Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Well then show me medical documentation that having 15 kids or enjoying pregnancy's is a legitimate mental illness and proof 15 kids is excessive. Having children period is not necessary, given the human female body is equipped to birth 15 kids it is not abnormal, and desirability is personal to each individual.
How would I have medical documentation that it is a mental illness? Getting too much plastic surgery, shopping too much/spending, eating too much, not eating enough ,going in the sun to get tan can all be done in excess and can be signs of underlying mental illness.
How would I have medical documentation that it is a mental illness? Getting too much plastic surgery, shopping too much/spending, eating too much, not eating enough ,going in the sun to get tan can all be done in excess and can be signs of underlying mental illness.
Hmmm. "Back in the day" when families of 10+ were quite common, and this was as recently as the 1950s and goes back into antiquity, no one claimed that these mothers of many were mentally unsound.
Now all of a sudden people who enjoy having a big family are mentally ill? Where's the cutoff? Three kids is OK but four is too many? Were my parents mentally ill because they had 7 children?
Hmmm. "Back in the day" when families of 10+ were quite common, and this was as recently as the 1950s and goes back into antiquity, no one claimed that these mothers of many were mentally unsound.
Now all of a sudden people who enjoy having a big family are mentally ill? Where's the cutoff? Three kids is OK but four is too many? Were my parents mentally ill because they had 7 children?
No, back in the day, families of 10+ were not common.
Family Size in 1910
During the 19th century, most families had seven children, but by 1900, the average had dropped to 3.5, according to the CDC.
Artificial forms of birth control were available, and natural methods were well known, but the sale of birth-control devices and birth-control education were illegal in the U.S. and Canada.
So how did couples control family size if birth control was illegal? Couples had to obtain things like condoms and diaphragms illegally, often importing them from overseas.
Family size in the US peaked between 1860 and 1920 because infant mortality rates were declining while large families were still valued, according to Northern Kentucky University sociologist Joan Ferrante’s 1992 book Sociology: A Global Perspective.
From 1920, large American families began to dwindle. Ferrante says that American women stopped having many kids at that point due to industrialization, which created work for women outside the home and transformed children into economic liabilities rather than assets; the more kids in a family, the harder it was for a mother to go out and work.
In post-industrial America, the public perception of women changed. They went from being perceived as gentle, sentimental, and intellectually inferior to men, to being recognized as legally equal humans just as capable of voting, working, and aspiring to greatness beyond the home. Now, like men, women are “sent out into the world†to “ask for its smiles and favors.†Since gaining the world’s favors isn’t easy, there’s less time for kids and families have dwindled.
Women, Ferrante writes, began to consider their personal advancement in a new society, and that of their children. They became more strategic about childbirth. “Not only did the number of children born in the average family decrease, but the average age at which women had their last child decreased,â€says the sociologist. “The mother’s median age at the time of her last child’s birth was 40 in 1850; by 1940 it had fallen to 27.3.â€
By the mid-20th century, families with only one or two kids were the norm. In 1980, less than 0.5% of all households had eight or more children; that category thus ceases to appear on our chart above. In 2000, the six-child household disappeared. Meanwhile, households with two kids grew increasingly popular from 1920 on and remain common.
No, back in the day, families of 10+ were not common.
Yes, they were common, compared to today. The average family did not have 10+ children, but large families were common.
By the way, I do not find your sources credible. Take, for example, this poorly written sentence from your first link:
"During the 19th century, most families had seven children."
Can it possibly be true that more than 50% of families during the 19th century had exactly seven children?
The correct statement is that the average number of children per woman was seven.
Today, the average number of children per woman is about two. But we also know that many women have only one child, or none, and therefore many others have more than two, in order for two to be the average.
Saying that the average number of children was seven means that many women must have had more than seven children: eight, nine, ten or more. Because there were also women who only had one, two, or three, and there were certainly women who remained unmarried or were unable to bear children.
Im not saying all women who have this many kids are mentally ill but it does sound odd. Maybe this woman is completely sane. It's highly unusual to have 15 kids. I recall the Duggar's kept having kids because they said God kept telling them to. That sounds pretty odd and I don't care how religious someone might be. I've heard of similar situations. And yes people evolve. Just because things were done one way decades or centuries ago doesn't mean we should be doing them today.
No one should be ok with someone having 10 to 15 kids regardless of their mental status. It's not sustainable for everyone to do it. No one is so great or special that they should be able to reproduce that many times.
Im not saying all women who have this many kids are mentally ill but it does sound odd. Maybe this woman is completely sane. It's highly unusual to have 15 kids. I recall the Duggar's kept having kids because they said God kept telling them to. That sounds pretty odd and I don't care how religious someone might be. I've heard of similar situations. And yes people evolve. Just because things were done one way decades or centuries ago doesn't mean we should be doing them today.
No one should be ok with someone having 10 to 15 kids regardless of their mental status. It's not sustainable for everyone to do it. No one is so great or special that they should be able to reproduce that many times.
Worldwide people are not having enough babies to even replace the current population much less increase it. Not that we need to increase the population, but we arent even going to be sustaining the population so all the people saying the world is overpopulated are both right and wrong. There are too many people densely populated but in the next 80 years, at this rate, our worldwide population is going to start decreasing. So even with outliers like this woman have 15 children or the Duggars who seem to constantly reproduce, their birthrates arent "making up" for the multitudes of women who are not having enough children or any children at all. Which the average births per woman hovering between 1.5 to 2.5, this woman is clearly outside of average and it isnt happening enough to affect the population.
And while yes its not sustainable for everyone to do it, clearly as evidence shows not only is everyone not doing it, a pretty decent amount of people are doing it at all. So I dont think its a big deal or something to get yourself concerned with.
I myself had 1 child with my ex husband. and 1 child with my current husband. But he had 7 children in his previous marriage. So my person birth rate is below sustainability per the amount of spouses but his more than makes up for it.
How would I have medical documentation that it is a mental illness? Getting too much plastic surgery, shopping too much/spending, eating too much, not eating enough ,going in the sun to get tan can all be done in excess and can be signs of underlying mental illness.
Because there would be studies in medical journals and actual acceptance of the mental illness by the medical community.
How are you defining excess?
How much is too much plastic surgery, shopping, eating, dieting, sun?
Are 15 children for this family causing illness, deformity, other medical problems, financial ruin?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
