Why Are Americans Obsessed With Having Children? (Iraq, deaths, high school)

[ticking]

Originally Posted by ohhwanderlust

I want kids, but I want to be able to live my life first, and have my ducks in a row and be at the right time in life before I have them.

But I'm not obsessed about having them. And if you think most Americans are, then you do not know what 'obsessed' means...lol.

Want obsessed? My husband is EXTREMELY baby crazy. It's babies this, babies that, WE NEED BABIES, lol. He has his favorite baby names all picked out already, and watches childrens television and clips of cute kids and babies on YouTube. He can't even hear or see a baby without having a meltdown about wanting a baby RIGHT NOW. His ultimate dream in life is for us to be parents. Every single night he tries to convince me to stop the birth control, and get pregnant. He pets my tummy and talks to it like there's already a baby in there. And if I'm late that month, he's over the MOON. Until we know I'm not pregnant. Then he gets depressed. Babies are on his mind 24/7.

Now, THAT is 'obsessed with having children'.

(We have agreed to go to Botswana and Antarctica and do a few other cool things while saving up for a year, before we have kids. It's just a very painful wait for him, lol)

Boy you sure have him over a barrel. If I were him and had that sorta obsession, I'd be working 2 jobs to scrape together every nickel to get those trips on RIGHT NOW.

[lycos679]

Originally Posted by Sculptor

Who knows, but it's done severe damage to this planet and ecosystem, this country had just slightly more people living here in 1800 across the entire country than live just in NYC today, by 1900 that soared to 75 million, 1950 to 150 million, now its 320 million and it's having a disasterous effect on everything.

I beg to differ. The quality of life has never been higher. So, sure, less people were around in the 1800's, but the life expectancy was only around 30 or 40 back then and we did not have cheap oil or an automated farming process to rely on.

Originally Posted by Sculptor

Selfish is breeding more children when we already have 320 million people, and while over 200,000 unwanted sit in the foster-care system in this country alone for lack of permanent homes!

While you have a point in regards to the unwanted children in the foster system, so what if it is selfish? I wouldn't spend my time, money, and resources on a kid that isn't mine if I had a choice in the matter. Capitalism is an inherently selfish system and we would choose nothing less. However, I don't think the number of Americans is all that relevant. We could probably double our population quite easily. Montana barely even has a million people.

Originally Posted by Sculptor

People should be adopting not breeding more, and by adopting I don't mean going to foreign countries and bringing home their unwanted to add to our overpopulation.

That is a subjective judgement call and the current fertility rate tells a different tale. We need a fertility rate around 2.07, but we have one around 1.88, so even with the foster kids we still need to have more kids than we are. Fortunately, the USA is still quite desirable so we can import more people to make up for the deficit population, but this is a less than ideal scenario because someone raised in the USA has a distinct cultural advantage over a recent immigrant. (some exceptions do exist such as educated immigrants)

Additionally, overpopulation is generally regarded as a situation in which a population (plants, animals, single cell organisms, etc) has overgrown or populated past the point that their environment can support, but this has not happened in the USA.

Originally Posted by Sculptor

Now I read about some fool who had a donated uterus implanted in her body so she could birth a baby! this is the height of insanity.

Her body, her insurance, her choice.

Originally Posted by garvan

oh, it's stupid to not want to have to spend 1/2 million $ to raise each kid (properly, without sponging off of the taxpayer)? I"d say that it's stupid (and destructive) to have more than one child per woman (until our species is reduced to a point where everyone in the world can have a decent life, and its' sustainable. Thats about a 90% reduction in population size. People don't like the idea that if things go my way, future kids can't be harnessed to pay for the (current) people's retirements, disabilities, etc.

The larger concern with a 1.0 TFR is the economic and cultural suicide that would result. No country (or species) will willingly commit suicide (fight or flight), so we would import people, which we are already doing so that isn't that complicated. However, we would have to import so many people that it would be difficult to assimilate them all in a timely manner.

Originally Posted by garvan

Just, why, exactly, should I CARE if our species dies out, hmm? Why should I care so much that I bust my butt for 40 years to prevent that extinction, as vs taking it easy and just pulling my own weight? So YOU can tax my kids to pay for YOUR retirement and YOUR kids' education. Not happening, jack.

Then don't. Nobody actually has a vested interest in seeing your particular genes live on. Social programs are going to get funded anyway though; we would just import people to work and raise taxes on an as needed basis.

Originally Posted by garvan

I see it every day. they take little kids, 3-4 years old, to a restaurant and ASK THEM what they want to eat! Kids should be TOLD what they WILL eat, until they're 10-11, at the least. What they want to eat is garbage.

Different parents, parent differently, naturally.

[GJJG2012]

Holy Bible: Be fruitful & multiply. No exceptions allowed? I think some parents want to have mini-mes that will continue to spread their opinions. I agree with you parents should not have kids they hate for 18+ years. People who are way too stressed out should not have kids. Best wishes.

Originally Posted by kgordeeva

Why are Americans so obsessed with having children? What's so great about it?

And why do people call women selfish when they don't have the desire to have children? I think it's better to admit you're selfish than have kids you're going to resent later on.

A lot of the commenters were very hostile and said these women were deranged and selfish for not wanting to pop out a few kids.

Does anyone else have trouble understanding the fascination with having kids?

[GJJG2012]

I agree with last 2 paragraphs, disagree with 1st paragraph. Our 1st ten presidents died at ages 67-90. Then anyone could go into a pharmacy & buy cannabis with no prescription, even young kids. Addiction rates were no higher than now. They didn't need the poison pills. Best wishes.

Originally Posted by lycos679

I beg to differ. The quality of life has never been higher. So, sure, less people were around in the 1800's, but the life expectancy was only around 30 or 40 back then and we did not have cheap oil or an automated farming process to rely on.

While you have a point in regards to the unwanted children in the foster system, so what if it is selfish? I wouldn't spend my time, money, and resources on a kid that isn't mine if I had a choice in the matter. We could probably double our population quite easily. Montana barely even has a million people.

Additionally, overpopulation is generally regarded as a situation in which a population (plants, animals, single cell organisms, etc) has overgrown or populated past the point that their environment can support, but this has not happened in the USA.

[GJJG2012]

The US spends the most on health care, yet we are not in the top 25 countries in life expectancy. Very high % lived past 50 in 1800s, some to 90+, without the help of poison pills. They got exercise working hard. They had social contacts. Their air soil, food, & water was not contaminated by 85,000 toxins, most of them approved in last 50 years.

Foster parents get paid more than their costs & if kids too annoying, 4x as much drugs as average OK.

I do agree with you we don't have too many people (just too many poisons). Best wishes.

Originally Posted by lycos679

I beg to differ. The quality of life has never been higher. So, sure, less people were around in the 1800's, but the life expectancy was only around 30 or 40 back then and we did not have cheap oil or an automated farming process to rely on.

While you have a point in regards to the unwanted children in the foster system, so what if it is selfish? I wouldn't spend my time, money, and resources on a kid that isn't mine if I had a choice in the matter. Capitalism is an inherently selfish system and we would choose nothing less. We could probably double our population quite easily. Montana barely even has a million people.

Additionally, overpopulation is generally regarded as a situation in which a population (plants, animals, single cell organisms, etc) has overgrown or populated past the point that their environment can support, but this has not happened in the USA.

[lycos679]

Originally Posted by GJJG2012

I agree with last 2 paragraphs, disagree with 1st paragraph. Our 1st ten presidents died at ages 67-90. Then anyone could go into a pharmacy & buy cannabis with no prescription, even young kids. Addiction rates were no higher than now. They didn't need the poison pills. Best wishes.

The life expectancy was still under 40 though. People could live to be 90 years old as long as they did not get sick, but, depending on where you were born, the odds of even making to 5 was less than 30% (and that was in London, not the barbaric parts of America).

In lieu of giving you a book to read, here's this:

1850: 39.5 for white people, 23 for black people.

Fertility and Mortality in the United States

[lycos679]

Originally Posted by GJJG2012

The US spends the most on health care, yet we are not in the top 25 countries in life expectancy.

That's off topic and a different discussion, but Asian American females have the longest life expectancy in the world.

Originally Posted by GJJG2012

Very high % lived past 50 in 1800s, some to 90+, without the help of poison pills. They got exercise working hard. They had social contacts. Their air soil, food, & water was not contaminated by 85,000 toxins, most of them approved in last 50 years.

Foster parents get paid more than their costs & if kids too annoying, 4x as much drugs as average OK.

I do agree with you we don't have too many people (just too many poisons). Best wishes.

See my previous post and link.

[mainebrokerman]

Originally Posted by kgordeeva

I hear about it in day to day life. I always hear people around me talk about how great it is to have kids and when I'm going to have some. And if you read the comments section of the article I posted, you can see how many people were outraged at the fact that some women wanted dogs instead of children.

when a woman has a baby she is 100% a mom - while the man/father can go to work and still have the life he had

if the man isn't around,,,the mother has to be 100%, raising that child
this rarely happens to men


some women are natural nesters and nurturers, some aren't so sure


cut the women some slack,,,,she's not a baby machine

just saying

[Sculptor]

Originally Posted by lycos679

I beg to differ. The quality of life has never been higher. So, sure, less people were around in the 1800's, but the life expectancy was only around 30 or 40 back then and we did not have cheap oil or an automated farming process to rely on.

I'm not talking about years I'm talking about quality of life. The average life expectancy might have been 40 years back then but it was due mainly to diseases for which we have vaccines and antibiotics for. Plenty of people back then lived 80 or 90 years, the cemetaries are full of infants and kids and young people simply killed by diseases like smallpox.

While you have a point in regards to the unwanted children in the foster system, so what if it is selfish?

Sure, so what if one day we just selfishly clear-cut the last redwood trees on earth to build pool decks for more houses, destroy Yellowstone to turn it into private ranches and home sites, use the Grand Canyon as a large landfill, continue killing off the wildlife and extincting hundreds more species because more people want new homes in the forests where they live.
Let's all just selfishly keep breeding more and more babies so we have 600 million in this country and just pave over the remaining "wilderness" or rather, what's left of it as there's almost no true "wilderness" left in this country any more that doesn't have roads, electric and telephone poles and billboards strung all across it.

Let's just selfishly keep drilling for more dirty OIL so we can increase that 20 million barrels a day we burn to maybe 50 million barrels a day because it's so cheap! That'll do the air, water, environment and everyone so much good.

I don't think the number of Americans is all that relevant. We could probably double our population quite easily. Montana barely even has a million people.

You don't huh? think of the earth as being a sealed fishtank- nothing can leave and nothing can enter (other than meteororites and the like but we won't count that) so what happens in a sealed fishtank of finite size and finite resources i.e. only a certain amount of oxygen and food can be added per day- if you start off with four goldfish and each day you add four more goldfish to the tank?
At some point, adding four new goldfish to that tank will mean all of the goldfish start to suffer in every way, from the dirty water to the lack of enough food and oxygen, keep adding four new goldfish to that tank and take a guess what happens.

The earth is exactly the same as a sealed fishtank, all of the pollution spewed into the air, water and land stays here, it doesn't just "go away", there is a limited amount of land to grow food crops on, farmland is already losing untold amounts of topsoil, many former farms are now shopping malls and sub-divisions, the amount of farmland in this country is shrinking not only due to that but climate change is also having effect- long term drought etc.
Meanwhile, while we need more food, more oxygen producing trees we are paving over smaller farms and cutting more forests down for lumber and paper.

Montana huh? you do realize that the majority of Montana is all but useless for residences, much like the deserts in Utah and Nevada there are places in this country that are simply not suitable for large amounts of human dwellings and cities, it could be little to no water (deserts of Utah and Nevada) or any number of factors, that's why you don't have big cities and suburbs in places like these, you have ONE house on 1,000 acre ranch on a rural road with nothing else around and no one wanting to live there.

That is a subjective judgement call and the current fertility rate tells a different tale. We need a fertility rate around 2.07, but we have one around 1.88, so even with the foster kids we still need to have more kids than we are. Fortunately, the USA is still quite desirable so we can import more people to make up for the deficit population, but this is a less than ideal scenario because someone raised in the USA has a distinct cultural advantage over a recent immigrant. (some exceptions do exist such as educated immigrants)

We don't "need" anything of the kind and we certainly don't need to import to make up any "deficit" in population!
This country had fewer residents living here in 1800 than live today in NYC alone, by 1900 that number soared to 75 million, by 1950- just 50 years later it doubled and soared to 150 million, by around 2000- just 50 years later it doubled again to 300 million, we do not need to be doubling the population in this country every 50 years! Growth is exponential, even at that same rate of growth we would see the current 320 million double to over 600 million by
2065 and that is unsustainable, this kind of growth IS unsustainable in a finite environment with finite resources, it simply cannot continue.

Additionally, overpopulation is generally regarded as a situation in which a population (plants, animals, single cell organisms, etc) has overgrown or populated past the point that their environment can support, but this has not happened in the USA.

YET, only because we are robbing Peter to Pay Paul and artificially supporting it with imports, mass production of things like food crops that is already having a dire negative effect on the land and it's loss of top soil. We have to dump millions of tons of fertilizers all over the land now to make up for the losses and all that stuff is winding up in rivers and streams and in the oceans.
We have severe water shortages in places like California, maps of the huge forests that once existed in this country compared to today show just how much is already gone in just the last 150 years.

Her body, her insurance, her choice.

Her body, insurance *WE* are paying for with higher premiums, her choice to be stupid yes.

[Memphis1979]

Fact is, we aren't producing enough children. We have a natural, less then 2.0 population growth here in the states on average. This is one reason we have to have immigration.

For those who don't understand, when a man and woman get together, they produce 1 child, effectively the economy has shrunk. When they have 2 children, they have balanced the scale, but there is no growth. When they have a third child, the economy grows as, when their children reach adulthood, there will need to be more infrastructure, more food, more housing, more needs then the parents had during their time. This is the key to economic growth. A 2+ growth rate.

We have to have more children, or we have to keep increasing immigration