Selfsufficientish.com

Controversial warning!!!

I am listening to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC radio 2 just now and they are covering the topic of giving money to Africa... they have a spokesperson from Actionaid talking about the starving babies and that mothers are having to put their children to bed aching in hunger now... here comes the controversial bit.

I only had a child when I knew we were able to provide for her, put food on the table and keep her warm. If we ever decide to have another child it will only happen when I know I can feed them and keep them warm.
Now, I know I am lucky enough that, should the worst happen, the state will provide for me and my child/ children but I wouldn't have had a child if I didn't believe that the odds were stacked in our favour. (likelihood of stable employment, no overpowering debts, housing security, etc)

Why do people continue to have children that they cannot feed (I am talking on a family level)

There are obvious cases when mothers do not have the choice but most do, most parents do.

I really don't understand this, it happens in every country I know, but why??? In the animal kingdom less babies are born when food is scarce, why is this not working in humans?

It happened in this country too until not so long ago. Basically, it's an insurance policy. Mum and Dad are one day going to be old and incapable of working to feed themselves. The only people likely to want to look after them are their children. But infant mortality is high. So, the insurance policy - if you want to be looked after in old age (should you get that far) than have as many children as possible to increase your own welfare chances.

It sounds glib, but it's pecisely the reason for it.

Well said lovely... I agree with you ... but the trouble MKG is that don't look after the elders as they are all depended on charities ...

Sex is actually the answer. Men like to have sex in order to feel like men, and if there's no pleasant means of contraception around when they feel like having sex, then they won't think too hard about the consequences. I think you're probably projecting our culture onto another one, and ignoring some of the differing realities.

And when one talks about Africa, it does no good at all to look at what individuals do and why they do it as if that was what causes the big picture. Ask first how western nations screwed things up there, and are still screwing them up. Yes, there was savagery there before we got there, but nothing like on the scale since.

Giving money to Africa will do no good at all until the governments stop the various agricultural, trade, arms and 'aid' policies that they know damn well cause these disasters in the first place.

because the urge to have children is strong

because not everyone has access to birth control

because birth control does not always work

because you only have one life and you sometimes have to take the opportunity

but mostly

because things change. we might feel you can provide for our child, but we all dont know whats around the corner.

Rod in Japan wrote:Sex is actually the answer. Men like to have sex in order to feel like men, and if there's no pleasant means of contraception around when they feel like having sex, then they won't think too hard about the consequences. I think you're probably projecting our culture onto another one, and ignoring some of the differing realities.

I would like to put more faith in mankind than to think that they have no capability of control when they sex is on the cards.

That point of view also implies that every women is forced to have sex whenever their husband demands which would be loosely transposed that most women are raped whenever a man feels like sex... which I don't believe is the case (in most situations, though I am not denying that it happens, a lot)

In the families in question children are prized commodities not just an accidents of sex, these people want more children.

But it also follows that the poorest people who have to work 13 hours a day to put food in their bellies, etc have little time to have the sex that results in having children. So richer people have more time to have sex.

I know various charities try to get contraception to the masses and it obviously doesn't help with the catholic church being so strongly opposed.


I am not just talking about Africa, I am also talking about Britain and America so I am afraid that the transposing of culture isn't the answer either.

I think MKG is closer to the truth, but it still doesn't really follow since the more children you have the bigger the chance that none of you will survive to later life, surely single healthy offspring are more important that 6 malnurished offspring.


(crashed with reds post... which is probably the answer)

I would go with Rod - unfortunately, that's the way how things are in a lot of countries. Men don't feel like men unless they have a lot of unprotected sex. They would "lose face" if they had to admit to their peers that their wives insist on protection... And a woman without a man is still seen as "sub-human" in many countries, so not getting married (or a partner) isn't an option, either.

All species naturally follow natures demand to procreate to enable the species to survive, and humans as species, are no different. It is too easy to look and judge the rest of humanity through western eyes and to forget that a vast majority of the worlds population are unable to read, and write and have very little knowledge of a world outside their own small community. So to try and answer your question Annpan, I think we should only ask it of the the small number the folk that understand the question. Rod, Ina, you are right in many case's but again, you can only apply it to those that understand the reason for the question.

There are elements of truth in most of these.

In countries with high infant mortality rates and no social welfare (pensions etc) there's little option but having many children to ensure you'll be looked after when no longer able to be productive in your own right. Life expectancies increase in these countries, usually because of increased industrialisation and western involvement, but social custom and practice takes much longer to change -> more children living longer.

Add to that the climate change induced huge swings in climatic conditions, western countries drain on developing countries resources, soil erosion due to intensive practices etc -> more kids living longer with fewer means of providing for them. Previously the system would have been self-regulating due to the high mortality rate.

I think the male need to spread seed is another symptom of slower changing social mores, than any predetermined norm, but it certainly doesn't help.

oldfella wrote:Rod, Ina, you are right in many case's but again, you can only apply it to those that understand the reason for the question.

Oh, most understand the reason alright... From what I hear (I used to have quite a lot to do with people who work in developing countries), the men know fine what problems arise from having too many children, but as it is traditionally the job of the women to find food for the kids, what should they care?! All they care about is being known as "proper" men. And yes, I know, this doesn't go for all countries... But it seems to be particularly African countries that suffer from this culture, and it was about African children this post was originally started.

Annpan wrote:In the animal kingdom less babies are born when food is scarce, why is this not working in humans?

small point here, but most animals produce young that are independent of the parent animals within a year. So a food shortage will only prevent them from breeding over that short period of time. This is true also of humans and other animals that have a long period of offspring dependency. A woman is very unlikely to concieve if she is malnourished. However, if she gives birth during a period of plenty and a period of lack happens after this then the child will die but it won't have stopped he concieving in the first place.

After reading this through I realise it makes little sense (I'm going a bit stircrazy reading up on plant science at the mo) but hopefully someone knows what I mean (I just hope it's me).

Annpan wrote:

Rod in Japan wrote:Sex is actually the answer. Men like to have sex in order to feel like men, and if there's no pleasant means of contraception around when they feel like having sex, then they won't think too hard about the consequences. I think you're probably projecting our culture onto another one, and ignoring some of the differing realities.

.........

That point of view also implies that every women is forced to have sex whenever their husband demands which would be loosely transposed that most women are raped whenever a man feels like sex... which I don't believe is the case (in most situations, though I am not denying that it happens, a lot)

Depends on you definition of rape, to us rape is something understood as a brutal forceful act because we understand and believe that we have the right to say no. If you are brought up in a culture where the right of a man to have sex with his wife whenever he feels like it is beyond questioning then there is no concept of giving or witholding consent, there may be no force or no resistance, hence children will be born whether they are desired or beneficial or there is food to feed them or not.

As Rod pointed out the reasons for starving children in Africa are multiple, and to lay blame at the feet of mothers is rather betraying the sisterhood, careful where you're heading with your logic AnnPan, own this path lies much neo-fascist nonsense. The fact that this conversation arose out of a program on Radio 2 quelle surprise, it is the most worst middle englander mindless drivel that the licence fee pay was ever made to cough up for. Oh and Steve Wright is a tw@t.

...........corruption, colonialism, culture and crisis!
I think we are just as responsible as those who are having the children, for the dreadful state they find themselves in.
Sadly - we are made to feel that their is little we can do about it ( there is not much as an individual I guess ) but some of the major charities do campaign against these conditions. Christian Aid is active at present - and work hard to combat poverty. (I usually help them although I have no religious stance). Oxfam too do more than run charity shops. There will be many other campaigners - but these are the two I know.
There are two worlds, even within those affected countries - one for the rich and one for the poor. When you join the rich group , it seems the poor one is forgotten.
In the poor group, women are at the bottom of the pile - choice of family planning is an unlikely hope.

invisiblepiper wrote: In the poor group, women are at the bottom of the pile - choice of family planning is an unlikely hope.

And they are usually so busy trying to scrape enough food together to feed their family, that they don't have time to think about anything else, anyway... Only very few, generally, have the advantage of an education, as that's not deemed necessary for women.

Not so long ago that wasn't any different in Europe, either. My sister (17 years older than me) was refused the chance to get higher education, although she would have made a brilliant business manager; and I was told when I was 10 or 11 that I should shut up, as I was only a girl... I don't even blame my father for that - he had been brought up to think like that, and he did change his views when he got older.

Having worked with the UN, in Africa and Bangladesh I must agree with Invisablepiper that we in the west bear a great deal of blame for the problems in Africa,and for that matter for many other countries world wide.
Today with this financial crisis in so ways, maybe a blessing in disguise for some of the indigenous people around the world, as listening to the radio this morning regarding illegal logging that is decimating Samosa, the timber being used to manufacture furniture in China for the markets in the west, leaving land unsuitable for for cultivation for years to come and the water sorces polluted. So maybe if because of the crisis we in the West cannot afford new funiture and the market dries up then maybe, just maybe, if WE learn the lesson, the people of Samosa, will Survive not not become another memory of an extinct race.

I apoligise for putting this rant in what may seem to be the wrong section of the forum but I feel very strongly about mans inhumantiy to man, and how lighty we in the west look at the rest of the world and believe in OUR rights but not the rights of others.

Eddy