What Are Really The Reasons Behind Why People Want Children Essays

"What are really the reasons behind why people want children?" Why do people want children? This question may seem a bit trivial, but when you take into affect the millions of people that have children each day the question quickly takes on a new light. This is not just merely a personal question that affects only a few individuals, it is much larger than that because it affects and dictates the whole human population. This issue clearly becomes more important when this is taken into account. The question of why people want children is well exemplified in Bernard R. Berelson's essay "The Value Of Children: A Taxonomical Essay." Berelson examines all the major reasons that people would want to have children one-by-one. Berelson opens with the first reason of biological. He asks questions like, "do people innately want children for some built-in reason of physiology? Is there anything to maternal instinct, or parental instinct? Or is biology satisfied with the sex instinct as the way to assure continuity"(220)? Berelson tries to answer these questions by comparing babies to adults and also the reaction that adults have to babies. Berelson states the fact that babies look absolutely different from adults. They have big heads, large foreheads, eyes almost in the center of their head because of their large forehead, and they are very fat compared to adults. This is why Berelson believes that this "babyishness" triggers something inside of man that causes him to want to protect and care for the baby. When social traditions dictate the number of children a family has this can be seen as the cultural influence of having children. In most cultures even the number of children one has is determined by the society. These social normalities can determine whether or not a family has a very small amount to a very large amount. Having children in order to gain power is the political side to having children. Berelson states all the political reasons very well when he says, "There are political units for whom collective childbearing is or has been explicitly encouraged as a demographic duty-countries concerned with national glory or competitive political position; governments concerned with the supply of workers and soldiers; churches concerned with propagation of the faith or their relative strength; ethnic minorities concerned with their political power; linguistic communities competing for position; clans and tribes concerned over their relative status within a larger setting"(221). This statement that Berelson makes clearly emphasizes all the political reasons for having children. Of course, how can one forget that there are economic reasons for having or not having children? Whether you have children or do not it is obvious that they are definitely a very financial decision. In societies like ours, as Berelson points out, having children is a very costly endeavor. Berelson speaks the truth about what parents are really thinking before having a child when he says, "before conception: another child or a trip to Europe; a birth deferred in favor of a new car, the nth child requiring more expenditure on education or housing"(222). These thoughts run through just about all perspective parents before the decision is made to have children. There is good side to the economic reason for the poor. The poor can use their children to work, hunt, help take care of the home and other children, in some societies if one is a female she can get a dowry for an arranged marriage, and finally for support when the parents grow older and need it. Though as Berelson states, "both s ocieties and families tend to choose standard of living over number of children when the opportunity presents itself"(222). There is always the reason of family or as Berelson puts it "Familial". The reasons of familial are to extend a family name, to try to please the ancestors, and to enable proper religious ceremonies for some cultures. The family bond can also be used to help or hold a marriage together. A family gives one a sense of security, not only the child but also the parents. Berelson makes a sometimes less than obvious statement when he says, "Children need family, but the family seems also to need children"(223). The last subject that Berelson goes into