A child is a pleasure of a house because he or she creates untold joy to his or her parents. Unfortunately, Child-rearing is very pricey in these days. According to the U.S. survey, middle-income parent spend $234,900 for a child until he or she turns to 17, and that does not include for college tuition cost. That huge amount of money is a very big dilemma for the couples whether they should become parents or not. The parents not only have that financial responsibility, but also require sacrificing their time and freedom for the offspring with love, care and attention. Since a lot of couples do not want to take these risks of responsibilities, they rather like to be childfree couples or only one child parents if they desperately want to own family lives.
There are several causes for the fact that more couples want one child or none lately. The very first reason that more couples say “no” to become parents is because they are freedom lovers. They do not want to mess up their independent and romantic couple lives with kids running and crying around them. For example, in the article from Los Angeles Time written by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, Angela and Jake Myers have been married for almost four years, enjoy their childless couple life. Angela said, “We are so happy, we have so much freedom in our lives right now, we're afraid of what bringing a child into the mix of things would do.” Being two-people-family life is very accustomed to Angela and Jake so that it might have been difficult for them to become a successful parent.
Moreover, if couples do not have any child, they will have more time for each other. They can travel together, share interests, watch sports, and so on, while people with kids take turns to babysit or eat. As a r...
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...out be true to say that the fewer kids they have, the long honeymoon they have, the less economic responsibility they have to take care of, and the more luxurious life they will have.
Work Cited
CHERYL LU-LIEN, T. A. N. "Examining Parenthood's Dilemma; Society * Couples in
Increasing Numbers are Opting Not to have Children, but Face Pressure from Family Members and Issues in the Workplace." Los Angeles Times: 0. Nov 10 2000. ProQuest. Web. 9 Feb. 2014 .
Hsu, Tiffany. "Cost of Raising Children Climbs; U.S. Survey Finds it Costs $234,900 to Rear a
Youngster from Birth through the Age of 17." Los Angeles Times. Jun 16 2012. ProQuest. Web. 9 Feb. 2014 .
Pierson, David. "One-Child Policy Becomes no-Child Choice; China's Demographic Time Bomb
Gets Dicier as Couples Put Off Or Shun Parenthood." Los Angeles Times. Sep 03 2011. ProQuest. Web. 9 Feb. 2014 .
“We keep putting marriage off. In 1960, the median age of first marriage in the U.S. was 23 for men and 20 for women; today it is 28 and 26. Today, a smaller proportion of American women in their early 30s are married than at any other point since the 1950s if not earlier”. People are also marrying less which is going to change the amount of men left in the dating/marriage pool when women are finally ready to start considering marriage. Even more than that men and marriage aren’t necessarily needed for to have kids anymore. As said in the article more than 40% of children are born to single mothers. Of course not all women who fall into that category chose it like to. The idea of a “nuclear family” is slowly becoming obsolete. “That gays and lesbians (married or single) and older women are also having children, via adoption or in vitro fertilization—has helped shrink the stigma against single
In this book, the editor made analysis on large representative surveys on children’s family structure. She used these surveys to distinguish families that have single parents, parents who were never married, divorced or separated parents, and remarried parents. According to her study, children are less likely to finish high school or college and keep their job. Also, without fathers they will more likely become adolescent parents. Furthermore, fathers are less likely to share incomes with their children when they do not live with their children.
Around the 1950’s, the media perpetuated the idea of the picturesque family unit; children made the shift from being a necessary evil to a symbol of status. Children were no longer meant to help sustain the family, so much as meant to be trophies of the parents’ competentness. Children became an outlet for parents to mold and live through vicariously: the more perfect your child was, the better parent you were. The problem is not that people want to have children, but that many cannot afford to take care of their spawn. Whether you are a young mother utilizing the assistance of government programs such as WIC or simply writing off your children on your taxes, you are making use of government incentive to procreate. Reproduction is completely natural; however, once backed by government incentive, the motivations for having children can take an unnatural turn. Children may be a symbol of love and unity, but it has expanded beyond the family unit. Many children have become the responsibility of the Unite...
...eliefs of the type of relationship they should have. It is not taken into serious account that love is the influential factor for couples to have in order for them to not only enjoy the beauty of having a child but having a child with that other person who also took part in creating that life.
From everyday experiences to recent news stories, I have come across many issues that large families face in America. Poverty and child abuse are top issues in the United States. For this reason, I believe the government should start regulating the number of children people can have based on financial stability, place of residence, criminal history, and other qualifications. The ideal American family image is one that provides parents that gracefully accommodate and nurture their children with open arms, financial cohesion, warm meals, and a roof over their heads. Although one might think these characteristics are a given, they are not as common as the general population widely assumes. There are many individuals deemed “unfit parents” who, despite complaints and adequate resources, continue to reproduce, putting children’s lives at stake. This brings up the question at hand: should up and coming parents be required to obtain a license to start a family?
The article that I researched regarding this area explores the reasons why women may be taking the steps to start a family without marriage, whether these pregnancies are planned or unplanned. The study was conducted using a couple of different methods including the National Survey of Family Growth and a Discrete-Time Hazard Model. “The National Survey of Family Growth is a periodic, nationally representative fertility survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics.
According to a similar article in Forbes by Erica Brown, "there are 5 million single, childless women in their 30s in the U.S., three times as many as in their mothers' generation"(Brown). This is caused in most part by the increasing number of women in the work force. More and more women are opting for higher education and more intense careers, and choose to hold off on having a family. About twenty percent of women wait until after the age of thirty five to have children (Wadyka).
There are many parents who believes that children make their lives more difficult and decrease their life happiness. In “Kids and Happiness” Newsweek. Com state that parents think that after the first child their marital satisfaction decrease and when the last child leave the house their marital satisfaction increased . Also, patients believe that they become more happier and have more time for them to rest. Of course that children has influences in the parents life, because it’s more responsibility and it makes them worry bout their children happiness and forgetting the happiness of their lives, but children still important for every parents to complete their lives.
Teitelbaum, Michael S., Jay Winter. “Low Fertility Rates - Just a Phase?” YaleGlobal Online. Yale Global, 9 Jul. 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.
There are many couples that choose to not have children. One popular reason is choice of preference. Some call it “selfish” because why would a couple not want to create another generation? Many couples have said that children are expensive, and will take time away from their hectic schedules. This statement is quite true because when you have a child, it isn’t about your wants and needs.
Women these days are having children for all the worng reasons for example they think that having a child is the answer to saving there relationship as if the baby is a bandage. Everything you do will effect your child. I interviewed Ruweyda Jama single mother of two, she agreed with my point and stated “After having my second child I set my life to making them both happy, but I couldn’t do it without being
Thompson, Victoria . "The Disadvantages of Being a Single Parent & Raising a Child." Everyday Life.
Reviewing single-parent families, the challenges seem to outweigh the advantages. Since a majority of single parents are mothers, all the burdens normally carried out by two people fall upon women (Lauer, 2012). Raising a child with both parents is a hard enough task, but being on your own creates issues within issues, no matter what your race or
Another cause of having fewer children than expected could be financial restraints, as raising children requires a certain amount of financial stability. Financial barriers are an issue in today’s society as merchandises have increased their pricing as compared to previous years. Post-secondary education, housing, transportation etc… may create debts for the individual, thus, pushing them to increase their work time to pay back these debts. This may also lead to people deciding to form a family at an older age as compared to previous generations. Many of my frien...
...there are various factors that have led to the low fertility rate of Singapore. This has brought differing impacts on the nation. Various policies have been implemented to tackle this issue, but not all have been successful.