I'm currently working on a child development certification right now and as a result I've been watching a lot of Supernanny. A recent episode I watched had me really pondering over a question that I've been mulling over for a while:
Is there a point where continuing to conceive more children is itself a form of child abuse? Is it morally wrong for parents to have large numbers of children?
This probably sounds crazy, so I want to lay out the scenario in that Supernanny episode that made me really want to discuss this question.
Jo visits the Chapman family that consists of two married parents and five children (two teenage daughters and three toddlers.) The parents work all day, often leaving early in the morning and coming back in the evening, sometimes not until eight or later at night. The two teen girls are left alone with the three toddlers all day and aren't even attending high school, explicitly because the parents want the girls home to care for their brothers.
The girls are supposed to be doing online classes, but find it impossible to get any work done because of the long list of daily housework that the parents demand (mopping, dusting, dishes, cooking three meals for the house, etc) on top of essentially raising three toddlers who, being toddlers, require constant supervision. One of the daughters is under so much anxiety from falling behind in school, trying to please their parents demands, and trying to wrangler three children, that she actually feints on camera and is sent to the hospital.
This is an extreme example, but there's several elements that I see in average families every day:
1) parents who continue to keep producing more children despite having several already, never staying home with them and having no plans to stay home, essentially putting all of the burden of actually raising and interacting with the new child(ren) on someone else.
2) Forcing a teenage sibling to put aside their health, school and social life on a regular basis so that they can care for increasingly more and more younger siblings.(I don't mean average babysitting, but using the teen as a regular form of childcare.)
3) Insisting on having a large family even though they know that they don't have the time or means to care for them.
Even assuming that one or both parents stayed home, there's a point where I believe that having four, five, six or more children means that each individual child isn't getting their needs met. When attention is split between so many children it's easy for them to be deprived of the one-on-one time they need with parents, and for their emotional needs to be neglected.
So I'm curious what others think. Is it morally wrong for people to produce large numbers of children?
Edited by Zanthype on Nov 21st 2018 at 6:31:45 AM
"In 900 years of time and space I've never met anyone who wasn't important."
I'm currently working on a child development certification right now and as a result I've been watching a lot of Supernanny. A recent episode I watched had me really pondering over a question that I've been mulling over for a while:
Is there a point where continuing to conceive more children is itself a form of child abuse? Is it morally wrong for parents to have large numbers of children?
This probably sounds crazy, so I want to lay out the scenario in that Supernanny episode that made me really want to discuss this question.
Jo visits the Chapman family that consists of two married parents and five children (two teenage daughters and three toddlers.) The parents work all day, often leaving early in the morning and coming back in the evening, sometimes not until eight or later at night. The two teen girls are left alone with the three toddlers all day and aren't even attending high school, explicitly because the parents want the girls home to care for their brothers. The girls are supposed to be doing online classes, but find it impossible to get any work done because of the long list of daily housework that the parents demand (mopping, dusting, dishes, cooking three meals for the house, etc) on top of essentially raising three toddlers who, being toddlers, require constant supervision. One of the daughters is under so much anxiety from falling behind in school, trying to please their parents demands, and trying to wrangler three children, that she actually feints on camera and is sent to the hospital.
This is an extreme example, but there's several elements that I see in average families every day:
1) parents who continue to keep producing more children despite having several already, never staying home with them and having no plans to stay home, essentially putting all of the burden of actually raising and interacting with the new child(ren) on someone else.
2) Forcing a teenage sibling to put aside their health, school and social life on a regular basis so that they can care for increasingly more and more younger siblings.(I don't mean average babysitting, but using the teen as a regular form of childcare.)
3) Insisting on having a large family even though they know that they don't have the time or means to care for them.
Even assuming that one or both parents stayed home, there's a point where I believe that having four, five, six or more children means that each individual child isn't getting their needs met. When attention is split between so many children it's easy for them to be deprived of the one-on-one time they need with parents, and for their emotional needs to be neglected.
So I'm curious what others think. Is it morally wrong for people to produce large numbers of children?
Edited by Zanthype on Nov 21st 2018 at 6:31:45 AM
"In 900 years of time and space I've never met anyone who wasn't important."