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Rural Mental Health & Family Relationships

Readers Give Pros And Cons Of Depopulation

June 5, 2000

Here are some responses I got to the column I wrote on the impact of loss of population on national and local economies.

"What kind of drugs are in the Dakota air and water to cause such unreasonable, irrational, and unrealistic thinking of ‘Need More Children.’ Children are much, much more than just hard work, expensive and stressful; they are also semi-imprisonment with physical, mental, emotional, and a financial "millstone" for the remainder of breathing life. The chances of happy, well adjusted children with families is similar to winning the lottery grand jackpot. Your old age sweetness is sickening and degrading to any and all human life." - an Iowa reader

"Usually I read your article - and say ‘amen.’ If fact, I have often given them to my clients to help them in their journeys. However, I do take exception to the article "We need children for prosperity and happiness." I think that you underestimate the concerns of many of us who see that good environmental and ecological practices are not staying ahead of population growth.

"You suggest that those of us with small families use the "myth of overpopulation" to justify our small families and that we may be just self-indulgent. I think that we are unselfish in not needing to bring more resource users into the world. It is just the other way around - persons with large families declare overpopulation to be a myth to justify having more than two children.

"God may have told us to be fruitful and multiply but we have certainly done that beyond His wildest dreams. Thank you for most of your articles - but not this one. - A Minnesota reader

"I simply could not believe your column. What cave have you been hiding in? Are you unaware that overpopulation is the greatest problem in the world today? We are all being threatened by the very thing you are advocating.

"Please consider: overpopulation is the root cause of all environmental deterioration. Even crime and violence can be attributed to the strain of too many people. Consider quality of life which encompasses many facets: clean air, plentiful clean water and food, and enough space to enjoy the gifts of nature. These are the things threatened by overpopulation.

(The writer then quotes "Dear Abby’s" response to a couple who had a son after having four daughters.) "So you’ve finally had a boy. The only thing you can be congratulated about is your perseverance. You can’t be congratulated on your morality or unselfishness. Adding three "extra" children to a world already reeling under its population load can’t be called either moral or unselfish.

"You can’t be congratulated on your fertility. After all, any clam, chicken, or small furry animal can beat you at that. You can’t be congratulated on your fine family. A fine family is one that sets an example, and your example may kill us all in a few generations. You can’t even be congratulated on being able to afford five children because you’re not paying for them. Oh, you provide their food, and clothing and shelter, but the rest of the world pays for their roads, schools, hospitals, air, water.

"You can’t even be congratulated for being patriotic citizens, for if anything destroys the U.S., it will be our ‘growth mania’ spiral through which this country even now gulps over 50 percent of the world’s resources. You can’t even be congratulated for carrying on the family name. Family names mean little unless people mean much, and your kind of growth rate means that people mean less and less." - A South Dakota reader

"Your article was very interesting, but I didn’t find any reason why young adults aren’t having children. My version is that there are too many articles in newspapers, magazines, schools, and colleges telling these kids we have an overpopulation explosion - that young couples should only have one or two children only, and if they choose to have more, whooooa.

"What do they have to look forward to? These kids are scared; they need more encouragement on having more children. They need more positive thinking from the media. I am glad I raised my eight children in the 60s and 70s. It wasn’t easy, but I enjoyed each child as they came into the world. We were encouraged to have children. No peer pressure.

"The media is ruining the world by all the negatives it prints daily. It has gotten too big, and the world doesn’t know how to handle all this negativity." - A North Dakota reader

"I really enjoy your column and read it every week. I was especially interested in your column on children. I couldn’t agree more with what you said. I don’t believe in this overpopulation myth we hear all the time. However, I am hoping that sometime a noted columnist such as you, will have the courage to address the effect that the loss of almost forty million people through abortion has on our country.

"Besides the obvious moral implications, just the economic consequences would make for an interesting discussion. Farmers are in the business to feed people - fewer people equals fewer farmers. Maybe if we had more mouths to feed we would have more people on the land. I heartily disagree with these liberal so-called population experts who think they are smarter than God. The effects of this depopulation will come back to haunt us." - A Wisconsin reader.