Big families and the ethical dilemma of restricting family size.

Belizean007 · (#1 (**permalink**))

I don't post inBV very often, so bear with me here.

TheBlack family with12 children has raised many issues here on this planet. I don't want to touch on their particular situation and beliefs, but rather on the fact that so many people here feel that people shouldn't be "allowed" to have such large families, even if they can financially support their children without state help.

[There are several arguments supporting the idea that such large families are wrong.]

1. Overpopulation of the planet and concentrating resources on one family.
2. Emotional/educational/physical neglect of each child
3. Sheer "oogyness"- the "it's a uterus, not a clown car!" argument.

Now, while I agree that it may not be RESPONSIBLE to have an extremely large family, I haven't seen any compelling argument why the small family ideal justifies the invasion breaches of human rights that enforcing it would entail.

Says you what?

DtotheJ · (#2 (**permalink**))

I don't know about whether it's right or wrong....

but in many cases..it's just not practical.....unless you are in rural area and your raising them to be fieldhands...

defyfear · (#3 (**permalink**))

Belizean007 wrote:

Quote:

I don't post inBV very often, so bear with me here.

TheBlack family with12 children has raised many issues here on this planet. I don't want to touch on their particular situation and beliefs, but rather on the fact that so many people here feel that people shouldn't be "allowed" to have such large families, even if they can financially support their children without state help.

[There are several arguments supporting the idea that such large families are wrong.]

1. Overpopulation of the planet and concentrating resources on one family.
2. Emotional/educational/physical neglect of each child
3. Sheer "oogyness"- the "it's a uterus, not a clown car!" argument.

Now, while I agree that it may not be RESPONSIBLE to have an extremely large family, I haven't seen any compelling argument why the small family ideal justifies the invasion breaches of human rights that enforcing it would entail.

Says you what?

I believe its okay from black or any folks to have large families. In nature, having large families have their benefit in terms of work but you have to be of good health to have large families plus have trememndous energy and knowledge to feed and cloth them etc. For me I dont compete with these people to begin with so its not an issue.

Most people naturally cannot have large families due to health and the amount of energy in raising so many youngsters. Now we have the economic reason (dependency) on others who will dissapprove of large birth families this psychological affect does affect health and unfortunately the number of people born to a family. If you look at rich people I mean super rich they tend to have large families to carry on their legacy. So why cannot the poorest of the poor who have the health knowledge and energy to raise them.

About failure. Some people learn that through experience. I have studied people in the past who come from large family and they seem to make great contributions to society at large. Even though they did not get the attention afforded to a single child or two (neglect) they still were able to make contributions and the world admires them. But it does not work out that way all the time but the neglected large family members helped us move into our present condition now.

FredB · (#4 (**permalink**))

@Beliezean007. I think you raised an excellent point and one close to my heart that of family size. I have been saying for a very long time in this country that the our key duty is to push out and prepare children in numbers. Our survival is dependent on it. The African-Caribbean family in this country has experienced zero growth for other thirty years.

We now have people or communities who would never dare challenge us as in Asians doing so today as I predicted ten years ago because of the basic demographic facts they produce more children and with greater cohesion while we are producing less children or poorer quality and weaker cohesion than hitherto.

Numbers are at the root of our progress. So the bigger the family size the better. I am aware of plenty problems which that raises but every other set of problems are far more worse and raises serious questions about how we can constantly take on greater more demanding problems with a diminishing population base.

FB

LadyDay · (#5 (**permalink**))

*refresh*