people who grew up without siblings wishing they had some. These are the sort of decisions that need to be left up to families, since there is no objective way to analyze the issue.

c. It would be better for the environment- human beings are placing a massive strain on natural resources and the environment in general.

How does this help the environment? You seem to be advocating that children should be removed from their parents and taken into state custody, where they are processed for adoption. This doesn't serve to decrease the population or reduce the strain on natural resources. All it does is tear apart famlies.
 
Instead of limiting the amount of children parents can have so there is not overpopulation, how about we focus on living elsewhere? Perhaps we could concentrate our efforts on colonizing new worlds such as large scale space stations or Mars. Some day, the Earth will cease to exist and if humanity wants to survive we will have to find a new world. This would most likely be in a different solar system, as the sun cannot last forever.
 
Instead of limiting the amount of children parents can have so there is not overpopulation, how about we focus on living elsewhere? Perhaps we could concentrate our efforts on colonizing new worlds such as large scale space stations or Mars. Some day, the Earth will cease to exist and if humanity wants to survive we will have to find a new world. This would most likely be in a different solar system, as the sun cannot last forever.



:D:D:D That is funny. Screw Earth, I'm going to go live on Mars. :giggle: I'm sorry but as far as we've gotten in space exploration, we are years and years away from being able to successfully colonize another planet.
And before Earth and the Sun cease to exist I'm sure humanity will have had it's day and have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

But more importantly, I like Earth, it's (at least where I'm living) green, clean, beautiful and full of potential. The idea of making plans to abandon Earth is scary, to say the least, not only for our own planet but for what it means to humanity as a whole.
To utterly strip our planet of all resources and life and move onto a new planet to do the same...doesn't that strike anyone as sort of viral behavior. To keep multiplying and consuming and growing ever immune to anything that might kill us, using our planet like a Host until it is completely tapped and then moving on.
I hate to think of humanity as displaying 'disease-like' or viral behavior but with talk of abandoning our 'host' because we've basically killed it, humanity is ever more looking like some sort of great disease.
Sort of depressing but I do often think of humanity as some sort of disease that landed on Planet Earth and is slowly killing her. Unless we stop multiplying and consuming that's exactly what we will become: a great big cancerous plague on the Earth. And to think, we are already looking for new 'compatible' planets to migrate to. :mad:
 
:D:D:D That is funny. Screw Earth, I'm going to go live on Mars. :giggle: I'm sorry but as far as we've gotten in space exploration, we are years and years away from being able to successfully colonize another planet.
And before Earth and the Sun cease to exist I'm sure humanity will have had it's day and have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
But more importantly, I like Earth, it's (at least where I'm living) green, clean, beautiful and full of potential. The idea of making plans to abandon Earth is scary, to say the least, not only for our own planet but for what it means to humanity as a whole.
To utterly strip our planet of all resources and life and move onto a new planet to do the same...doesn't that strike anyone as sort of viral behavior. To keep multiplying and consuming and growing ever immune to anything that might kill us, using our planet like a Host until it is completely tapped and then moving on.
I hate to think of humanity as displaying 'disease-like' or viral behavior but with talk of abandoning our 'host' because we've basically killed it, humanity is ever more looking like some sort of great disease.
Sort of depressing but I do often think of humanity as some sort of disease that landed on Planet Earth and is slowly killing her. Unless we stop multiplying and consuming that's exactly what we will become: a great big cancerous plague on the Earth. And to think, we are already looking for new 'compatible' planets to migrate to. :mad:

I agree. We should choose quality instead of quantity.
Don't people realize that morals cannot be eaten when there are billions and billions of us?
"Poor kids suffer yadda-yadda."
Would you rather have the whole bloody planet suffer?
Besides MadamePapillon is right, after all, we really do resemble a virus.
Also, note. We humans are not really aware of our worth. Our value isn't more than a tree or a fish or any other life form. We invade in nature's domain, we do whatever we wish, why are we the only exception? Why can't we control our own population? We go kill wolves and other predators because we find it wrong that they eat our chicken and lambs, bloody hell, thats stupid, we eat everyone's chicken and lambs, but no, there should be no sanctions 'cause we're so fu*king high and mighty.
Yet again this issue reeks of hypocrisy.
 
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