According to the United Nations Populations Fund, as of this Monday, there are 7 Billion people on this little earth. If you have been watching any new channel you will have seen the many stories revolving around this. Some of the ones that caught my attention are:
Are there really 7 billion of us?
To name a few.
So, how many people can the earth sustain? A quick search gave me results from 1 million to 15 billion so basically we don’t know but it doesn’t seem like we’re headed in the right direction.
The solution? God knows. Limit the population by limiting how many children someone can have? Would that be everywhere in the world? I mean one of the least populated countries in the world is New Zealand. So should they have the same restrictions as China? The most populated country in the world?
Maybe it should be up to the leaders of these countries to decide what’s best for each country? Then we have to go into dictating to people how many children they can have… that’s a tricky one. They do it in China although I am not sure to what extent and if the ‘1 child per family’ is a suggestion or is mandatory.
The funny thing is that the more modern countries who would be more environmentally responsible tend to have a much lower birthrate than 3rd world countries that are less capable of dealing with big populations. This is probably down to beliefs and cultures. It’s also probably because modern medical facilities and services were not available as far back as they were for 1st world countries so there was a higher rate of infant mortality.
In Saudi birth control is very common. You don’t even need a prescription for one and, as far as I have seen and experienced, has never really been an issue with our religious scholars. Having said that there are still some young men, in their 20’s, who have 1 or 2 wives and at least 6 children and no idea how they are going to raise them all.
Granted this isn’t the norm but we are not a culture that links having children to financial hardship. You have children, regardless of the fact that you might not have enough money to be able to give them a proper childhood. “Allah Yifrijha” meaning God will give us a way.
A lot of the young mothers I know have between 2 and 4 children and are making a conscious decision not to have any more. To someone from the states or the UK it probably seems like a lot to have 4 children by the age of 32 which is how old I will be by the time I have my little bambino.
My mother had 4 as well by my age and 6 by the age of 36. The average size of children women of my mother’s generation had were 6. One of my aunts had 10 children, her youngest was born a few months before her eldest grandchild. It is getting lower but not by a huge amount. And I am only counting the people I know.
More working mothers are deciding to have fewer children either because of financial restrictions or because they simply see two children as the perfect number. They can give them more attention and time than 3 or 4 or more. We have decided we want 4 because it’s a nice full house without it being too overwhelming. Also, i can’t imagine having a baby in diapers when I am 37 or 38 years old.
How do your cultures and families view birth control? What is the average size of family where you live? how many children would you want to have?
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