Why are there no male birth control drugs on the market yet?
Thanks for the information, olives! I wasn’t aware of that last method - off I go to check if it’s being researched at all where I live.
Hey, thanks. 
I agree. It’s about time. That said, however, as a woman, I would NEVER trust that the man I was with was taking care of the protection. I don’t mean to be mean or sexist about this. I just mean that if I don’t want to get preggo, I’m the only one who can ensure that I don’t. Sad, but true.
I’d like to see some form of temporary sterlization developed. Something that you can do until you’re ready for kids, and that can be undone when you are ready.
And along these lines, I’m also of the opinion that the people who keep pushing WOMEN to get married aught to be devoting more of their time and energy to getting the MEN to the alter (Assuming both parties actually want to get married). I don’t know too many women who got knocked up and ran out on themselves. Yet the government programs are aimed at women, like they knocked themselves up or something. :rolleyes:
Slight nit-pick; I’d rather that energy be used more to ensure that guys who get to the alter STAY at the alter, as it were.
I see far too many single mothers out there; it’s a situation that stacks up the odds against the children right from the start.
Agreed. Since this is a kind of wish list, let’s go for both!
I think there’s a sizeable difference between kids who grow up in a small family and kids who grow up in a big family. I think the small-family kids are more likely to relate better to adults than to other kids, and are more likely to be more interested in reading and doing well in school than in being popular. I think the break point is between 3 and 4 kids. I’m a small-family kid, and I’m definitely not planning to have any more than 3 kids myself, in the hopes that my kids will be small-family kids.
I think it’s immoral to try to have a child when you know that child will have a much lower material standard of living than you did as a child. I can understand not wanting to have an abortion for that reason, but I really don’t understand people who are in that situation and trying to conceive. I think parents do owe their children a decent material standard of living, which I think means a standard of living at least as good as the parents had growing up.
I’d love to see this, too. Better yet, some form of birth control that would only allow a pregnancy to happen if both partners definitely want a child.
Funny- this from the same government that seems so dead-set against women marrying each other. You’d think that was what a program that tries to get women to get married and ignores men was trying to accomplish.
I think you need to rethink this or else you’re saying that if someone grew up wealthy they can’t have kids in their middle class years.
I do think it’s generally better for them to wait, if possible, and have the kids when they’re better off financially. I think it’s better to have kids later in life when you’re more financially secure- that’s what my parents did, and that’s what Mr. Neville and I are planning to do.
Better off than middle class?
Pretty solid middle class, but they owned their home, which we don’t yet. Dad had a job that wasn’t temporary, which Mr. Neville doesn’t yet (my mom stayed home, which I don’t plan to do).
You said people shouldn’t have kids unless they can offer a better standard of living than they had. But if the parents grew up wealthy, are you saying that they have to be wealthy in order to have children?
Thanks, jsgoddess. I too was wondering why the parents’ own childhood was the standard for comparison.
(And what if one parent was upper-middle class growing up, and the other was lower-middle class, and as adults they’re middle-middle class. Do they get to have kids then?)
(For that matter, why single out a decent material standard of living?)
All this talk of sterilization makes me suspicious of exactly what sort of alterations you’ve got in mind for men… 
Posters in Great Debates are capable of dispassionate discussion without resorting to puerile personal insults.
I only said they were capable, not that they seem to be interested in demonstrating the capacity.
I would feel bad about having kids if I knew I wouldn’t be able to give them the same material standard of living that I had when I was a kid.
I think a decent material standard of living is a necessary but not sufficient condition for someone to have kids. Obviously, the non-material aspects of a standard of living are important, too. But a material standard of living is a lot easier to quantify.
Because I suspect that’s where most people get their idea of what constitutes a reasonable standard of living.
The first half of my childhood was poor. The second half of my childhood was very wealthy. Having lived through both, I can say that there was no difference in the amount of happiness in my life, the amount of love I got from my parents, the amount of support I got in school, the amount of attention I got at home, or anything of the sort.
Eh, I’m never going to be as wealthy as my parents, as I am choosing a career in academia and my parents both chose high-paying professions. I agree with the principle of waiting until I’m financially stable and secure (it’s certainly what I plan to do), but I will never reach my parents’ financial level.