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Old 03-04-2010, 10:38 PM
 
Location: Duluth, Minnesota, USA
7,646 posts, read 18,050,410 times
Reputation: 6912

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Quote:
Originally Posted by NoExcuses View Post
Hmm, I don't know about that. We can't be sure of that at all.

Our so called quality of life is changing drastically. We have growing numbers of diseases attributed to lethargy in our young. We have less and less resistence to sickness. In the last years, there is a tremendous increase in allergies and 'autism' and learning disabilities and cancers.
Sources?

And despite our lessened "resistance to sickness" and "tremendous increase" in all sorts of diseases and disabilities, we continue to live longer.

Quote:
Drug companies are throwing new drugs at us from every direction; over television, magazines, billboards, internet, etc.. We have become a drug dependent country. There are more and more preservatives in our food. Every day there is something found unsafe that had been used for a couple generations in our food and materials we use every day.

The list goes on, and on, and on.
Yes, indeed. But one can control their childrens' food choices and instill good eating habits that will persist well into adulthood.

And about the unsafe materials: abestos? nicotine? the lack of seat belts in cars? Despite all of these things, life expectancies - and the quality of life - continued to rise over time. And at least in my mind, rBGH or high-fructose corn syrup are far more benign than those.

Quote:
Our existence itself is going to be determined on our ability to genetically morph to accommodate our growing chemical dependency in every aspect of our lives.

Ah, yes, our 'standard of living'. You mean the standard we have after all our money is gone because of being taxed to death by our government? You mean the standard we have left after credit cards and inflation take their share? You mean the standard after we can't afford to put gas in our cars anymore or buy enough decent food to feed our families because prices have gone up so far that we can't continue to purchase what is needed for survival?

There is no end to our downward spiral of our 'standard of living' and 'quality of life'. We fool ourselves by saying we can buy new cars and live in a house that we can barely afford, and take our family on vacation, but the truth is, we are FAR worse off than previous generations and I don't see how things will turn around and start going up again.
I'm talking about:

* Vacations. Most Americans have taken a number of vacations during their life, and millions of families can afford to take one or two each year. Vacationing in the American sense is generally done at a hotel or resort, and even the worst of hotels commonly frequented by Americans are quite posh compared with what was out there for the common man even 30 years ago.

Now compare that to life 100 years ago. Only the rich could afford regular vacations. Farming families were stuck on the farm, with maybe a yearly 50-mile train voyage to visit their relatives.

* Transportation and housing. Most American families own at least two cars, which they usually store in a garage. If you can afford a car, you can generally afford to fill it up with gas - you just have to make cuts in other spending habits. Houses have increased both in size and amenities. Often, new houses have a bathroom for every bedroom and countless other luxuries. True, houses have become increasingly unaffordable, but have any of the families that bought "too much house" ever considered moving to a smaller, sub-2,000 square foot home, with fewer bathrooms?

Compare that with life even 50 years ago. A "4-bedroom 4-bathroom" house that would be standard today? Forget about it. Only the wealthy could afford more than 1 or 2 bathrooms. And don't let me get started on where we were 100 years ago.

* Entertainment and access to information. Think of a typical American life in 1990, and compare it to the way we live now. Cell phones were rare then, and to make phone calls on the go one generally needed to find a payphone. The internet barely existed, and was not available to the vast, vast majority of the population. Music still had to be purchased on tapes and CDs, which required going to the music store (probably a drive there), unlike now, when you can watch virtually any music video ever made for free on YouTube and buy individual songs for $0.99. And taking your entire music library with you? That would have required a cart.

I'm not saying that these things make one happy - even though they certainly contribute to the overall standard of living and can be a positive factor in one's quality of life. However, when it comes to **material things** - what those who say the earth is overpopulated are concerned about the future of (think mass famine, oil wars, etc. - all material issues) - our living standard has greatly increased over the past 100 years and 5 billion people living on our planet.
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Old 03-05-2010, 02:13 AM
 
Location: Liberal Coast
4,281 posts, read 6,060,914 times
Reputation: 3924
Quote:
Originally Posted by wyoquilter View Post
Maybe that is why instead of "being into" having a lot of kids. I just know that a lot of families seemed rather large, at least when I was growing up. I think that now even though they don't believe in BC, some still use it, at least more than you would think so their families are not as large. I have noticed that more and more are not as devout as they used to be.
Catholics are not supposed to use artificial birth control. I believe studies have shown that an extremely large number does, though.
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Old 03-05-2010, 02:26 AM
 
Location: Liberal Coast
4,281 posts, read 6,060,914 times
Reputation: 3924
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aconite View Post
I'm thinking NFP (natural family planning, described earlier in the thread) and creativity. Tab A does not always have to go into Slot B...so to speak.
If Tab A doesn't go in Slot B but somewhere else, that is also against Catholic teaching.

My husband has nine siblings. His dad got married. They had eight daughters. That wife died. He remarried and had two sons. I have two sisters. We would like a large family.
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Old 03-05-2010, 10:30 AM
 
28 posts, read 91,185 times
Reputation: 79
I've noticed that the low income and government assistance people are the ones that are still having children. They have nothing to lose; besides the more babies they have the more benefits they receive.
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Old 03-06-2010, 08:41 AM
 
47,525 posts, read 69,446,034 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yellabone View Post
I've noticed that the low income and government assistance people are the ones that are still having children. They have nothing to lose; besides the more babies they have the more benefits they receive.
That has a lot to do with why people who have never worked, never graduated and those who are here illegally have so many children. They don't have children because they can provide for them or raise them properly, they have them because to them it beats working for a living.
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Old 03-06-2010, 08:45 AM
 
47,525 posts, read 69,446,034 times
Reputation: 22471
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZugZub View Post
Intelligence and level of education affects it directly. Smarter, more educated people tend to have far fewer children than less educated, less intelligent people. The delusions of certain religions can also affect how many kids someone pumps out.
I don't believe that how many children has to do with intelligence or education because you didn't take the welfare system into account. If the welfare class had to provide for it's children, they too wouldn't have so many, but to them more children means more food stamps, bigger and better government provided housing, longer time for handouts. Children cost them nothing.

If you offered a one time cash payment of $200-$400 in exchange for sterilization or made sterilization a requirement for getting welfare, the same people would immediately show up to be sterilized. They have children for the financial advantage given to them for having them.
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Old 03-06-2010, 10:56 AM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,403,158 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by malamute View Post
I don't believe that how many children has to do with intelligence or education because you didn't take the welfare system into account. If the welfare class had to provide for it's children, they too wouldn't have so many, but to them more children means more food stamps, bigger and better government provided housing, longer time for handouts. Children cost them nothing.

If you offered a one time cash payment of $200-$400 in exchange for sterilization or made sterilization a requirement for getting welfare, the same people would immediately show up to be sterilized. They have children for the financial advantage given to them for having them.
This was many years ago but I'm sure it still happens today. I had a 14 year old girl in my sunday school class who had a baby at her parents insistance so she could get her own welfare check to add to the family's "income".

I used to live next door to a family that had a high lifestyle because all three daughters had babies and collected welfare while living with mom and dad. Their mother was the only one in the group with a job (low paying) but they drove nice cars and dressed to the nines.

I've also known women who have had babies by multiple fathers so they could collect multiple child support payment checks.

Sadly, having children is a money making venture for too many out there.
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Old 03-06-2010, 03:15 PM
 
Location: Tippecanoe County, Indiana
26,375 posts, read 46,238,636 times
Reputation: 19455
"What affects how many children people have"

Quite often religious affiliation. This is particularly common in very red states.

"Catholics are not supposed to use artificial birth control."

So I hear.. Most people don't want to be breeders and live in poverty either. Ultra religious people tend to have a greater quantity of kids in states where the cost of living is very cheap, though.
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Old 03-06-2010, 08:25 PM
 
344 posts, read 990,656 times
Reputation: 366
My reason for having one child was primarily based upon my childhood. I was the youngest of four, and by the time I came along, my parents were just tired. Tired of working, raising children, participating in church, and all the other obligations of life. I remember fighting my siblings for what little attention any of us could get from our parents.

Each child who comes into a home costs money, time, attention, and energy. Parents have only so much to give. The first child gets the most, the second gets half, and so on. Please consider the needs of your current child(ren) before adding another.
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Old 03-07-2010, 05:46 PM
 
Location: Liberal Coast
4,281 posts, read 6,060,914 times
Reputation: 3924
Quote:
Originally Posted by GraniteStater View Post
"What affects how many children people have"

Quite often religious affiliation. This is particularly common in very red states.

"Catholics are not supposed to use artificial birth control."

So I hear.. Most people don't want to be breeders and live in poverty either. Ultra religious people tend to have a greater quantity of kids in states where the cost of living is very cheap, though.
You don't have to use artificial birth control to not be breeders and live in poverty. To think otherwise is quite ignorant. NFP has a bad rap because people don't understand it. When implemented properly it's as effective as artificial means.
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