It seems to me that commenting on how many kids somebody wants to have is incredibly rude. That's their business, not yours.
I think that history will show that you're on the wrong side of this debate; we should be encouraging good parents to have more children, not less. We're facing a demographic crisis, her kids are going to help maintain the social safety net during your retirement.
And adoption is not a panacea: just ask anyone who's trying to adopt children on just how hard it is.
It was utterly rude and a bad way to treat any commenter, but especially a new one who was trying to add something very valuable—a fresh perspective—to this site. If I were anxx and that were my first impression of HN, I'd think [something that probably shouldn't be printed here] and just go away.
Edit after quick glance at comment history: luckily this isn't anxx's first impression of HN, and hopefully she'll be sticking around.
Hey everyone! Thanks for the concerns, I am a new commenter, but like <<gruseom>> hinted, I have been reading HN for years, so this is not my first impression of the community. I also come from a culture where "gee why aren't you married yet" or "why don't you make more kids" are considered "safe" questions to ask to people, so the deleted-but-quoted comment was not offensive to me (but having also lived in the US, I understand that it could have been).
Anyway, just to reply to some of the comments: I mentioned the # of kids to present some reasoning behind the biological limitation to get married at 27. But kids and family are still fairly distant in the future for me, so it can change, I recognize that (i.e. haven't totally boxed myself in).
But let's even look at the more interesting side: men who want families have the OPTION of staying single well into their thirties without limiting the number of people who they could statistically find a match from. A 35 year old man has many more potential marriage partners than a 35 year old woman. And I think that is not going to change until it is as common for a 35 year old woman to date and marry a 5+ years younger man as it is for the reverse case.
I should mention that I am super open minded about these things - I am just observing some realities around me, not commenting on whether they are good or bad.
I think you have a valid point, but my experience is that it is not nearly as rosy a picture for men.
Most women I came across while dating in my early thirties were not open to the idea of a 5+ year difference. Many women in their mid-twenties consider 30 a magical number that some how makes you "too old". Less then four years of age difference seems to be more along the norm that women looked for. I've seen articles that confirm that as well.
That said, it is true that the exceptions for age difference favor men over women. Not sure what could be done to change that, but having a realistic expectation and timeline of your goal will go a lot further to it success then anything else. You realize you may have to hedge your bets to make it happen. Unfortunately many women will not pay attention to that fact until it is too late to make that choice.
I'm glad you were not offended. One thing, I'm 35 and were I not married I cringe at the thought of dating most 24yr old women. I'll say that in the personal cases of older women that married younger men I know, the men had finished school, had a stable career, got a house, and just got fed-up with all the drama of dating women near their age. But again, sample size may be too small.
> In regards to having 5 kids yourself - please reconsider this. If you do want a large family, rather consider adopting a few to round out your natural child birth. Society could do well with more good parents and a few less unwanted children.
I'm horribly offended you would say such a thing to someone directly. It's not your body, it's not your business, and it's silly to assume she hasn't already considered something like this.
It is not a body and personal choices that is under the question, it is sheer number of people and problems it carries. That does make it everybody's business and easily allows for disapproving statements if nothing else. Population density is a problem for the environment and eventually for people themselves, lowering average quality of life both due to deteriorated environment and strain on resources.
The strategy of relying on expansive growth to support the social net is easy, but ultimately unsustainable (not that I have better ideas though).
Naturally overpopulation is controlled by famines and diseases, technology just moves the mark, it doesn't eliminate it yet (there are still famines around). So everything will work out in the end, but it might be rather unpleasant.
Your comment makes talking about population control feel like a taboo (I'm not sure, is it normally considered as such?), and at first one might oppose it on the same principle one would oppose regular bigotry-of-the-day (homophobia, xenophobia and what have you). I think it should be treated instead akin to telling people they can't just dump industrial waste into a river even if the river is on their own property (for a lack of better example...).
Population taboo isn't the problem. The problem is pleading and attempting to dictate to a person what they should and shouldn't do with their personal life. Considering the USA has actually had the fertility rate drop below replacement levels recently, I think it's a bit silly to tell someone to actually have less babies, and at the same time suggest adoption as a (more costly) alternative.
I'd sincerely suggest you reconsider looking into adjusting the quality of life in countries where high birth rate is actually a problem before telling someone how many babies they should or shouldn't have in a country with a fertility rate below replacement levels.
In a world of scarce resources, frankly it is all of our business. The taboo of openly discussing how many kids one chooses to have should be done away with.
