It’s actually quite amazing how people are quite loose when it comes to childbearing and the total number of kids any one family can have. If you take a look at the different families that make up the society, you’ll see that the number of children in each family varies, and there are different reasons for that.
In the old days, couples used to have loads of kids so as they grew up, they could help out on the farm. The more hands that are available to help, the better for the family because it means that their output would grow exponentially. However, in modern days, it’s appalling to see that there are people who have an interest in having a large number of kids even though they have no way of taking care of them.
Here in Nigeria, the government has no business with the number of children a couple can have. You can give birth to twenty kids for all they care and it won’t shake them. And as a result, we’ve grown to be one of the most populous nations in the world which is really sad considering we’re also the world capital of poverty.
If you’re rich and can afford it, no one will hold it against you if you choose to have a hundred kids. As long as you can do what is right by them, then it’s all good. You can provide their basic needs, even be there for them as a parent, then, by all means, knock yourself out. It only becomes a problem when you have kids you have no idea of how you’ll take care of them.
I know a family friend's relation who is just in that category. So far, he had four kids already (the last time I saw him, his wife was heavily pregnant with another, she must have delivered by now) and they all lived in the village. But guess what, he doesn’t have a job, and neither does his wife. There is literally nothing that the parents do to make money. Yet, they keep making babies, why?
They rely on their siblings who are living in different parts of the world. Some are in other parts of Nigeria and others are in other countries. And every month, these siblings send money down to this lazy man and his wife to take care of their kids. However, the annoying thing is, they don’t really send him the money. They send the money to their mother for her upkeep, and this friend lives with his mother. There’s no way the old woman will allow him and his family to starve in her house, right? So, she feeds him and his family.
Imagine your old age, after raising your kids and when they suddenly start making it and it’s time for you to relax and enjoy your later years, you resort to helping your fully grown adult son raise his own family. Funny enough, the couple are both graduates, they both make use of smartphones, and are internet savvy. If they want to make money, they would. However, they prefer mooching off their old mother.
This is how pathetic a lot of people are. They’ll give birth to so many children and then expect others to take care of them. Like, am I the one that told you to have unprotected sex? When you refuse to help such people, they tag you as a bad family member. It won’t matter that you have kids of your own that you’re also struggling to raise. They only care about themselves.
It has gotten to the point where the government has to interfere. We need to put a cap on all this because it really doesn’t make any sense. It’s perplexing how able-bodied men and women will have children and would rather let others take care of them rather than do the needful and work. How will such a family ever get out of poverty? When there will always be bills and bills to pay.
Most of the time, the people I pity in such families are usually the first and second born, because they’re the ones who become the breadwinner even before they’ve started learning anything. They’re the ones who will end up seeing their siblings through school and providing for the family. A really unjust punishment, if you ask me.
We really need to do better. At least, if the government won’t regulate it, let’s regulate ourselves. Because the more we keep birthing more children than we can take care of, the more we’ll have criminals and other hoodlums roaming the streets. This is for our own good.
Daddy you have said it all.
I consider an act of bearing children without having what it take to cater for them as wickedness. Most parents don't know that they are the reason why their children are into so many vices nowadays. How can you give birth to children and hope on others to support you financially to train them? Don't they have their families too?
That your family friend has a long way to go, I feel sorry for those innocent children. Some parents are the reason of many children's misfortune in life.
I just hope our government will look into this matter someday.
Yesso... some parents are responsible for the bad decisions their kids make. But when you try to talk them out of it, they attack you as if you're trying to stop their progress.
This post has been manually curated by @steemflow from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.
Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share more than 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators in the form of IUC tokens. HP delegators and IUC token holders also get upto 20% additional vote weight.
Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.
100% of the rewards from this comment goes to the curator for their manual curation efforts. Please encourage the curator @steemflow by upvoting this comment and support the community by voting the posts made by @indiaunited..
This post received an extra 13.49% vote for delegating HP / holding IUC tokens.
Thank you for this.
It is really painfully when responsibility falls on the ender ones to raise their younger siblings, been in such shoes I understand how that feels but that's a lesson to me and several others out there.
Yesso... It's things like these sew seeds of enmity and discord among family members.
And to think that some individuals are still thinking in this manner God will provide or what the child will eat is in his/her hands let me give birth to all the children God has deposited in my body system baffles me a lot. This assumption has sent many on a journey of no return 🤔
Enough is enough!!!
Enough is enough ooo... because it's just crazy the kind of mentality some people have.
If they will hearken diligently 👌
At this point, government intervention is needed in Nigeria because the effect on economy is terrible. Bringing kids to the world is beyond what they will eat and shelter, bringing them to become a burden on the society is a terrible thing.
Many of them don't care because they believe they have people who will cushion that burden for them. That is the mindset that needs to be changed.
As if being ignorant of birth control is not enough, he still chose to be lazy. What kind of combination of bad attitude is that? A man like that will definitely abandon his children afterwards because he has chosen not to cater for his family needs, leaving is children to become victims of a decision they have no say in. To an extent I believe it is the mother that is encouraging him because he has the mindset that she will always provide his needs regardless of his joblessness.
Yeah... people have spoken to the mother about it, but she doesn't have the heart to kick her own son and his family out of the house. He's capitalizing on that and milking it.
Wow, what a lazy man.
There was a day when I entered a Napep and a woman begged the man in the Napep to help her drop her child at the bus stop but it’s crazy. She won’t even be in the Napep
Why do that to your child? What if the child later gets kidnapped? Some people just give birth without making plans for them and it is really bad
Hmm... I've seen these things happen oo. Parents will put their kids on a bus and tell the driver where to drop them. This is how they go missing. Later, people will blame the devil.
It's really hard for the government to control people from giving birth to babies. So the government needs to go for an indirect approach. Just like giving some kind of punishment if parents can't give basic needs and at the same time have many kids. I know it's kind of a difficult thing but it will give people shock and many people take the side of the decision whereas others will be against it but people will discuss the topic and it can work like awareness.
Yeah... maybe we employ the same approach from the west. If you can't take care of your kids properly, they'll be taken from you and given to a family in need of a child and who will be ready to give them the life they deserve. Maybe then people will wise up.