Responsible Parenthood
10.
This is what the pope says about responsible parenthood with regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions. What this suggests is that the prudent parents will generously decide to have more children or stop having sex for fun and using contraceptives. This notion seems ridiculous to me or at least ridiculously outdated. Being an Irish Catholic I have been told all my life "Go out and find a nice Irish girl with child bearing hips, marry her and have lots of babies." Back when this was regular practice (which I am assuming was up until the industrial revolution) there was good reason to have a ton of children. The reason people had children back then was to increase the amount of free labor they had. having eight kids to work the field sounds a lot better than one boy and one girl, which is America's TV family nowadays. Into the industrial revolution the more kids you had the more pay checks you could have streaming in, until child labor laws rolled around.
My position on the issue is that having tons of children because you can is an outdated practice. That said I should add that I would love to have a large family with 4+ children of my own. Like I stated previously, historically it made tons of sense to have children and pass down you ideals, while getting a free hand on the farm. Today there are positives and negatives with having a big family. Some negatives are financial strain, sharing attention and overall stress. Financially, children are one of the biggest investments someone can make, between school, clothes, sports and more there is simply a lot of money going into kids. Sharing attention between many children can be difficult because even in small families older kids get jealous of babies so if you have three babies to worry about you are gonna leave the 10 year old to fend for himself making him feel less important. My final point is that overall, most parents cannot handle a lot of kids. Nowadays both parents are working most the time and each kid is playing a sport and an instrument. Juggling a job and four kids in activities would be a nightmare on someone's schedule. Some positives of having a lot of kids in my opinion is that they can entertain each other, it teaches them to share and work out issues by themselves.
Ever since the invention of the TV I believe that family sizes has gone down substantially. After seeing the stereotypical family of a husband, wife, son and daughter I think the big family has gone down. This could also be related to the 50's ideal of "normalization" and "suburban America." In a worldwide aspect I think that family sizes should go down simply because people are not dying as fast as they used to putting a terrible strain on the planet. Why one boy and one girl is the ideal family puzzles me, but I do remember my dad saying that as a parent you want a daughter just to realize how easy sons are to handle.
I thought this was a well-written post! I, too, talked about the financial burden of having children in my post and maybe that is a good enough reason to use the contraceptive tactics to not have children. Also, you made a great point in talking about how the roles in a family have changed- especially how women are working and not always being the typical stay-at-home mom.
ReplyDeleteI have always wanted a 'big' family when I grow up because I am an only child. But the more I consider financial attributes and my personal career goals, the 'future family' seems to be getting smaller.
Maybe the idea of contraceptives can be boiled down to a simple reason: The pill is cheaper than a child?!
I definitely agree with you. In the age we live in, money usually makes the difference between what you can and can not do (not to say that things should be that way, however). By producing more children than you can financially support may be holding the children back from performing and learning to their full potential. Lack of the proper financial support may hinder their abilities in the future.
ReplyDeleteLack of attention from a parental figure can also contribute to the child's development. Many siblings fighting for attention can take its toll on a child.
I definitely support the desire to have a large family, but only once consideration into the quality of life that the children will experience. If a family is financially able to support an abundance of children, I say go for it! But you wouldn't want to harm your own children if the resources weren't available to you.