Re: Population Limited by Territoriality?

shire@dorsai.org
Wed, 21 Dec 1994 22:29:28 GMT

In article <94Dec20.141028est.6268@neat.cs.toronto.edu> cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>>Many people in wealthy countries don't have "lots and lots" of children
>even though they can afford them.

Obviously, you haven't visited the so-called "tony" nabes in NYC, namely the
Upper East and West Sides. For a while, there were many zero-children
families. Now, there is an explosion of multiple baby families. An entirely
unscientific sample indicates that these white upper middle class parents are
leaving the parenting to female members of ethnic minorities by at least 2:1.
The phenom has been so obvious, that the neighborhood weeklies have begun
writing about the new baby boom.

As an ex-sociologist, my guess is that a generation of young people have
discovered a new "selfishness," in which having a kid is some kind of
"experience" they are entitled to. It has nothing to do with wanting to be
taken care of in old age. These are aggressive, well-to-do types.
Unfortunately, the only way to test this theory is to wait for economic
armaggedon to hit these good folks, and then see how many kids they have and
how much they enjoy the experience.

All, IMHO, obviously.

>--------------------------------------------------------------------------->Ca
lvin Ostrum
cbo@cs.toronto.edu>------------------------------------------------------------
---------------> It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in
nonsense than> to put out on the troubled seas of thought. -- John Kenneth
Galbraith>---------------------------------------------------------------------
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