Well, if you have twins/trips/quads/whatever, you can't help that, there are always exceptions, and that's one (I actually would LOVE to have twins.) All I'm saying is it's EXTREMELY inconsiderate to KNOWINGLY have LOADS of children, and not even consider the poor children sitting in an orphanage, or the impoverished children from 3rd world countries sitting in a dump that you could give a home and happiness to.
Don't get me wrong, I would like to experience pregnancy and giving birth too. But only once or maybe twice. I prefer to keep the world population down, as it is rising at an alarming rate.

As long as the family is able to sustain itself efficiently and functionally, it dosent matter how many members there are in a household.

I look at the Duggars and i dont see anything wrong with the size of their family. In fact, i really admire and am awed by how well the children seem to be raised and functioning in their family life.

If parents can raise their children well, regardless of the number of children, they should be free to have as many children as they like.

I dislike childern with a passion. To put it lightly. I never want to have childern or get married; for that disision I was mocked and ridiculed. I can't imagine having 17 childern! That would just disturb me. It's terrible that the older childern have to take care of the little ones. The Duggar family needs to realize that they should had only a small family.

I Would Personally Have 3/4 Children. I Have this Whole.. Thing Of What I'd Have..

I Think People Can Have What They Feal Is right, But I Honestly Also Think that Like 20 Kids Is Rediculas. Because The Family's That Usually Do Have Like 19/20 Kids, Live In Small Home's With Like 3 Bedrooms And 1 Bathroom, There You Can See The Kid's Are Probably Sqeeazing Like 10 Kids In Each Room, As The Parents Have Their Own. It's Rediculas, But.. Its Also The Parents Choice. Unless They Are Complete Responsible Parents, I Think Its Tottally Okay. As Long As No One Is Neglecting The Children..

But In My Opinion, 4/5 :screwy: Is My Limit. Although I Want 3/4.

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Kalean.

4 would be my max because three of my friends are very unhappy because one lives in a family of seven and she gets no attention at all she's really unhappy, only her youngest sister and her oldest get attention. My other friend has 4 brothers and 5 sisters and she is so annoyed because her parents don't even act like she's real and my other friend is unhappy constantly because she's emo, lol

I semi agree, I don't want children*ever* either and everyone teases me "Oh you'll change your mind, I bet you'll have like seven!". I think these *huge* families are not a good idea for anyone because how can you spend one on one time with each child when you have 20 of them? They'll just feel like a number and will never have real quality time with their parents. Deviding attention between so many children is just too hard I'd imagine.

Also, you'd have to be quite rich to be able to afford a house where you could all live comfotably. People who live of the state for *no reason* and have tons and tons of kids are just being unfair IMO. I think if you want a big family, five is enough. The problem is, I don't think China's one child policy is a good idea either so I don't know how you'd stop people.

Btw I prefer Macbeth to Romeo and Julliet too I'm too cynical for love stories, especially love stories between young teens where they get married almost straight after meeting!

Currently, I'm not really planning on having any... I have enough responsibility on my hands as it is, and I plan on keeping it that way. :\

But I don't really think there should be much of a limit to this when it comes to people in general. My mom has about 6 siblings, which leaves me with a lot of cousins, aunts, and uncles. It's really cool to visit them and share interests - without them, I'd get really lonely, really fast. It's nice to have family that can call you up at anytime and just talk.

me and my mom wached the dugger speical a few nights ago and seriously they all remind me of clones of eachother.. they all where the same clothes they all seem to have the same views and oppions.. they kinda scare me a little bit. if they were in public or even private school i think they'd be a little more individual. do we know if any of them have any friends? they obv dont go to anysort of socical gatherings with out there parents.. and as much as i hate to say this... all the girls look and dress like someone i would talk shit about on a daily basis..

i think 7 kids would be a limit for me... i dont want any more then4 children but if i do happen to have more.. i would get my tubes tied after the seventh no doubt

i think children are repulsive, pointless and an economic burden

If you and your husband/wife choose to have 1 or 2 kids of 10 or 12 is completely their choice. Who are we to say such a number is too many? As long as there is love and of course the means to take care of them.

I understand that everyone is entitled to their opinion, however did you say this just to troll or to show your ignorance? Or do you think you, as a person, missed that life stage entirely?

..You were a child once. I understand thats JUST your opinion though. And if someone can't afford to have a child, it's not hard to stop yourself getting pregnant. If someone thinks their replusive and pointless; don't have a baby, it's seriously not that hard, is it?. :/


Personally I think the parents have the right to choose how many children they want, whether it's 0 or 10. It's their children knowone else has to worry about them. Aslong as they take proper care of them and havn't abandoned them, they can have all the children they want.

While I don't necessarily disagree with that sentiment, anyone who decides adamantly they're going to have ten children, and is absolutely certain they can provide for all ten of those into adulthood should probably have his or her head checked. I am, of course, speaking of actually giving birth to ten children, not adoption.

Giving that person the benefit of the doubt--that they certainly won't have a change of heart (which is entirely likely--unfortunately, they can't very well undo the children), what if they were to die? People die all the time. What about if they became incapacitated, through no fault of their own, or lost their job security otherwise? The burden of ten children is very much different than the burden of four or two.

Furthermore, while it might seem very honorable to one person specifically, having ten children is rather selfish in the grander scheme of things--the planet is overburdened. Freshwater, food, living space--these are all things that are not luxuries, and are very much in shortage. Having ten children will certainly make things worse--perhaps not just one person, but if a hundred or a million people should decide as much...

In short, anyone who wants to have ten children, and think they can adequately prepare for circumstances, is probably (but not certainly) delusional. They are being far more responsible in every respect if they endeavor to adopt ten children--and there are no shortages of orphans in this world, that much is readily apparent. But adding ten additional people is, unfortunately, a burden no one can fully grasp the total implications of, especially in a resource-gluttony society like much of the First World.

In short, I agree with Doddi--though I will concede, perhaps one or two children would be manageable (over the course of two parents' lifetimes anyway).

Saying 'don't have kids because something bad might happen' is a pretty pointless statement. By that arguement, you should never go outside. Something bad might happen. In fact, by the arguement that bad things might happen later on, you'd never end up doing anything.

People do die all the time, but living as though you're going to drop dead at any second is a pretty poor way of living life. You can never prepare for every eventuality, and you'll drive yourself mad trying.

As for ten children, I personally know a couple who have precisely that amount of children. They are, to a kid, well adapted, well cared for and pleasent to be around. Both parents are incredibly sane, and affluent enough to support their family. I doubt very much that they are delusional, and they seem to be doing a damned good job of raising their family.

To use the expression, "the exception that proves the rule". Even if they are fantastic parents, one can scientifically calculate the environmental and resource impact a family that large will make. It IS very much real, and nothing can change that--if they are willing to ignore it, that's well within their rights. I personally think that mindset is repugnant, since it's a willingness to deliberatly harm the environment and humans as a whole, but that's only my position. They might be the best parents who ever lived, but in sixty years, the total effect on the environment will be noticeable (unless they are taking extreme precautions--in which case, it'll still be more than if they had, say, only four children). If everyone decided to follow their example, it would be outright catastrophic.

Besides, arguing that something bad may happen in the future and that fear should affect your judgment isn't "pointless"--it's called "caution", and is the basis for almost as much human behavior as the sex drive. By that argument, telling someone, "You shouldn't consistently drive twenty miles (or in the case of ten children, sixty miles) over the speed limit, at all times," is a foolish argument, not because you'll incur a fine, but because there's the potential to kill yourself.

The notion that "you should reconsider having ten children" is not born out of some paranoid fear that the world is running out of space--it's born out of the accepted knowledge that human consumption of resources can be calculated base on their geographic origin, economic standing, and general habits. "You shouldn't go outside" is not, unless your in a violent hurricane or demilitarized zone.

Though I suppose personal responsibility shouldn't get in the way of happiness.

There's a difference between driving 20 miles over the speed limit and having children. 20 miles over the speed limit and there's a very definite cause and effect factor in play. Having children, on the other hand, does not affect the likelihood of your dropping dead tomorrow. This is somewhat more like the decision to drive a car full stop. Everyone who drives a car contributes to environmental pollution. There are however, better solutions than banning all cars.

I never at any point said 'Everyone should have 10 children'. I was however, refuting your point that everyone who has 10 children is necessarily insane by providing an example of people who I can guarantee, are not insane. People are allowed to have children.

As for environmental impact, you're right. There is an environmental impact. There's an environmental impact for everything, and if one family has 10 kids, it's far less of an impact than say, governments not passing legislation to control carbon emissions, the continued reliance on fossil fuels and so on. From an environmental perspective, there are much more efficient solutions than restricting the number of children born in developed nations. For that matter, what about developing nations, where the birth rate tends to be far higher and the controls on environmental factors far lower?


The fact is, the vast majority of developed nations have families with 1, 2 or 3 children. There are some that buck the trend, but the idea that this is somehow frequent is quite absurd. The impact of restricting family sizes, I think would be significantly less than you're assuming, unless it was done world wide, and even there, there are better battles to fight. There are better things for people in general to fight for to ensure the survival of the human race and this planet.

The more children a woman has, the older she is, the greater the risk of infant mortality, miscarriage or death of the mother in childbirth.

You're right--except I'm not worried so much about one family. The harsh reality is that the individual (or individual family) really doesn't amount to much more than part of a statistical effect. I'm worried about a thousand families, or a hundred thousand families--in which case, the effect can be just as damning as a government's failure to implement tighter regulations, if not more.

This is especially true in the First World, and to a lesser extent what was considered the Second World. The idea of a mother having ten children in Tibet is sad, in my opinion, but the environmental impact can't compare to a mother having four children in the United States or Canada. Ten is, I'm sorry, just catastrophic by comparison. And it only gets worse when we consider it on the practical scale--a community of families or a population of them. The simple reality is that we (myself included) consume a ridiculously disproportionate share of the world's limited resources.

Now, obviously, there are other ways to reduce this. I own a car, but I only drive it twice a month at most, and last fueled it up back in July. I've slightly less than a half a tank left. In retrospect, I could very easily do without it. I try and recycle. I don't have a lawn to water, because I live in an apartment. I do my best to keep my utility costs down, both for practical reasons and because I'm aware of how much electricity Americans consume. But the impact of a large families in the United States just dwarfs anything else--even if they do their best to reduce that impact. It's the very nature of the material way of life in the First World that we all experience. I can say with some confidence that a large, middle-class American family consumes more resources than any of its counterpart in the world by a large margin (here, I am not including cases such as royalty, for the same reason I'm not including the American high-class).

There's also the issue of women's health--something I'm not qualified to explain, but I don't think it takes a genius to realize the sort of health implications that can come from having ten children, back to back (as though there's another option, given the age when most women have their first child in North America), versus having two or having no children. There are medical, not environmental, reason doctors recommend against women having a very high number of children, or having a child at a certain age. This brings up a deeper, more complex issue of responsibility (the risk of the child at birth), that I'll let someone else delve into.

Personally, I want 3 children. But if I have more, or less, that's fine too. I would like to have my (and my boyfriend's) biological children, but if we can't we would certainly try to adopt some. But that is just my decision (and of course, at some point I might change my mind - I don't plan on having children for about 5-10 years yet). But then again, if I got pregnant tomorrow, I would keep the baby, and he/she would be wanted, just unplanned.
If people want 18, or more, children, fine, so long as they can support them. In the UK, as far as I can make out, the main worry about overpopulation comes from people immigrating into the UK, not from high birth rates. In fact, as the population is aging (ie a higher proportion of the population are older people) from an economic point of view, people having plenty of babies would be helpful! As then, in years to come, there will be more people around to support retired people (through taxes etc), as currently people are prediciting that a lack of people of working age in the future may cause financial problems for the country as a whole.

But as I said, all this is just my opinion (with the odd bit of socio-economics thrown in for good measure - without any statistics to back it up though!). :-D

I think a person should only have as many kids as they can support and actually raise.

The OP mentioned the Duggers. They can support their 18 kids...or 17 with 1 on the way. Idk I lose track. Plus they do basically everything as a family. I dont think the older kids are having to play mommy and daddy. All the kids are learning responsibility, which I think generally lacks in kids in America.

I don't have a problem with people having a lot of kids, IF they can support them both financially and emotionally. I don't really see how a family can have so many children and be working to support them financially, and have enough time for every single child. But if they can they can then I don't see a reason why they shouldn't have that many.
I remember reading about a family (quite possibly it was the Duggers) who had so many children they had to schedule time on a rota in the kitchen to be able to spend time with their parents, and I think that's wrong. I have to say, I'd hate having to try to get the bathroom in the morning in that house!
I personally want two or three children.

I think its up to the person. Some people have a lot of children because they simply love kids and want to be surrounded by them. Some people have lots of children for all the wrong reasons. Tax benefits etc. Personally i only want 2 but i say that now i am pregnant with my first so i could change my mind and want more.

It's a fact that if women (and men) keep having 2+ children, our 6+ billion people in the world will fly up to 9+ billion by 2050. That'll be certainly more production of fields for food and suburbs and destruction of wildlife. It's nice to have children, they are our legacy.

If every woman from here on out were to have one child in all of the world, the population would remarkably go down by at least half in 2050. The world pumps out 80 MILLION babies every year, 10 MILLION of those in China alone. In America, it's roughly 400,000.

If you don't believe me, read The World Without Us, or google it.

*Edit:

As for us, the elderly are not dying. With technology and medicine expanding lives, by 2030 there'll be an estimated 1 in 5 would be elderly. Not only that, but growing.

I think one shouldn't have more children than they can not only finance, but also lavish attention on, educate, and basically take good care of. Wether that is one child or one dozen children. Although I don't understand why one would want to have so many children. What are the reasons? Surely we passed the age where you needed plenty of (grand)children to provide for you when you become old?