How many kids do you want, and is it immoral to have more than 2 kids? Bonus: what names?

[Dexiro]

I wouldn't say it's immoral, as long as the parents are confident that they can raise them well and can actually afford it.

There's a fair amount of parents these days that only have 1 kid and can't afford it or be bothered to do a good job, that's bad enough.

 

[Comte de Frou Frou]

Wait, so a bunch of people are saying that it's not immoral as long as you can afford to raise your kids. That doesn't address the long-term overpopulation problem though, why not just adopt kids from abroad since that's where most of the overpopulation is happening? That way, you can reduce the number of children brought up in poverty while also having your 'own'.

adopting from abroad doesn't solve an overpopulation issue, it just moves the figures around a little bit. To solve overpopulation you need to encourage family planning and contraception.

Adopting instead of concieving reduces the number of people in the world by 1, so it does help.

No because the family you are adopting from will still continue to have more children, it prelongs the inevitable and I doubt enough people would abstain from having their own to adopt from another country for it to help enough.

 

[Plurralbles]

I think one should adopt in order to have more than 2. I mean, it's a huge drain on society to have orphans and after two, you have your genes going towards the future, so why not help out someone else?
And from your own damn country! Foreign adoption is RETARDED.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

Foreign adoption is RETARDED.

Why? Relative poverty within a Western country (the type of countries most likely to have adoptive parents) is a lot less extreme than between Western states and developing countries. At the same time, developing countries have too high a birth rate and suffer from infrastructural problems related to overpopulation, while Western countries are always whining about declining birth rates and population aging. Foreign adoption is anything *but* retarded. It's completely logical.

 

[Tarkand]

None. I'm not having children. I've made a promise to myself, and even if it comes between not having children and losing the person I love, I'm still not having children.

A few reasons, number 1, I'd be a terrible father. I'm a very selfish person, and I couldn't handle children. They'd end up growing up quite mentally fucked.
Number 2, I don't like children. They annoy the shit out of me. I can't be in a room with anyone under 12, or I have to leave.
Number 3, the world is fucked. Seriously, we're all going to die, and quite quickly too. Probably not in our lifetime, but certainly soon. I wouldn't want my children or my childrens children to go through that kind of pain.
Number 4, which kind of contradicts number 3, is that the only way we can save this planet is if a lot of us don't have children. Having children is one of the worst things you can do to the environment, overpopulation is killing the planet.

So there, that's my reasons.

I think it is immoral to have more than 2 kids, given how bad everything is. I wouldn't restrict it, and you're welcome to it if you really want to, but make sure you consider the ramifications of it before you have them.

Pretty much agree with everything in there.

I don't like kids, and I don't think that just because their mine, I'll suddenly love them.

 

[Bosola]

I don't buy the neo-Malthusian argument. Sure, in certain places in the world, like China, an excess of children could cause problems, but in the West, having extra children is not really going to strain resources. It won't sap energy and food from the third world, because those are economic and distribution issues, not down to Americans and Europeans nabbing most of the world food supply.

I disagree with Malthusians, because

- people have been saying it for over two hundred years, since the clergyman Malthus insisted, during the industrial revolution, that the increased birth rate of the working classes would seed the apocalypse
- it's usually infused with class-ism and racism. We only want those awful brown and poor people to stop reproducing, y'see. Malthus himself used it to promote a, how can I put this - less than egalitarian philosophy.
- the fact that actual land usage is still pretty meagre in many parts of the world
- the fact that the environmental impact of nations doesn't really relate to their population or birthrate
- impossibility of actually halting human reproduction
- and it fails to take into account how increased population seeds improved production. Population pushes the development of agricultural technology, not the other way around
- the fact that the increasingly gentrified India and China are heading towards a larger middle class, that traditionally avoids large families

 

[FightThePower]

I don't like kids. Actually, I despise them. Every single thing about them. Wankers.

So no, I don't want kids. I wouldn't say it's immoral to have more than two kids, but considering the fact that a woman who does everything to help the envirnoment will still increase her carbon footprint fourty times by having just two kids, I don't really think it's a good idea.

 

[|CoD|Sonic]

I have 2 Children. One who is 2 Years and 2 Months old, and the other will be 1 week old tomorrow morning. We decided a while ago we would only have 2 Kids if we got a boy and a girl, well my newborn was a boy so in a few more years we will try one more time but no more than 3, Honestly having more than 3 Kids is just...Well...Selfish. A. and B. ...three is gonna be expensive enough as it is lol.

By the way Their Names are Aiden, (The 2 Year old Aiden means Little Fire) ..and The new Born is Kai (Which means Sea)

 

[Little Duck]

Whenever a woman looks at a baby and goes "awwww I want one", I look her dead in the eye and go "Really, I want 12. Let's get started." Kill the conversation dead.

But in all seriousness, I'd be extatic with 4 or 5. Even though we're not meant to go past 2 at the moment due to food and water strains. I don't see it as a vagina, more as a passageway of life.

 

[Shockolate]

I do not think I will ever have kids. Mainly because I'm a loner and have to no to be anything otherwise.

But I DO know what I would name them if they were boys, although only up to three, because three is enough.

Robert Chase (surname)
Adam Malakai (surname)
Trevor Gilgamesh (surname)

I'm a fan of silly middle names.

 

[Mechsoap]

i want to have 1-3 kids

 

[natster43]

I would want 2 kids in the future myself, but having more is not really immoral. One thing I don't get is having 5 or more kids though. How could any couple take care of that many kids.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

I don't buy the neo-Malthusian argument. Sure, in certain places in the world, like China, an excess of children could cause problems, but in the West, having extra children is not really going to strain resources. It won't sap energy and food from the third world, because those are economic and distribution issues, not down to Americans and Europeans nabbing most of the world food supply.

But global populations are ultimately linked. For example, overpopulation in China is having very real implications for Russia's Far East. Russia is suffering from a declining population because of both low birth rates and a low life expectancy. In it's Eastern parts, the population was never large and is shrinking even faster. Across the border, the Chinese population is massive and the long-term demographics suggest that sooner or later there will be an immigration problem there.

Another example: overpopulation is a global problem because of environmental issues. The earth has a limited carrying capacity and it doesn't really matter how the global population is distributed. Global warming, resource scarcity, pollution etc will have effects worldwide even in countries not contributing to the overpopulation problem. Food is only one of the issues tied to overpopulation and in fact its one of the least important ones.

 

[HTID Raver]

ehhh more than two kids isint unethical to me, but it just seems like too much. i think 2 is enough.

anyways yeah, two kids a boy and a girl...

cant think of any names but after listing to eleanor rigby, i think it would be intresting ot have girl names that, ive never seen any one with that name before lol

 

[Colonel Alzheimer's]

To bring another person into this messed up reality without that person's consent (fetuses can't give consent) is immoral. Therefore, having any kids is immoral.

So our mere existence is immoral? You think that instead of surviving as a species, we just... shouldn't?

 

[Bosola]

But global populations are ultimately linked. For example, overpopulation in China is having very real implications for Russia's Far East. Russia is suffering from a declining population because of both low birth rates and a low life expectancy. In it's Eastern parts, the population was never large and is shrinking even faster. Across the border, the Chinese population is massive and the long-term demographics suggest that sooner or later there will be an immigration problem there.

Whilst it's reasonable to expect some 'spillover', most of these people who actually see large population increases will be very poor. That suggests that they won't tend to move far, so will still be reliant on food that can be distributed to that section of the world. The bottleneck here is the wealth of Russia / China, not the amount of children most of us in the UK or US have.

Another example: overpopulation is a global problem because of environmental issues. The earth has a limited carrying capacity and it doesn't really matter how the global population is distributed.

But the UN projects that, even with only current agricultural technologies, the amount of food the earth will be able to yield will still outstrip the global population even in the 2040s.

Global warming, resource scarcity, pollution etc...

The issue here is that the 7 children per head in Mali will not have the same environmental impact as the two children per head in the US.

will have effects worldwide even in countries not contributing to the overpopulation problem. Food is only one of the issues tied to overpopulation and in fact its one of the least important ones.

Which other issues are you thinking about? Crowding? Very little of Earth's land is actually used by humans. Water? Water issues relate more to distribution, again - for instance, in the Middle East, there are shortages of water, seeded not by population but by the damming and redirection of rivers.

There's no doubt that there is a limited number of human beings the planet can support. But I'm unconvinced that we are approaching those limits, or that the number of children we have in the West needs be curtailed.

 

[DividedUnity]

I will never have children because my father issues have caused me to believe I would be the same if I ever had children and i wouldnt do that to anyone.

 

[mcgroobber]

i dont know how many kids i want, but i do think that a large family is immoral, it leads to the destruction of the environment and blah blah whatever