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[kaijyuu]

Ah, my parents always said starving kids in Africa or Japan (the latter confuses me).

[Aqizzar]

Ah, my parents always said starving kids in Africa or Japan (the latter confuses me).

It was true-ish for Japan back in the 1950s and 1960s (y'know, no economy and all that), so a lot of older people now remember it from their childhood.  Weird Al mentioned it once.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

I don't see why they feel the need to point at places halfway around the globe, there's plenty of people starving in every country.
/unrelatedrant

[Aqizzar]

I don't see why they feel the need to point at places halfway around the globe, there's plenty of people starving in every country.
/unrelatedrant

It wasn't really about starvation, per se, it was an argument about whether confidence in being materially provided for encourages people to have children, and pointing to the most obvious modern example (sub-Saharan Africa), that if anything it's the exact opposite - materially and educationally deprived populations tend to have lots of children (since a family needs the labor and can't count on them all surviving), while materially wealthy places don't.

You probably know that's what it was about and I'm wasting space here, but I just wanted to make sure everyone's on the same page.  (Holy crap, I wrote that as one sentence.)

[scriver]

I got tge impression MoM was refering to the parents. The telling you to "eat your dinner because starving people in Otherplace" thing.

[sluissa]

I can't say for sure about Africa, but based on my college studies it was definitely true or the Caribbean, and Latin America, that the poorer classes would tend to have more children. I specifically remember one paper about serial monogamy within a certain island nation. (I forget which, unfortunately.) But it wasn't uncommon at all for a mother to have large numbers of kids by a series of somewhat long term partners. As a result, the mother was able to sort of have a sort of pool of employees that she could send out in order to support the family. Kids didn't always stay with the mother into adulthood, but some did, as the mother's home became a sort of fallback place, especially for daughters.

Also interesting to note that marriage was less common because that way the mother could consolidate the power rather than letting any of the fathers have any. If the father got to be a burden and not pulling his weight in the family, she'd boot him out as she tended to own the property in the family.

Granted, I believe this was a slightly dated paper, so I don't know how relevant it actually still is. One of the things that stood out during my Latin American studies classes though.

[Virex]

To me that just sounds like a way for the men to screw as many women as possible without having to take responsibility for them or the kids. After all 'she' kicked 'him' out, making him free to go after another poor sap.

[Rose]

To me that just sounds like a way for the men to screw as many women as possible without having to take responsibility for them or the kids. After all 'she' kicked 'him' out, making him free to go after another poor sap.

that depends on who's actually being productive.

if it's the woman that does all the work, as I believe it is over there, she doesn't need some layabout dragging her down.

[RedKing]

To me that just sounds like a way for the men to screw as many women as possible without having to take responsibility for them or the kids. After all 'she' kicked 'him' out, making him free to go after another poor sap.

After children hit a point where they can work, they go from being liabilities to net assets. If the mom has twenty kids that she can send out to bring home money, and the dad is kicked out with no place to live and no one to help support him...Mom 1, Dad 0.

[sluissa]

Also, once you have a few kids past a certain age, taking care of further ones becomes less and less of a problem as the older ones are able to help out more and more with the younger ones. Probably not as obvious to a culture that's used to having just a couple of kids that are similar in age. A 2 year old doesn't help out much with a newborn. But a 10 year old can be surprisingly responsible when needed.

[Darvi]

But a 10 year old can be surprisingly responsible when needed.

YMMV. I wasn't. Still aren't.

But then again most people aren't me so the point is moot.

[scriver]

A kid in that situation might not have any choice, though. Responsibility/adulthood would be forced on you. The child would be molded with those expectation on him/her so they might already have a mindset to care of her/his siblings.

Consider, for a little more extreme, if you would've been left parentless with a little brother or sister to take care of. Do you think you would've turnex out the same?

[Vector]

Also, once you have a few kids past a certain age, taking care of further ones becomes less and less of a problem as the older ones are able to help out more and more with the younger ones. Probably not as obvious to a culture that's used to having just a couple of kids that are similar in age. A 2 year old doesn't help out much with a newborn. But a 10 year old can be surprisingly responsible when needed.

A 3-year-old can, though.  My great-grandmother was the oldest of 13 kids and started taking care of younger siblings (changing diapers and so on) at the age of 3.

[sluissa]

No offense to your great grandmother, Vector, but I've been around a few 3 year olds. I wouldn't say they couldn't "help" in the same way I "helped" cook when I was small. (I got to stir the mixing bowl occasionally.) But at 3, they're still going to need a lot of supervision.

Still, even by 4 or 5 I wouldn't put it past them doing that kind of stuff. Maybe 3 if it's an exceptional case, which your great grandmother may have been. Still, it used to be that society expected people to be "adults" by the time they were teenagers. I think some kids can be remarkably mature if given the opportunity. And many more can be forced into it by circumstance.

[Vector]

And no offence to you, but this sort of thing has been considered standard for many, many years in many, many countries (for example, I just saw a documentary about Russia with an instance of such).  The oldest daughter becomes mother to her siblings, because it is indeed forced by circumstance.  If she doesn't help, then The Household Falls Apart and everything goes pear-shaped.