My take on birth regulation

When it comes to having children, everyone has a preference for the number of children they want. Some want as many children as possible and they eventually end up not being able to care for the children. This is something we have all seen happening all around us, especially in my country Nigeria. You see a man that's not able to cater for 4 children still bringing more into the world. I know people say children are a blessing but in some situations, I don't think that statement is true.

I believe people should only give birth to children they can cater for but that's obviously not the case in my country. Two theories I believe are the main reasons why people have kids indiscriminately are; they don't know about family planning and second is that they believe things will be fine in the future even though it doesn't look that way now, the usual "we will cross that bridge when we get there" mentality. Personally, I would want to have 3 kids; 2 boys and a girl if possible. Having too many kids is too much of a stress and can quickly turn into a nightmare.

That is the biggest contribution to population and is the major reason why some countries like China, India and Nigeria are overpopulated. Right now, China has a strict policy limiting the number of children families can have since 1979. Back then, it was one child per family but decades later it was relaxed to two children and then also adjusted to 3 children per family in 2021. Some states in India also have a similar policy but it isn't as strict as China's own. But here in Nigeria, we have never had such a policy and I believe it's needed now.

We are currently the most populated black nation in the world with a population of over 224 million but the way I see it, we are probably close to 300 million now. Inflation is crazily high right now and poverty is on a record high. We have even gotten to the stage where the middle class is almost extinct and you are either in the rich class or poor class. Aside from bad rulers, overpopulation also has a role to play in our problems considering how demand far outweighs supply in most of the sectors in the country. One major example of this is in terms of employment, there are thousands of unemployed people and very few jobs available.

Even countries that didn't have this problem before are beginning to have it because of population increase and an example is the UK. That's why they have revised their immigration policy to curb this problem. A country with a smaller population is easier to manage when compared to overpopulated countries. The government in an overpopulated country usually struggle to provide essential services to the entire country and most of the time a high percentage of the population doesn't receive relief packages or palliatives (let's ignore the fact that most of the funds are embezzled).

This is why I believe the government of my country should also introduce a similar policy to China and restrict families to 3 children. It will benefit both the family and the country at large. The effect of such a policy won't be felt immediately but it will definitely be beneficial in the long run, just as how it is in China. It worked so well in Singapore that their government has now reversed the policy and now encourages having larger families due to underpopulation. It's always best to find a balance in such a thing and yes, the government should be involved to ensure full compliance

Thanks for reading