Too Many Children?

[la bombe]

I know this is a preservationist forum, so I've seen a lot of people comment about the need to "outbreed" different races or ethnicities. But how many is too many?

Here in the US, there a movement called Quiverfull (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull) and various other Evangelical Christian sects that call for men and women to shun any form of birth control and have as many children as possible.

One of these types of couples are Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, they have a TV show called 19 Kids and Counting.

http://www.starmagazine.com/media/originals/duggars.jpg

She's continued to get pregnant again and again despite two (yes TWO) uterine prolapses and the advice of her doctors that she's harming her body. The family is so large that each child has to schedule individual time with their parents and each older child is responsible for a younger one.

So what I'm wondering is, do you think this sort of family is admirable or irresponsible or something else?

[Electronic God-Man]

If these guys had a huge plot of farmland then it wouldn't be too big of a deal. More farmhands. And the older kids could start off on their own farms...

I don't know much about that family in particular, but having that many kids in the typical family in our society in our day and age would not work well. Now if this were 1830...

It also depends on what exactly you think a family IS and SHOULD DO with and for its members.

[Psychonaut]

I know this is a preservationist forum, so I've seen a lot of people comment about the need to "outbreed" different races or ethnicities.

:tsk:

There are more of us now than there have ever been in the history of our Folk. Playing the numbers game for the sheer sake of trying to keep up with the rabble, who are only able to be so fertile by our financial graces, seems worse than silly. Overpopulation is a very real problem and is not one that I think we should be aiding in the name of trying to be more numerous than the Chinese.


So what I'm wondering is, do you think this sort of family is admirable or irresponsible or something else?

Provided they have the resources to give such a family a good life and that their lifestyle is conducive to having such a family, it seems fine to me. We know what happens when you have that many kids without enough cash.

[poiuytrewq0987]

Yes, I can not imagine myself having nineteen children. My dad's mom had nine children but they lived on a farm so it was not a big of a deal since you usually need farmhands for higher productivity. But to have nineteen children and try to be the modern family? That's overkill.

[Electronic God-Man]

It may be important to point out that "Quiverfull" Christians are generally identified as promoting natalism as a political tactic - "fecundism" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalism).



Fecundism can change the dynamics of a democracy, as the one man, one vote principle favours larger groups over smaller, and so the fecundism is certain to give larger and larger influence to the group which chooses it.

Democracy is a numbers game. This tactic seems to work so long as it is carried out successfully by enough families.

[Curtis24]

More than three.

[la bombe]

If these guys had a huge plot of farmland then it wouldn't be too big of a deal. More farmhands. And the older kids could start off on their own farms...

I don't know much about that family in particular, but having that many kids in the typical family in our society in our day and age would not work well. Now if this were 1830...

It also depends on what exactly you think a family IS and SHOULD DO with and for its members.

Well really 19 kids would be unusual in any era. Obviously the Duggars are seriously fertile and they've been saved by the graces of modern medicine. If this were any other time in history, she probably would've died in childbirth long ago.


:tsk:

There are more of us now than there have ever been in the history of our Folk. Playing the numbers game for the sheer sake of trying to keep up with the rabble, who are only able to be so fertile by our financial graces, seems worse than silly. Overpopulation is a very real problem and is not one that I think we should be aiding in the name of trying to be more numerous than the Chinese.


I totally agree. Overpopulation is a global problem, not just limited to any one ethnic group IMO. I can't imagine any level of sustainability in a place where people are regularly having more than 3, 4, 5, 6 etc kids. Especially in countries that provide any form of welfare services.


Yes, I can not imagine myself having nineteen children. My dad's mom had nine children but they lived on a farm so it was not a big of a deal since you usually need farmhands for higher productivity. But to have nineteen children and try to be the modern family? That's overkill.

If you can't imagine having 19 kids, imagine how it is for a woman. Pregnancy is a huge ordeal and really takes a toll on a woman's body. Doctors recommend waiting at least 1-2 years between pregnancies and I don't think that would be really possible if you were having over 6 or so children.

[Electronic God-Man]

Well really 19 kids would be unusual in any era. Obviously the Duggars are seriously fertile and they've been saved by the graces of modern medicine. If this were any other time in history, she probably would've died in childbirth long ago.

19 kids would definitely be a huge family at any time, but in a previous age it would have been easier to handle. 6 of these kids are 16 and older. They would have moved out by now, which would leave 13 kids still at home. Much more manageable. It may even be that the kids in the middle range of age would have moved out to live with their older brothers and sisters. They would likely all be helping out on the farm until they married or moved away too far from home.

They would have worked it out.

Nowadays if all these kids are all still living at home and just going to school and if the parents have jobs away from home it would be a nightmare.

[la bombe]

Oh BTW, I thought I should mention that the Duggars do not depend on government money. They actually claim to be completely debt free.

[Curtis24]

Its not just a matter of being able to support the children. Studies have shown that younger children generally have lesser IQ than older siblings, and that younger children in large families(4-6 kids) tend to have even lower IQ.

The point is that having too many kids prevents parents from properly raising and nurturing some of them, which causes larger problems for society.

[Bloodeagle]

That is way too many kids. The amount of attention given to each child is negligible. They will probably develop into some fine Evangelical drones!:)
This gives a new twist to, quantity over quality. :eek:

[jerney]

That is way too many kids. The amount of attention given to each child is negligible. They will probably develop into some fine Evangelical drones!:)
This gives a new twist to, quantity over quality. :eek:

I'm not defending them because I think they're weird, but I think that can be said about some parents who have only a few kids too. I know plenty of people were/are raised with very little interaction with one of both of their parents. The father is working constantly or both parents are working full time and the kids are in school all day and/or daycare after and spend maybe a few hours with their parents before bed and that doesn't even mean quality time.

[Bloodeagle]

I'm not defending them because I think they're weird, but I think that can be said about some parents who have only a few kids too. I know plenty of people were/are raised with very little interaction with one of both of their parents. The father is working constantly or both parents are working full time and the kids are in school all day and/or daycare after and spend maybe a few hours with their parents before bed and that doesn't even mean quality time.
For them a few children are too many, but throw 5 more children into this mix and that leaves the children with even less time.

How does this family get by with so many children? I am sure the father works, so how many hours a day does he spend with each child? ;)
If they run a self sufficient lifestyle on a farm then I am sure the children take turns pulling the plow! :p

[Brynhild]

I think in this day and age, it's irresponsible to the extreme. Where does the time go in your devotion and care for them? I admit, I don't know of this family enough as to whether they live in suburbia or in the country, but frankly, it's terribly hard work these days just to have a few. It's expensive, it's physically and emotionally taxing, and she has already been advised that any more children could cause more harm to her body. Foolish.

[Grumpy Cat]

Quality over quantity.

[Debaser11]

Quality over quantity, indeed. But there is no set rule across the board for what constitutes quality over quantity for every set of parents. Some shouldn't have more than two because they are incapable of raising more than two children with the attention they need in addition to being unfit to provide for them economically. It really just depends.

Generally speaking, I would not be opposed to some sort of eugenics (non-race based) litmus tests similar to those proposed by Dr. William Shockley some forty years ago.

It's not a simple matter of people having too many children or not enough children. It's that too many people that shouldn't be having children are able to due to welfare and entitlement programs and too few people that should be having tons of children (because their genes are good and they could properly provide for them) are not due to them having to subsidize the lower, incompetent peoples of society. (These smarter women are also conscious of overpopulation and things of that nature but what they need to understand is that for every child they don't have, they are allowing someone else to fill that space. If the white peoples of the world are content to stop having children to "save the planet," they will only be handing the planet over to the nonwhites who have no such scruples because they are ethnically healthy in spirit.)

I also think a woman who has raised five outstanding children has done more for society than just about any profession you care to name. I'm not for forcing women to stay at home and be housewives, but I wish more would see through how shallow their careers are next to raising children. It's denigrated these days and the joke's on us.

That being said, economic times are tough and many families cannot make it without both parents working. But that's almost by design given what I said earlier about the appropriation of wealth. My mother raised four children and now that we're all grown has a job that she loves outside the home. That's pretty close to the ideal in my eyes.

[SwordoftheVistula]

The Duggars are commercial real estate agents, so they're able to support their family. In their case, they have both quantity and quality, which is excellent.

The 'overpopulation' thing also depends more on quality as opposed to quantity. The problem is with low-IQ people who aren't capable of much more than a hunter-gatherer existence on their own having large families (Africa, etc) that are more than the land can support. Higher IQ-peoples who are capable of producing advanced societies, advanced farming techniques, etc, not so much of a problem.

I think the 'parental time' thing is also a BS argument. I think the reason kids today are so immature well into adulthood is because of constant hand-holding by their parents. The other extreme, of no discipline or rules set, is not good either, but kids who are allowed a degree of independence seem to learn self-reliance and mature faster and become better adjusted adults.

[Magister Eckhart]

I chose the third option but I think it's not necessarily the "ethnic" or "racial" background of the parents so much as it is the situation in which they find themselves. A family unable to support a household should not have that household, and should breed according to ability to support itself. For example, a family of 16 in Sub-Saharan Africa where there are heavy food shortages and no jobs is, simply put, a waste of human life, because most of those children will not be able to grow to adulthood and if they do they will be preventing others from growing to adulthood. In an underdeveloped economic situation (especially in the Coloured World, where Western liberal political and economic systems have been forced down people's throats) to have an excess of children is simply irresponsible on the part of the parents.

At the same time, in a developed situation, such as in Europe, and increase in the native population per capita would necessarily prevent the supplanting of that native population by a foreign population seeking jobs. It would not put an excess strain on the economy except insofar as women would have to include "mother" in their list of potential careers, something that the contemporary Western world frowns upon out of this new suicidal instinct, as well as out of economic necessity - nothing can be considered a "career" or "profession" which does not produce material gain from a liberal perspective.

However, increased comforts often produce a decrease in the willingness to breed amongst couples, largely out of what Lord Sachs has rightly called selfishness and sloth, while in comfortless environments couples breed prolifically because of the lack of comfort and the necessity to sustain their kind in the face of annihilation. Between these two extremes is a healthy family and a healthy society.

[Radojica]

If my material side (read:money) do not stop me, I won't stop before I have at least three children :)

[Radojica]

I'll get you to the US and hook u up with a hot mexican. We need more Serb-Mexican babies.

I don't care. Just give me a fucking job and I'll be sperm bank if needed :bored0:

[Sally]

I am suspicious of the way the Duggars have opened up their family for public consumption. I am also skeptical of the reasons they hold for increasing their family size; I think simply increasing the number of children is their primary goal.

I hold the view that married couples must be open to life, because marriage is ordered to the procreation of offspring. While couples must be open to life, they are also required to provide for the spiritual and material needs of their children. For instance, though the Duggars' children don't appear threadbare or disheveled, I think the parents' reliance on the older children to provide a parental role to younger siblings is troubling.

Too many children? I think it's up to each couple to carefully discern how many children they can support, based on the physical or psychological conditions of the parents and varying external factors.

[la bombe]

I think the 'parental time' thing is also a BS argument. I think the reason kids today are so immature well into adulthood is because of constant hand-holding by their parents. The other extreme, of no discipline or rules set, is not good either, but kids who are allowed a degree of independence seem to learn self-reliance and mature faster and become better adjusted adults.

It's not about "hand-holding". Infants and young children require parental attention, nurturing and guidance for the sake of their physical, mental and emotional development. Children can learn to be independent and self-reliant with a strong parental relationship. However, I am wary of any situation where a young child literally has to schedule blocks of time with their parents.



I think the parents' reliance on the older children to provide a parental role to younger siblings is troubling.


I agree. I think there's no problem with having a strong family unit where tasks are distributed to children, but in this particular household, the children themselves do the bulk of the work and parenting. And not surprisingly, the girls bare most of the responsibility. The older children are responsible for most of the cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing too. They're even in charge of tutoring their younger siblings (the kids are home-schooled).

[antonio]

I know it's a desperate measure, but if another races continue on overcrowding the world, we should give up and do the same, at least the next (sooner or later) demographical catastrophe (maybe not caused but acelerated by climate change) will give nicer cadavres.

[Debaser11]

I'll get you to the US and hook u up with a hot mexican. We need more Serb-Mexican babies.

Those Mexican women you fancy are very much in the minority. Most Mexican women I see are short, fat, and ugly. That being said, there are tons of beautiful Mexican women but their beauty is typically of a different variety than some of these outliers I see posted. I'm not saying this all to burst your bubble (as I think the women you found are indeed attractive as are many pure mestizos in their own right), but you're better off going to Spain or Italy to find the type of look you're after given what you post.

[SwordoftheVistula]

I think the parents' reliance on the older children to provide a parental role to younger siblings is troubling.


the children themselves do the bulk of the work and parenting. And not surprisingly, the girls bare most of the responsibility. The older children are responsible for most of the cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing too. They're even in charge of tutoring their younger siblings (the kids are home-schooled).

What's wrong with that? I think it's an excellent opportunity for the kids to learn responsibility and skills at that age. The skills they learn will help them in raising their own children, and developing responsibility at an early age will help them in the workplace.

[Debaser11]

What makes you think that I think "gettin' some" is some form of fulfillment? Anyone can land a broad.

[la bombe]

What's wrong with that? I think it's an excellent opportunity for the kids to learn responsibility and skills at that age. The skills they learn will help them in raising their own children, and developing responsibility at an early age will help them in the workplace.

Developing responsibility =/= doing most of the parental work. To me it's not fair that they have to spend the majority of their youth parenting their younger siblings because mommy and daddy refuse to stop endangering mommy's life with more and more pregnancies.


Says a bitter white male who hasn't gotten some in a good while.

Plz keep that bullshit out of this thread and insult people elsewhere. Kthnx.

[Austin]

I want three girls and two boys and always have. I have three brothers. I have 47 cousins in all of various ages.

I don't see the problem with it honestly if the parents are willing to accept what goes with it. The argument that "it burdens the system" is bogus anyways as the system is weighed down/abused by minority child-factories anyways.

[Debaser11]

Again, if whites decide not to have children, they are only tacitly agreeing to hand the world over to non-whites who do not have our interests at heart.

[SwordoftheVistula]

Developing responsibility =/= doing most of the parental work. To me it's not fair that they have to spend the majority of their youth parenting their younger siblings because mommy and daddy refuse to stop endangering mommy's life with more and more pregnancies.

Well, it works well for them. They're all quite happy with their lives and well adjusted. So they do chores and play with their siblings? This is good for them.

[Äike]

There can be large normally functioning families.

My great-grandmother had 12 children, she would have had more, if my great-grandfather wouldn't have died early. They lived in a farm, thus all kids had their hands full of work.

[Megrez]

In an urban environment 19 children would be crazy, but in a Blut und Boden lifestyle, that can work...

3 children is for me a good number for the urban lifestyle, even because that fills the capacity of a regular car (the 2 parents plus 3 siblings ;)). But if someday I managed to buy my sítio or chácara, I might consider having half a dozen children or more.

[poiuytrewq0987]

In an urban environment 19 children would be crazy, but in a Blut und Boden lifestyle, that can work...

3 children is for me a good number for the urban lifestyle, even because that fills the capacity of a regular car (the 2 parents plus 3 siblings ;)). But if someday I managed to buy my sítio or chácara, I might consider having half a dozen children or more.

The only time I would ever consider having more than two children is if I'm filthy rich and have time to spare.

[jerney]

The only time I would ever consider having more than two children is if I'm filthy rich and have time to spare.

If you're filthy rich you probably don't have time to spare ;)

[The Lawspeaker]

In an urban environment 19 children would be crazy, but in a Blut und Boden lifestyle, that can work...

3 children is for me a good number for the urban lifestyle, even because that fills the capacity of a regular car (the 2 parents plus 3 siblings ;)). But if someday I managed to buy my sítio or chácara, I might consider having half a dozen children or more.
And even that depends on on what country you call yours. :) I don't just resent the muzzies and other immigrants for having big families but I could seriously strangle many Christian here too for the very same reason.

[Megrez]

And even that depends on on what country you call yours. :) I don't just resent the muzzies and other immigrants for having big families but I could seriously strangle many Christian here too for the very same reason.

Of course :)

Try to expand this movement then:

http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww292/cidades/Cidades%20por%20Estado/Sao%20Paulo/Holambra/2865745206_722895807d_b.jpg
Holambra

http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww292/cidades/Cidades%20por%20Estado/Parana/Holandesa/Castro/Castrolanda/731401140_f0dc1e8a23_b.jpg
Castrolanda

http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww292/cidades/Cidades%20por%20Estado/Sao%20Paulo/Holambra%20II/HolambraII.jpg
Holambra II

http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww292/cidades/Cidades%20por%20Estado/R%20Grande%20do%20Sul/Nao-Me-Toque/1235627675_1259d86248_o-1.jpg
Não-Me-Toque (litterally: Don't-Touch-Me)

Dutch colonies in Brazil.

Credits to Skyscrapercity (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=847912&page=8).

[The Lawspeaker]

Ach.. if we ever lose those immigrant we will just ship the surplus to Brazil. Hell.. you can have all of the surplus from the Bible Belt for all I care. :thumb001:


http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww292/cidades/Cidades%20por%20Estado/R%20Grande%20do%20Sul/Nao-Me-Toque/1235627675_1259d86248_o-1.jpg

"By cross and plow" - they still seem to speak Dutch up there. :eek:

[Megrez]

Well, Dutch immigration to Não-Me-Toque is recent, it started in 1949. Not enough time for the language to fade away, I reckon.

[poiuytrewq0987]

If you're filthy rich you probably don't have time to spare ;)

That's true... :D

[lioness]

All I can think of is the wear and tear on the body. Even if you can offshore baby care to the older siblings, as Mrs. Duggar does, you're still the one going through the nausea (I refuse to call it morning sickness, it does not limit itself to any particular time of day), the back pain, the kid jamming his or her chubby little feet under your ribs during the last weeks of pregnancy. I'm still nursing a bum hip after my third baby and my OB sent me off to an orthopedist to have it checked out. There are some women who feel absolutely wonderful during pregnancy. I'm not one of them and don't think I'm alone.

[la bombe]

All I can think of is the wear and tear on the body. Even if you can offshore baby care to the older siblings, as Mrs. Duggar does, you're still the one going through the nausea (I refuse to call it morning sickness, it does not limit itself to any particular time of day), the back pain, the kid jamming his or her chubby little feet under your ribs during the last weeks of pregnancy. I'm still nursing a bum hip after my third baby and my OB sent me off to an orthopedist to have it checked out. There are some women who feel absolutely wonderful during pregnancy. I'm not one of them and don't think I'm alone.

Well like I said, multiple doctors have told her to stop having children because of the damage she's doing to her body. Which I find irresponsible on her part. I think most people would agree it's more important for her to be alive to raise the children she already has then to keep on making more.

[SwordoftheVistula]

Well, you can't trust them. She is clearly doing quite well enough personally

[Bobby Martnen]

There's no such thing as too many children. I want to have 9 at the bare minimum, but if I lived somewhere were polygamy was allowed, I'd love to have dozens of wives and hundreds of children.

I know that's just an extremely unrealistic fantasy, though.

[Larali]

Having been pregnant twice I can say that it's no walk in the park, however, the "wear and tear" to the body is not such a huge deal IMO. It's over in a few months, and with a healthy lifestyle, women can return to their previous level of fitness, with only a few insignificant changes in most cases.

I think what women often blame on childbirth, such as permanent weight gain, are in many cases due to simply getting older and the stress of child-rearing. When you have a kid or two, it's really hard to focus on your own appearance because there are more important things to worry about.

How many is too many kids is a personal decision and many factors should be taken into account.


There's no such thing as too many children. I want to have 9 at the bare minimum, but if I lived somewhere were polygamy was allowed, I'd love to have dozens of wives and hundreds of children.

I know that's just an extremely unrealistic fantasy, though.

I used to say that too, but reality sinks in at some point and you are like "How many more years of PTA volunteering am I really up for?"

Maybe it's different for guys...