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15 kids!!! wow
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Mr. Anderson
Moderator emeritus
That's just nuts! And the father's name is Jim Bob....😉
I have one brother, I can't even imagine what it would be like to have that many siblings....
D
I have one brother, I can't even imagine what it would be like to have that many siblings....
D
My Grandma was 1 of 15 children, mostly gals. It used to be REALLY fun when all of them would get together. But of course they did what all old women do when they get together....GOSSIP! MAN o' MAN could they gossip and they would cut the fool! I think it'd be really awesome to be in a HUGE family.
Raid
macrumors 68020
Damn all those kids have names that start with 'J'! They are getting dangerously close to moving on to another letter of the alphabet! I hope these kids aren't living in poverty, I can only imagine how expensive it would be to raise them all (just think, what if they all went to college!). 😉
MongoTheGeek
macrumors 68040
Since I am from that area I thought I would chime in on the topic. Well I went to college up in Fayetteville and got my BSEE and MSEE (GO HOGS) and those guys are the weirdest family I have ever encountered. They preach all of this family values stuff and then tell you that you are evil if you have an outside opinion. And on top of that, the father was a state representative who used his kids as an election tool. To gain media hype and all. They are all a bunch of slime balls if you ask me. Also, if you ask other people in that area about them they will pretty much tell you the same thing.
GorillaPaws
macrumors 6502a
MacFan26 said:
I can't agree more. Our world is quickly approaching it's natural population limit and I personally feel that having an excessive amount of children is not only selfish but a burden on society as well. Sorry to all of those with big families; I'm not trying to offend anyone, but to me it seems wrong to have such large families. We read an article that compared the growing population to the life-boat problem on the Titanic. At a certain point (with current growth rates some say 50-200 years), the world will not be able to sustain the current population and the most prosperous nations will have to decide who to let into their lifeboat. There is a maximum capacity for each boat and countries will have to literally tell dying people, sorry, can't get in because if you do it will sink and kill us all (the article does a much better job explaining it, I'm just trying (poorly) to summarize it). This being the case, while having large families may be fun and exciting and cool, I feel it's moraly reprehensible. If you want a large family, adopt one (or several) of the millions of starving orphans world-wide. Sorry for the moralizing, but my sister told me some pretty horrific stories about an orphanage in Nicaragua that she visited for a while, so I admit that I'm somewhat biased.
I have a friend with 9 children and no plans to stop. He works, his wife doesn't. She home-schools the kids, and they tutor public school kids in the neighborhood. They shop at Save-A-Lot (cheap, generic groceries) and make everything from scratch. Besides my friends uniforms and occasional free t-shirts from work, they make all of their own clothes. They recycle everything. They put what they can in a compost pile, to help their garden where they grow their own veggies. No television. They occassionally use the computers at the library. They finally broke down and got a phone. Believe it or not, all the cheap budgeting is not because they are broke. The budgeting is why they are not broke. They paid cash for their home and both minivans. (big-time savers) The man barely has any taxes taken from his paycheck with all the child exemptions! I'd say he's doing quite well for a man who moved here from Mexico less than ten years ago. I wouldn't want that many kids, but he says it will be their job to support him and his wife as they age. That's why he doesn't participate in the 401k.
Overpopulation
The world is overpopulated, but that's just an average. It's more complex than that. Most developed countries have low birth rates, for example, Japan's is 1.0 births per women, well under replacement value. And most developing countries have high birth rates, like India's is 3 births per woman. They're on track to surpass China in population in thirty or forty years. As a rule, countries with more professional, educated, empowered women have fewer kids. So if you want to fight overpopulation, have more kids, train them to be teachers, and then send them overseas. 🙂
Back on topic, yeah, 15 kids is nuts, but I can't fault the guy - he's raising them, and they'll all probably grow up to be happy, productive members of society, working, shopping, paying taxes, etc. That's a net economic benefit to society, and who knows, if they help support him in retirement, it may be a net economic benefit to him also!
The world is overpopulated, but that's just an average. It's more complex than that. Most developed countries have low birth rates, for example, Japan's is 1.0 births per women, well under replacement value. And most developing countries have high birth rates, like India's is 3 births per woman. They're on track to surpass China in population in thirty or forty years. As a rule, countries with more professional, educated, empowered women have fewer kids. So if you want to fight overpopulation, have more kids, train them to be teachers, and then send them overseas. 🙂
Back on topic, yeah, 15 kids is nuts, but I can't fault the guy - he's raising them, and they'll all probably grow up to be happy, productive members of society, working, shopping, paying taxes, etc. That's a net economic benefit to society, and who knows, if they help support him in retirement, it may be a net economic benefit to him also!
rueyeet
macrumors 65816
Some people just really, really love children. My mom would have probably had a brood of at least five if fibroid tumors and a hysterectomy hadn't made me her last. But people who want large families really do overlook the fact (even if they're aware of it) that large families are an artifact of an agricultural society with high infant mortality in which you HAD to have as many children as possible just to grow the population. Now more than two children is no longer societally necessary, and is environmentally unsound to boot.MacFan26 said:
Me, I can't stand kids, can't imagine having to deal with so much as one--so I'll be doing my part for zero population growth. 😛
speaking of overpopulation, ive actually just wrtoe a research paper on it. interesting topic really. the highest populated country in the world is India with over 1.2 billion people. 😱 It almost just as much as China, but keep in mind how small India is compared to China. I wonder how much more can this planet can take?
"The world would most likely end in a traffic jam..."
"The world would most likely end in a traffic jam..."
BaDBoY said:
the thing is, most of China's population doesn't live in vast expanses that are Tibet and Xinjian (the Western half), they live in the densely packed coastal region.
oh yes, and india's birthrate has fallen under 3.