Burgeoning population will require all governments to regulate generation of offspring.
Couples who have multiple children will be taxed to make up for the strain they place upon society.
Breeding will be finally recognized for what it is: A necessary function to replenish the supply of the species, not the God-given end-all and be-all of existence it is seen as now.
Parents will wake up to the fact that many, many people out there do not care at all if you have children. That means that your holier-than-thou attitude about the “rights” you “deserve” because of your decision to propogate will dissolve away in the face of the truth.
I’m not holding my breath, but I’m looking foward to it.
I don’t think you are odd in your choice to not have children, I can imagine our life without children but would rather not. They are the greatest joy in our life.
If you can do what you want, buy what you want, or fly off to Europe on a whim I would say nothing more… life is treating you well. If your car, your furniture, and your stuff are that important to you you might have a problem. It makes you appear to be self centred and materialistic although you might be someone who goes out to do things to help others who are not as fortunate as you. I won’t apologize for expressing my dislike of D.I.N.K.S. who whine.
In old age I hope that we too can have the best of care although the best of care will be secondary if we end up alone. My grandfather was in the hospital before he passed away and the gentlemen next to him was 100 years old. My grandfather had always spoke of his desire to live to be 100 but as he watched this man lying in the next bed for a week he noted that no-one came to visit him. My grandfather had so many visitors that the hospital staff was amazed by their numbers… children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and countless friends. His last words were that he didn’t need to live to be 100 if that meant that there would be no-one left to see him. He felt that he had accomplished enough in 86 years. He passed away shortly after he said these words.
My tax breaks do not account for much when you compare that to the cost of raising a child. If you have no children I don’t think you should pay child related taxes.
Your hubby (and don’t take this the wrong way) should grow a backbone and learn to say “NO”. By agreeing to work overtime he is putting work ahead of his family, namely you. He deserves the same rights as the other people he works with but he is able to make a choice or should at least speak up for himself. I put in more hours at work than anybody, when things need to get done I am the one to do it because I can do it better than most and the single and childless people I work with often have other plans. If I take time off to do things with my family it is because I have banked my overtime or worked on holidays. I have a four day weekend coming due to this. I will spend a great time playing with my kids and playing with my wife. While she is off at school I will take care of the house so that she can relax when she gets home. This weekend will beat the hell out of the nice car or flying off to Europe, I can say this because I used to like you when I didn’t know anything else…
I’ve noticed in this thread statements like ‘we need children’ and ‘without children there is no future.’
I’m trying to take the long view here, not being misanthropic or contentious, but why? Why the incentives and pressures to have children (and if people who have children pay less taxes, the burden shifts to people without, regardless of the expenses the childed incure because of their choice) when it seems like over-crowding is a bigger threat than dying out?
I know some people disagree about over-population, but when I drive through traffic every morning, I have cause to ponder- if there were about 1/2 as many people, things would be much nicer. We wouldn’t need nearly as many resources, there’d be that much more breathing room.
I may have a skewed view of things because I’m also a government worker, and from in here it seems like a lot of jobs exist because of the number of people here, and less people would mean less work in a lot of ways.
Then there’s the tree-hugger in me that thinks the planet would benifit greatly from less people (or even no people). Time will continue without humans. Children are going to live in the future (probably), but they are not THE future.
People are neat. They do neat things, they say neat things, they think neat things. But to insist that those neat things that they do make them more worthy than everything else (and we ARE causing a lot of other creatures’ death by our existence) strikes me as, oh, a bit arrogant.
Again, I don’t hate people; I’m not developing a virus to kill everyone; any suggestions to commit suicide will be ignored. I’m just musing here.
Which I am, actually. I used to volunteer at a battered women’s shelter, delivered Meals-On-Wheels (and hopefully a little joy) to elderly people, volunteered as a teacher’s assistant in a kindergarten class, worked in a soup kitchen, and I sometimes go to nursing homes to read to the residents. So, I get a bit irritated when I’m accused of being selfish and shallow. Since we moved to another city and I got this job, I haven’t been able to volunteer as much as I’d like. I want time to do these things, but I often have to cancel my plans because . . . well, you read my OP.
My car and stuff are not as important to me as you might think. Maybe I should have put it better in my OP because a couple of people have said this to me. I like having nice things, but you can’t take it with you. Rather than buying things, I prefer to take classes, read, go to the theater, or just spend an evening on the sofa with a cup of tea and a good movie on the tube. Going on vactation is another matter. That, I’ll agree, I’m selfish about. I love to travel and see new places, and I’d like to do it more, but . . .
You spoke of your grandfather’s death, surrounded by those he loved, and of the man who was dying alone. This man may have had a dozen children, you know. Trust me on this: I’ve met HUNDREDS of elderly people who have children. Worse than dying alone, they were living alone-- totally isolated lives, with never a visit or call from their children. From what I saw, I would say that having children only *slightly * improves your odds that you won’t have a very lonely old age. One woman that, during my daily deliveries of meals, was so grateful for the few minutes that I could stay and chat with her that she offered to leave everything to me when she died. (I declined.) This woman had three grown sons, one of whom she hadn’t seen since the late seventies.
I don’t have any aprehensions about my old age. I’ll probably spend it as I spent my youth: reading. I don’t fear being alone . . . I sort of enjoy it.
If we dont have kids, there wont be any people to pay taxes and those taxes are what keeps the infrastructure of the country running.
As it stands now, there will be a glut of empty jobs when the boomers retire, and there might not be enough people to fill them… Where I live, there is a big shortage of people for all sorts of fields. THIS is the result of reduced ‘breeding’.
You might plan a stay in a posh nursing home, but who will run the place? Who will they hire when there is such a tiny workforce that people dont have to take menial jobs in nursing homes…? Who will change your diapers? Who will spoon feed you?
Better hope the breeders riase kids who are kind and well adjusted…after all, you will someday be at their mercy.
Several posters have now raised the alarm about overpopulation. Necros even expressed anticipation to see the day when the government will regulate the number of children a couple may have. (Can you say Red China?)
In fact, the whole issue of overpopulation was hashed over pretty thoroughly several months ago when John John raised the issue in his shrill 6 billion? thread.
If you scroll through that thread, you will find actual population projections from divemaster (beginning 10-13-1999 04:07 PM), dhanson (beginning 10-20-1999 04:46 AM), and Akutsukami (beginning 10-20-1999 10:16 AM) that pretty thoroughly debunk the Paul Ehrich and company’s cries of doom. (John John did not want to hear that message, so he kept quoting the Sierra Club and Greenpeace and related groups that don’t much care for science, but Akutsukami was able to pretty thoroughly document the less alarmist postion.)
This is not to say that we do not need to be more careful of the environment or that massive, reckless breeding is a good thing. The current trends, however, indicate that we are not recklessly breeding.
One of the reasons for the trends that population experts have discerned are people such as Lissa and her husband who have voluntarily chosen to limit (sometimes to zero) the number of children they will produce. In the context of this thread, it is true that we will need another generation to support us (providing services, not necessarily finances) in our dotage. However, it is not necessary that every couple reproduce and the hostility between those who have and those who do not have children is simply counterproductive to a peaceful society.
