Due to medical reasons, Urmeela and I were forced to restrict ourselves to a single child. We never regretted that development and that single child has grown into a fine young man.
My three siblings had three, two and two children each and they too have grown into fine young people and most important, all the cousins are in good relationships with each other and distance that separates them does not seem to matter in this day of the internet and mobile telephony.
I have friends outside the family with one, two or even three children each as also some who chose not to have children at all.
I wrote about my own case of our parents choosing to have four children but they did belong to a different generation altogether. Subsequent to that India went on a massive family planning program that has made a significant impact on our population growth and even the illiterate understand the slogan “We two, Ours two” and access the system to plan for small families.
As a matter of curiosity, when I came across an intriguing headline in a news summary mail that I receive every day, I read the economic justification for single child families.
Many of my readers have single child families or at best two children families and they would find the article of some interest, albeit, now perhaps too late to worry about.
On the other hand, we have a publicly debated problem of a single child society in the case of China that has had serious long term implications on the demographic front vis a vis a growth oriented economy. We also have the case of Europe where societies have had to depend on immigration to balance requirements with population and that has raised other problems.
While the Malthusian disaster has been averted thanks to better agriculatural output and slowing down of populations, I wonder if mankind has to keep on tinkering with ideal family size norms as policies on a off and on basis for ever.
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