sss3@ukc.ac.uk (S.S.Sturrock) (03/06/91)
Had a thought last night, don't quite know how you lot are going to take this but in the spirit of free speech and open debate (flame suit at the ready) here it is : In Britain people are literally paid to have children, if a family is not working they get state benefits forever, and in this time they often have many children, I know, I went to school with a lot of them. Now, as has already been pointed out, the middle, educated class has started to decline due to use of contraception, and also a desire to keep families small. But, in the lower educated classes (I omit working because often they are not) a family receives all sorts of cash for their children, and these children are brought up expecting this sort of thing, also their parents may not encourage them to do well at school. This means that they leave at 16 because it is 'hard' to do so, then they can't get work, they get a girl pregnant and the cycle continues. This is a generalisation but does often hold true. In China they limit family size by penalising people financially for having too many children, and the approach is working. Our society is going to have to face up to this too in the near (if not now) future. As an adittional incentive, I feel that we need to ensure that our population are well educated, this means that we should encourage the better educated families to be larger, and the less well educated to diminish if they refuse to improve their children by encouraging them to go to school. To achieve these aims why not have a system of exams for parents, the first being dead easy so almost everyone can pass and have one child, then let the exams get harder so that there is an incentive to be educated, so you can have more children, since the better educated people are better able to support their children and give them a good start in life. Of course the exams would be on topics related to a persons specialisation, and it would be necessary for both parents to partake. OK, so it stinks of eugenics but in this time when labouring jobs are getting rare due to mechanisation why have such a poorly trained workforce. The responsibilty should be the parents to ensure their children are well trained, and able to function in a technological society, rather than just blaming the education system and making the exams easier. (re the new GCSE exams that replace the old GCE O levels in UK) Shane Sturrock, Biol Lab. Canterbury, Kent, Great Britain. sss3@ukc.ac.uk
joan@ocean.med.unc.edu (Joan Shields) (03/07/91)
Two questions: Regarding exams given to see whether a couple may or may not have a child: Who makes up the exams (who gives and corrects them)? How do you intend to prevent women from getting pregnant? (Different punishments or methods depending on social class?) Perhaps instead of this experiment in eugenics a, change in the goals of most welfare systems. Instead of encouraging people to stay on welfare perhaps putting more emphasis on job training, continuing education opportunity, and the like. Perhaps we can even look a little closer and discover that they a real people after all and like the rest of us, not all the same - generally. Joan
dag@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM (David Geiser) (03/09/91)
#WARNING: $0.02 follows: >Had a thought last night, don't quite know how you lot are going to take this <Obvious quip resisted.> . . . >To achieve these aims why not have a system of exams for parents, the first Sounds like you'd be selecting for the ability to pass standard exams. Not too bad of an idea since, now-a-days, many educational systems teach solely to that goal. If a good-exam-passer is what you desire to select for, your system might work. If, however, self-sufficiency, self-support, and productivity are the traits that you wish to encourage, maybe parenthood licenses should be based on something that measures those traits more directly such as the ability to independently (of government subsidies) support the family. Family income might be one measure of that. I don't know if you were advocating licenses. Something as bureaucratic as licenses might not be necessary if financial incentives and support for (otherwise) unaffordable children were removed. Then, it's merely a matter of personal decision and the GD government needn't be involved at all. dag # Here's your $0.01 change, sir.