Limits and Licensing to have children - should we enforce it?

In the past couple of months the country has been shocked several times by stories involving babies and children.  They are all different stories but all lead back to the same question – Should there be a laws to license who can have children and how many?

My first news story is about the woman in America gave birth to 8 children despite already having 6 – That’s a total of 14 children.  The questions are endless on this one.  Why would anyone want 14 children?  Who could afford to keep 14 children in clothes, etc?  The biggest shock about this story is that despite having 6 children this woman is given IVF to have a further eight.  What were doctors thinking?  Did anyone look into her background before giving her this treatment?  Obviously not because the 6 children she’d previously had were all conceived by IVF too.  

It seems that the only good thing about this story is that at least all of her children have been fathered by the same man.  However, he doesn’t appear to reside at the same address as this woman and I mean who could blame him really, with 14 screaming children all fighting for attention and this woman who in my eyes seems quite unstable, and is certainly questionable as a mother.  When asked the question why she wanted more children her selfish reply was ‘To fill a void in my life’.  

She apparently lives with her mother in a 3 bedroom house and intends to live off student loans and the food stamps and disability allowance that she gets for three of her children.  Now that's even worse 14 children, 3 of whom have disabilities.  Surely one disabled child deserves more care than she could ever give?

China's law of one child per family may have seemed drastic when they first brought it out but I think they have a point.  Do you think it’s time to set a limit on having more than 2 children?  At the end of the day, if someone has a boy and a girl is there any other reason to have anymore children, they’ve got one of each, it’s not like collecting teddy bears or dolls.  You don’t just stick them on a shelf and stare at them.  They take time, commitment and a lot of money, not to mention the amount of nappies and plastic toys that will put pressure on an already challenged ‘mother-nature’ who never intended humans to have eight children at once anyway.  A woman has two breasts with which to feed her babies and two hands to hold onto as she walks her kids school.  You wouldn't need the 7 seater people carrier to take you children out, just the economical 5 door family car that was so suitable in the past. 

Also, has anyone thought of the psychological issues that these children are going to face in the day-today lives – neglect is the first one that springs into my mind!   Every week you can see TV shows that highlight the problem of people collecting cats, dogs and other animals that the RSPCA have to deal with because they can't look after them.  Surely this is worse? 

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Anyway, that story is from across the big pond but my next shocker is from the UK ……

15 year old girl gives birth but who’s the father?  It’s like that old program blind date – will it be Alfie who was 12 when the baby was conceived and has just turned 13, or will it be Tyler who’s 14 and is being teased about it by his mates at school and last but not least, will it be Richard who’s 16, a trainee chef and could be put away for having sex with a minor.  Shockingly enough, that law doesn’t apply to the others but maybe it should.  Maybe the government should extend the law to making it a criminal offence to have under age sex and not just leave it at someone who has sex with a minor.  Maybe the government should make an example of this atrocious situation and take the child away from these children to give it a better chance at life.  I’m not saying they won’t make good parents but these kids haven’t even finished their education let alone have any life experience to pass on to another child.  Why should someone of that age be allowed to keep and bring up another child.  What will they have to teach it, apart from the poor example of their own lives?  Why punish the innocent baby by leaving it with children who don’t understand the consequences of their actions.  Put it up for adoption and give it a chance at growing up better than its parents have done.

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Anyway, that leads me onto my next story rather nicely……

Grandparent’s want to adopt their grandchildren but are refused.  What country allows a 13 year old boy and a 15 year old girl to be a mother and father but will not allow grandparents of 46 and 59 to adopt their own flesh and blood?  Not only that, they were taken from their grandparents who had fought hard exhausting their savings on legal fees to try to keep them and then given to strangers.  It's not like there was no one in the family who wanted them.  Adoption is a hard thing to face for any child put in that situation.  Questions will always crop up - 

Why was I put up for adoption?

What was the underlying reason for me to be taken away from my parents?

Most parents can't manage or a deemed unsuitable but how can anyone say that of these grandparents.  Is 46 and 59 too old?  If it is then why are we not retiring earlier.  Why, I read a headline about a 70 year old man who had been given a £2000 fine for skating through his town center only the other week.  Maybe he was doing this to prove that age doesn't matter, it's quality of life that does.  Why, my grandparents from both sides of the family spent time looking after us when our parents split and they were older than the grandparents in question here.  Nobody could question whether they'd done a good job.  We were always well-behaved, polite, clean, tidy and well-fed.  Plus, there's a lot of good standards that a child can learn from the older generation.

A quick point to make would be that the wife of the former PM Tony Blair gave birth to her last child at 44, that just 2 years younger then the grandmother, yet no one claimed that she was too old.

Now the other point in question about this news article was that the children, despite the little girl being afraid of men, were adopted by a male gay couple.  If the social worker was doing her job correctly she would have seen that the little girl was frightened of all men with the exception of her grandfather.

Before I get loads of emails to say I'm a homophobe, my belief is that anyone should be able to adopt if they can proof they can give the 'unwanted' children a good life.  My point with this is there are enough children brought into this world who are 'unwanted' that need a good family, why take the 'wanted' children away from those who can love and care for them.

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Anyway, in a summary to the above points, I personally think it's about time some laws were passed to license people to have children and limit them to how many they have.  This law should state that the minimum age for conception.  This would hopefully stop children being born into households who can't look after them properly and prevent 'unwanted' children being born.