That is his prediction of the future, but what about bringing them up, now, financially and fizically. Is he and his wife capable of doing it? There was this documentary about a Chinese couple in Malaysia, who have fifteen children all together. They kept getting pregnant until her body says other wise and end up with so many children. The man have the same thought too. The more the better.
They live in a small wooden hut and only the husband is working on odd jobs which doesn't pay much and most of the time they live on sweet potatoes and vegetables that they plant outside their house. The man said that his eldest daughter is in her teens and will be getting a job soon to support the family.
I find these rather disturbing. How could a dad asked his daughter to help bring up his children. Then when she grows up, she might fall in love, get married and need to take care of her own family too. Then what.
Yesterday one of my student told me that after form five, he will not be going to college because his mum asked him to find a job fast so that he can help bring up his three younger brother and sister. I wonder how many more family have such thinking too. He also mentioned that actually his parents decided to have him as an only child. By the time he reached ten years old, he wanted someone to play with and asked for brother and sister. His mum then gave birth to a boy and one year after that a pair of twin sister.
By telling him this story does it mean his parents have made it his fault that they have four children now and due to age factor they are retiring soon and the eldest have to support his siblings. Sounds pathetic to me.
Thanks for reading. I just want to get this of my chest. So, what's your story for having kids? Accidently, deliberately or just want to start a family and upgrade yourself to become a mum or dad, just like me.
4 comments:
No, having children just so you could have an easy retirement and old age life is wrong. Of course it will be great if they can still take care of you when you are old but I wouldn't count of depending on my children for my old age. We have to save our own money as well to support ourselves when we get old. I think once they reached the age when they can financially support themselves, it is up to them to do what they want.
I honestly want to have three to four kids. I want a bigger family because I've only got a sister. But because life isn't really easy and I want to give my daughters the best out of what we've got, I temporarily forget about that dream.....and if economy gets worse, I might completely forget about it. :)
I got married so young, but I know how to plan my family, we had our 2nd child only five years after our first born. So just like you, I don't get why couples want too many children more than what they can handle. I don't know, but I believe it has something to do with lack of education.
When your daily life is spent thinking where to get something to eat, you won't think about other problems like how you will be able to send your child to school, buy better clothes, have a decent shelter under your head. The only goal is how to get something for the table everyday. And so more likely, their children will have the same life.
Both my parents, my husband's family and i come from big family of 5 or more siblings. I love the time we get together, so much love and things to share. Comparing to my friends who have only one sibling, I feel blessed to be surrounded by lots of love. I had always wanted to have big family of my own, giving my children the chance to feel how i feel.
However, i got married late and had my first child when my husband was 37. With early retirement age in Malaysia, we just can't afford to have more than 2 kids. We just have to think about the quality of life we should give to our kids. Of course ideally we would like to have both quantity (lots of kids) and quality (of life). However since we can only afford to choose one, we choose quality instead. Some people choose otherwise.
Thanks for sharing your tales, love reading your opinions. Will visit back soon
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