In the 1989 production Saturday's Warrior's the "cool" teens sing about how the only way that the world will survive is by not having any kids because other wise over population wont leave us with the resources we need to feed them and take care of them the way we should. It was common thinking for that day and even though we don't say it specifically it still effects how we feel about children and big families. For class we watch a documentary about the dangers of depopulation. It was a bit of an agenda-mentary to have people start protecting the family unit, but most documentaries are like that because someone has to have a motive to give the money to make it (ex: An Inconvenient Truths wanted us to be more 'green', Obsession wanted people to take terrorism more seriously).
That isn't the point. The point is that all of these thought about how we wouldn't have enough natural resources to sustain the human population were wrong. It was thought that the world could only support 5 Billion people, we have nearly 7 Billion now and more resources than before. Why then would we worry about the population decreasing, you might be thinking, it has been growing you just said so. This is one of the things in which the Documentary points our a flaw in most peoples thinking. Population rates within countries grow because of immigration and living longer and fertility rates. Since the baby boomer generation we have been seeing a lengthening of the human life span globally, but not a growth in fertility (new babies being born to replace the last generation). What does that mean to you? well it may mean nothing, but to the economy that means we don't have enough workers to support the services and labors which the aging population will need and it will make it so that every new person in the world will have to work doubly hard as the one before because they are coming into spaces where there were two people doing the work which they now have to do. It also means to me that we lose that support system. Where to you learn to rely on people, to help them and to share? In the family (yes I know their are exceptions, I am speaking in general)?
As we have strives to be individual and have uniqueness, to run away from traditions we are also running away from some of the stability. When in the history of the world have their not been families? Has there ever been a time that they have fallen apart? In Rome the native Romans stopped having families, they were actually taxed if they didn't have families and children and there are historical records which prove people going into fake marriages and pretending to have children through adoption to duck out of their taxes. What happened to native Romans? There are no more of them. I don't think that the human race will ever become extinct, but life can be miserable with too few as well as too many.
My conclusion is that we aren't going to help the world unless we start strengthening the family. This is economically, enviormentally socially, mentally, emotionally and fundamentally. Strengthening the family means that we support mothers, both those who are stay at home moms and those who need to work. Those moms who need to work though need to look out for the two income trap ( look at Elizabeth Warren - The Two Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke either on you tube or in the book to see why to income families still aren't surviving). To teach people how to appreciated children and see how they help and are not a hindrance and a danger to society. To teacher how a family should have a mother and father, but doesn't always work out that way. To teacher that there is hope, love and happiness in marriage and that children aren't a liability in it.
PS: this is the documentary I watched, check it out
(part 1) http://byutv.org/watch/59b6b917-984a-478f-93b1-521a647779c4/new-economic-reality-demographic-winter-part-1
(part 2)http://byutv.org/watch/b3dfa9f3-6e20-4d64-af96-fbf3fd64670a/new-economic-reality-demographic-winter-part-2
And a web sight that points out the laws of marriage in Rome. It is using it to show the repression of women, but it also shows that I am not making stuff up http://byutv.org/watch/b3dfa9f3-6e20-4d64-af96-fbf3fd64670a/new-economic-reality-demographic-winter-part-2
I love that you brought up Saturday's Warrior in class! Every time we talk about population, that song comes into my head. :) I'm glad I'm not the only one that remembered that! And I'm also glad that people are figuring out that they were wrong about having too many children!
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