Pregnancy and Overpopulation

According to the BabyCenter's 'Cost of Raising a Child Calculator', the total cost of raising a child born in 2005, is $496,840. (This estimate reflects a two-parent household of 38k to 64K a year.) When a family has multiple children, the family's money is divided by each child/paying for each member's needs. The income of the parent(s) must also be spent on incidentals, and the needs of the parents themselves... So my question becomes one of morality: In a capitalist society, does having more children force the parents of larger families to take jobs they normally wouldn't (ex: working for the Department of Defense, or Lockheed Martin) to "make ends meet" once the choice has been made to have so many kids?

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I asked the driver of a lifted Ford Excursion (8,800 lbs, stock, without passengers, maybe 5 miles to the gallon, if that) why he owns his vehicle. I pointed out that we are in an oil war, and that the draft will be re-instated soon because people like himself chose to drive vehicles that waste gasoline, rather than conserve it. His answer to me was "I have five kids", which I thought was quite stupid. First, I asked why he doesn't drive a mini-van, since HIS children would be the ones suffering in the future from a war-torn world, and polluted air. Then I asked why on earth he had so many kids... and he just looked at me dumbfounded! I honestly don't think he had ever thought about anything more than that he looked cool driving that pile of garbage; not his children's future or the state of the planet that they would live on. My question is: Why don't SUV drivers know what their impact on society actually IS? Why don't they understand they are making the world a much worse place due to their bad decisions?

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Did you actually finish reading the previous question, or did you skip it?

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When two people have a child, that child represents one individual replacing both parents, and is called negative population growth. When both parents die, only ONE person will be left. When two people have six children, the place starts to look like a rabbit cage... Those people will die, but if their six each have six because they 'like' large families, pretty soon their won't be enough food to feed them all in a few generations. Two becomes six becomes thirty-six... (Kind of like bacteria breeding in a petri dish, it's all about doubling time!) Not to mention that if two people have one child, that child can live in the house they owned, but as soon as more children come into the picture, more houses are needed, meaning that since the borders of the ocean will remain, houses will become smaller and smaller. Opps! Concequently, the urban sprawl encroaching on our farmland is basically due to people having more and more children to fill some emptyness inside themselves (or whatever) and not paying attention to the fact that the earth is filling up. Do we really want as many people in the US as China or India has? I don't really think we do, since all marketing points to wanting to "escape" the fast pace of society, and go be "left alone" in some remote area (which just won't happen if we keep poppin' 'em out)...

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Each child born in a family represents water being consumed, since we consist mainly of water... (and we shower, and we wash our clothes, and our pretty little cars, etc.), meaning that if water wars become a situation (they will soon) then parents may have to "choose a child" that they want to live, because there simply won't be enough water. Wouldn't it be easier if we all just had one child per family? Having to choose would be simply awful!

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Less is more-having less mouths to feed equals more to go around... And during depressions there are less children born due to cost and limited resources. Our population growth of recent years has slowed due to our current depression, yet I know of families of three, four and five still being born, (even though there is no farm to work in an apartment and usually maids and gardners abound in suburbia!) How do these people not think of the Quality Of Life their children will lead in the future? It will be different than now, by all means, I had a completely different childhood than my parents! Are these people really ONLY thinking of right now, and how 'neat' it will be to have a baby? (Like everyone and their mom haven't done it already? What makes "you" so special?!) It's not like they're doing anything 'new' or 'different'! Are these people stupid or crazy?

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