Forum home Article comments

Talkback: Mums should only have two children, says professor

«1

Replies

  • Exactly Audrey,for every person I know with more than 2 I know 2 people who will NEVER have any,so therefore a balance.

    It is individual choice how many children you have.
  • What will it come to next eh! People cant dictate to us how many children we have, like you say some prefer not to have children, some cant have children and others would like many! Some dont have any choice how many they have as have triplets!
  • Funny thing this but I don't agree.

    The UK teenage pregnancy rate is so high in this country cos kids are not educated.We don't talk about sex,we have sex education classes too little too late,and basically they're a load of pants.Yes they teach them about safe sex,although obviously not very well,but what do they teach girls about self respect,love,and what sex is meant to be about.Sex to SOME teenagers goes hand in hand with a bottle of 20/20 and spliff and some dodgy bloke she thinks'll do for now,just so she can do it cos the other girls have.What chance does safe sex stand there.I walked down our high street today and I was old enough to be the mother of those girls with the prams.Tackle those problems separately.They are nothing to do with a loving couple in a stable relationship who make an EDUCATED choice to have as many children as they choose.

    This guy's little catchphrase "youthquake" doesn't apply to our country.Our population is the opposite,with the largest group being the oldies.

    While we have 7 children,neither of my brothers or one of my sisters has any,or will have any.Three friends who I went to college with have also chosen to have none,as has a friend I worked with.Arthur's three best friends are all only children.So there's a balance.There always will be.

    Unless this guy actually IS God,I take it he's not,he needs to respect a family's right to choose,whether that be for religious ,moral or other reasons or simply because this is the life they choose.
  • This is just like China's One Child Policy. It is a ridiculous idea which violates human rights. What about women who give birthto triplets etc? And what exactly do they propose to do to women who dare to have more than two children? I appreciate that there are women out there who have numerous children just to claim more benefits but there are many many more who have children simply because they just want to be a mum.



    We do have a very high rate of teenage pregnancy but our age of consent is 16 so it is inevitable that teenagers are going to get pregnant. We need better sex education in schools. It shouldn;t just be about sex. It needs to focus more on relationships and the emotional side of things and be presented in a mature way. When i was at school (16 yrs ago) sex education consisted of a morning every now and then having a giggle at illustrations of what goes where, a quick mention about AIDS and a quick lesson on how to put a condom on a banana. I also think that sex eductaion should not be taught until children are well into secondary school. I don't agree with sex education from the age of 5. They don't understand it at that age and I think part of the reason that our teenage pregnancy rate is so high is because children have sex, sex, sex rammed down their throats daily. It is on TV, it is on music videos, it is in pop songs, it is in newspapers, magazines and the internet. There is no getting away from it. Why can't we just let children be children?



    I am an only child and it is something I have always hated and resented. All i ever wanted was a brother or sister. When I was a child all my friends had brothers and sisters and all my cousins had brothers or sisters. I felt like the odd one out all the time and I also felt very lonely sometimes. It was also humiliating. One day at school we were asked to write about our brother and sisters and when I explained to the teacher that I didn't have any (I was the only only child in the class) I was told to write about my pet dog. To me siblings are something so special if I had any I would feel like the luckiest person alive. I also swore that my daughter will not be the only child I have. I intend to have at least another two. A big family is all I've ever wanted.
  • i think it is far for the goverment to say that they will only support the first 2 children in a family but not to dictate how many we should have, a lady that i knew kept having children as it kept her on benefits, she had a nice 4 bed house all paid for along with her council tax,  and could afford the full sky package, fags and alcohol, while i was struggling working part time and looking after my 1 child it didnt seem fair,

    i now have 2 children, and last year i wanted a third but we couldnt afford it, even though we would have reused everything as long as it was another girl!

    we need to think of finances before having other children

  • We pride ourselves on being a multicultural society yet to introduce a 2 child per family rule would be against the beliefs of many of the cultures and faiths that make up that society. 

  • Yes I think the governement should stop child benefit/child tax credits/childcare after the first two/three children. Except in circumstances of multiple births etc... and both/all three children should receive the same amount of child benefit.



    There has got to be a cut off point somewhere to stop the scroungers just breeding for cash and making the kids look after themselves :(
  • Oh but know I dont think anyone can dictate to us how many children we can have! I happen to be stopping at two. but that is my choice not because some muppet told me to!
  • Have as many children as you want so long as you and I mean you and not the government can afford to bring them up.

  • This is a ridiculous statement to make, you can't always plan how many children you are going to have. For example I have a little girl and am now pregnant with twins, I should not be penalised for this it's called nature.
  • I have almost 10 children. We are not on a particularly high wage and do get working tax credits, however we also home educate, which saves £32,000 a year! We take responsibility for our children seriously.

    It is a personal choice, I think discriminating to say that those on lower incomes shouldn't have more. At the end of the day, it is our children that will be the tax payers of tomorrow. They seem to forget that. If everyone stopped having children, or had no more than 2, we would have too many elderly, and not enough younger to pay taxes and care for them.

    I find it curious that with any other group this would be branded as extreme discrimination.

  • As Someone who was told by doctors that they would never have children I happened to fall pregnant at 18. I loved my baby so much and was so happy to have the little bundle of joy that I thought I would never have that I really felt I needed to try for a bigger family while I could as my chances of carrying another baby full term were growing slimmer by the minute and my maternal instincts are very strong. I am now 25 and luckily have four beautiful children whom are my world.



    I may never physically be able to to have another baby and I am pleased I have made the most of my chances while I am young. Unfortunately this has meant relying on benefits alot but I am now studying the second year of my degree course and hope that before long I will be solely providing for my family though I fear I will always have to fall back on working tax credits.



    What I'm trying to say is that everyone has different reasons for having children and I do not believe that the government has the right to say how many children a woman can have. However, parents should be encouraged and educated that working towards providing for the children you have is morally the right thing to do and brings dignity and sets a good example for our children.
  • I totally agree with Kerry.  I have a son and twin girls.  I was only ever going to have two children but wasn't given any choice in the matter.  Should I be penalised for this?
  • I think it has opened a whole can of worms. The reason because of this, is mainly because the newspapers and such have been oversensationalising stories about large families. Stating that they are receiving in excess of £100,000 i n benefits. This is the exception rather than the norm. The focus should be more like, are we being reponsible for our children and taking care of them. There are many rich families who do not bother interacting with their children and hardly see them, due to work. You can't say the poorer families on tax credits are all irresponsible. commitments . It is always wrong not to want to work for a living, however the most important is the way we bring our children up, and care for them.

    I fear if the biggest factor in having children was confined to whether or not we would be completely free of any benefits, including child benefits and tax credits, then Having children would be restricted to only those on the highest incomes.

  • I do not get any bebefits.  My husband works full time, and is home at the weekends, then I work at the weekends, and he looks after the 4 children.
  • It was only a couple of years ago, the government was panicking that we didnt have enough children, it is life cycle, hence his love affair with new immigrants, i am sure i heard somewhere that China now have too many boys and not enough girls (or the other way around) stop messing with nature. In my mums day 5 children was average (even small) and they didnt have a benefit system. And how is a small country like Britain going to tip the balance of the world ??? get a grip !



    The government NEEDS to create more affordable housing, the cost of private rental for a normal 3 bed house is now nearly a months wage, and the cost of a house in 8 years has rocketed, no one blinks an eye now at a 1/4 million pounds for a small three bed semi ???
  • I think families should have as many children as they would like. But, they need to make sure that they can afford them before they make the decision to try.

    I am one of six children and before each child my parents assessed whether they had enough room and money to have another.

    If people are financially and emotionally responsible for their children how can anyone object?

    If the responsibility was on the parents to fully provide for their children it would be nice to think that people would think with their heads as well as their hearts so that they were fully aware of their future childrens well-being.

    This man is talking about the planets resources though so it is a question of balance across the population. If every single woman of child bearing age in this country actually did have 2 children this would increase our population, as at the moment the average no. children per family is just under 2!
  • does anyone else think that since this government came into power they are gettin like a dictatorship-it reminds me of hitler-lets make all the people in the country pay-to pay bk the stupid deficitt and take all the benefits -tell them not to hav moer than two kids-work later and privitise health service!-all these things are things they said they wudnt do b4 the election-i think they are rotten dictating a*******s- i hate them and will vote labour again as soon as there s a general election-they are goin t destroy our whole system and i know its goin t be the children that suffer in end-they only care bout money they dont get the concept of love want and the human need t have a family
  • This is crazy! Who has the right to tell people how to live if their lives are not affecting others?

    I had my 1st son at 17 and had 2 by 20. I worked full time and paid my bills and single handedly supported my children. Their dad was long gone!

    I met my husband at 25 and we've had 3 children of our own. My husband has served in the Army, he works hard and we have always paid our way.

    If he became unemployed I wouldn't expect for our children not to be supported for a short time by the state just because we had 5 children.

    We've paid our national insurance and taken nothing. We don't take drugs, gamble, drink etc. we would use the money to feed our children.
    Some single people out there claim benefits for decades and squander it in the pub, bookies etc and no-one's having a go at them!!

    The joke is, if the whole system in this country was better, I may not have had children and become a single parent in my teenage years.

    I was raised by this country, I spent 15 years in care and most girls in care have at least 1 child in their teens (often 2 or 3, apparently due to craving someone to love and to be loved.
    Most care leavers never work and many end up in prison and often they have MANY children who in turn end up in care and the cycle continues.

    If this country educated children properly and gave them a sense of self belief, we may not have so many of the social issues that are raised time and time again, and this has nothing to do with couples having more than 2 children as it's usually weighed out by those that have none.

    In fact the majority of the people I know that have 2+ children were teenage mums, then mums again in their 20's or 30's (like myself) If I had been raised better and with proper values and not been a teen mum, I probably wouldn't have 5 children right now.

    They should address the REAL issues and acknowledge where the problems are coming from...
  • i agree wi everything u just said-and as i say they are actin like a dictatorship-i had two in my late teens and early twenties then two more in late twwenties amd like u am married and we pay our taxes and my husband is self employed and gets taxed loads so i too wud expect government t help for a bit if he temporilaly didn t hav job-if u pay tax its a back up for rainy days-most folk wud get anither job cos they want to so kt wudnt be 4 long
Sign In or Register to comment.