Arkansas mom delivers 16th child

Yes, it is China.
There's of course exceptions for multiple births, or if your child dies.

I'm not sure how long this policy is in effect, or what kind of impact it has had on the quality of life.

Will have to investigate later.

In the meantime, since I have Reyn's go ahead.....

What are y'all's opinion and speculation on the question I posed above?

I'd love to hear them, and learn.

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My family couldn't afford so many children. My Mom always had her babies in a charity hospital. In the 50s, surgery to prevent pregnancy was available, but she could not pay for it. She requested that the charity hospital perform the surgery each time she went in there, but they always refused, UNTIL AFTER SHE HAD TWELVE. Then they approved the surgery. She told them, "You're too late."

You might be wondering why she didn't use something like abstinance to avoid pregnancy, but, my stepfather was a bully, whom she feared. I cannot imagine her refusing him anything. She only found a backbone after he became violent toward her oldest son, and the last child only two months away from being born. Then she enforced a separation until she could gather her resources and move out of state, the only safe choice she could find.

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I think the idea of a single child family would only make a big diffrence in this society if it was imposed for several generations. I dont think , for example, if it was employed for 20 years we would see a diffrence in society.
Now turn that into 60 years ( average life span shall we say) and you would see major diffrences.
I think everything from social/psychological rules would be diffrent , to pollution levels.

when i have had more coffee and my brain is actually WORKING.. i might elaborate.. ;-)

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edgarblythe wrote:

My family couldn't afford so many children. My Mom always had her babies in a charity hospital. In the 50s, surgery to prevent pregnancy was available, but she could not pay for it. She requested that the charity hospital perform the surgery each time she went in there, but they always refused, UNTIL AFTER SHE HAD TWELVE. Then they approved the surgery. She told them, "You're too late."

You might be wondering why she didn't use something like abstinance to avoid pregnancy, but, my stepfather was a bully, whom she feared. I cannot imagine her refusing him anything. She only found a backbone after he became violent toward her oldest son, and the last child only two months away from being born. Then she enforced a separation until she could gather her resources and move out of state, the only safe choice she could find.

As always, your post really hits a chord with me.....

I don't wonder at all that she didn't use abstinance as a birth control method, it takes two to decide not to tango.

Were these charity hospital owned/affiliated with some church?

What was the reason the hospital would give for refusing? Was it the money? What else?

It pisses me off when institutions like this are so STUPID, STUPID, STUPID.

I have always known I didn't want children.

In my early 20's I asked about getting my tubes tied, and of course was told to forget about it, since I "would change my mind"......

You know what? Sitting here TODAY at 46 years old, several things occur to me.

1. In all these years, I personally have NEVER meet a woman who has been voluntarily sterilized who later regreted it.

2. Well doc, even if I DID change my mind, that's no skin off your nose now, is it? You just give me a release saying I won't sue you later, and I'll sign it.

3. If for some inconceivable (no pun intended) reason I did change my mind later, well, (a) that's something that's my problem, not yours. (b) if I'm changing my mind for some man who won't be with me because I can't have kids, well, I guess I don't want that man that much anyway if he can't take me as I am (c) anyone ever heard of adoption

Oh - re point (a) above. In this situation is not someone elses job to anticipate what my future wants or needs might be, and prevent me from doing something NOW on the premise that you know what's best for me years from now.

I wonder what would happen if this hypothetical situation occured.

A woman asks to be sterilized and if refused, based on the fact she "will change her mind"
What if the woman said "If I'm not sterilized, and have children, I can tell you there is a very high probability I will beat them, neglect them and generally let them know they are not loved or wanted."

That's right up there with other women (I've never had a man say this to me) tell me "oh, you'll change your mind when you have a baby, I felt the same way as you, but now I can't imagine life without little Edgar"

You know what lady, you DON'T feel the same way I do, because if you did, there would be no little Edgar around to imagine being without.

Thank goodness I've never been pregnant, since I have big issues with personally getting an abortion.

whew, that was great, got a cigarette? Laughing

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I was the number two child, born before she decided she was too fertile. So, I was probably totally wanted. The hospital where she went after marrying my step father was, I think, the Fresno County Hospital, but I could be wrong.

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Chai Tea wrote:

Sometimes it sounds like if a countries population goes down, they are losing some kind of a contest.

I don't think the human species is in any danger of going extinct, even if every person who wanted a child gave birth to just one for a generation or two.

Agreed! I don't think it's a bad thing if populations were to decrease. I hear this locally here in regards to the number of kids enrolled within the school system.

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Chai Tea wrote:

What do you think the world as a whole would be like if, for one generation, every woman who wanted a child, for some reason just gave birth to one?

I definitely think it would be a good thing, but I think it would be difficult to achieve this, especially in a free and democratic society like ours. It's somewhat easier in a country like China where the government tends to be heavy-handed in many ways.

For one, if it were legislated, it would be near to impossible to pass such laws. Special interest groups would be lobbying like crazy.

With an open and mobile society, how would you monitor such activity?

It seems to me there needs to be a better way. Perhaps the government could institute tax incentives for families to only have, let's say, 2 children.

I'll have to give this some more thought.....

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Just something to add to the whole 16 kids thing--

There's a family I know with 10 kids, and the mother home schools all of them. Always has and plans to keep it that way. Financially, they aren't well off, but at least the local church helps them out. The mother has recently admitted that the only time she feels happy is when she's pregnant, meaning another baby is soon to be on the way. Maybe this woman with 16 kids feels the same way?

Hah, and also, I heard an interview of a family with lots of kids- the father was very religious and said he wanted to pass on his viewpoints and make sure his voice was represented in the country. Um...I didn't realize that was the point of raising kids?

I don't know, just some random thoughts.

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An author I read frequently in the 1950s postulated that the world population should be cut back to one family per fifty square miles. He didn't spell out the details on how to achieve it, just said human relations would improve immeasurably were it so.

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Sneakybeaky makes sense to me, from some of my observations.

I'm older than many here, not by all so much, but at least a decade, about the same age as Edgar, and I was raised around some families with 10-15 children. They were not in the majority of families, but a lot of families had relatives with many children, if they didn't themselves.

I was raised irish catholic, and birth control, not very well known amongst the folks, was sinful. The whole purpose of sex was to procreate - I was taught not to enjoy it, even in the marriage 'act'. I bring that up once in a while on a2k, strange as it is to me now, and I falsely represent it, since things were starting to change and that was from one particular older nun homeroom teacher. But I was fourteen and believed her.

This background set me up for some special enjoyment later in life, which apparently was a common phenomenon.

There is an architect in my general area who is part of some sect and his girl children all wear long dresses and are nearly ghosts, to me, although someone sophisticated could have said that about me decades ago.

Two of my friends were the oldest of 12 or 14 children... the number varies since some children died of polio or pneumonia or some other devastating thing. Let's see -
one of those oldest girls taught on a reservation for quite a while, eventually married a businessman, bore one child and was stepmother to his one. Let's call them upper middle class now.

The other was unhappy with always caring for the brothers and sisters, buried herself in literature and poetry, never married, works in the big city.

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Sometimes it's a little weird to be here on a2k as just a little older. Things have changed so much. I feel like part relic (heh), almost from another century, and then leaping over not that many years to today, where, I have to say, I don't feel really out of things except for being sidelined by some more regressive/repressive people.

I bring this up as it may be news... this will happen to you too, and fairly fast.

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At age twenty, I and a girl of the same age discussed getting married. We were on a fast track, until she told me she wanted as many children as possible. My ardor cooled thereafter. I still believe she is a fine person and made somebody a wonderful spouse. I have nothing negative to say about extra large families, just didn't want it for myself.

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edgarblythe wrote:

An author I read frequently in the 1950s postulated that the world population should be cut back to one family per fifty square miles. He didn't spell out the details on how to achieve it, just said human relations would improve immeasurably were it so.

That certainly is a different take on the problem. I haven't heard that solution preposed before.

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He said that overcrowding causes people to become desensitized to one another. The space he spoke of would make us happy to see the occasional neighbor.

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ossobuco wrote:

I'm older than many here, not by all so much, but at least a decade, about the same age as Edgar, and I was raised around some families with 10-15 children. They were not in the majority of families, but a lot of families had relatives with many children, if they didn't themselves.

It almost seems to me that in the past, couples decided to have many children knowing that there was a good possibitiy that some were going to die.

I guess it was a different mindset back then. I hate to criticize, but the whole idea seems rather goulish to me.

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edgarblythe wrote:

I have nothing negative to say about extra large families, just didn't want it for myself.

I never wanted more than 2 kids myself.

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Okay, I dont remember if this has been said before, but it seems somewhat irresponsible to have that many children with the world being as overpopulated as it is.

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Hi, thanks for joining in the discussion. Your point was touched on a little ways back.

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Reyn wrote:

ossobuco wrote:
I'm older than many here, not by all so much, but at least a decade, about the same age as Edgar, and I was raised around some families with 10-15 children. They were not in the majority of families, but a lot of families had relatives with many children, if they didn't themselves.

It almost seems to me that in the past, couples decided to have many children knowing that there was a good possibitiy that some were going to die.

I guess it was a different mindset back then. I hate to criticize, but the whole idea seems rather goulish to me.

Absolutely they did die, and when people were working land in a tenant basis that mattered immensely. Immensely, big word for vital.

This wasn't all so long ago on in the US or Canada, as it goes on now wiithin the borders, and goes on for most of the world.... most of the world would not get any perplexity about this.

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What always puzzles me is when you hear and see horrible stories from 3rd world countries. People starving and dying, and yet still they have children that they can't feed or support.

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Arkansas mom delivers 16th child

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