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How Many is Enough? Listening Fluency #79

Children are precious. No one would argue with that, but how many children is
enough? Michelle Duggar, the mother of one of Americas most famous large
families, says that she leaves that question for God to answer. In 1988, Michelle
and Jim Bob Duggar had the first of many children. By 2006, they had 16 sons and
daughters and became the subjects of a 1-hour TV documentary about their
unusually large family. By 2007, they had 17 children, and became the stars of a
weekly reality TV program. The TV show was aptlynamed 17 Kids and Counting,
because they werent finished having children. In 2009, the show name became 18
Kids and Counting, and in 2010, the name again changed to 19 Kids and Counting,
to reflect their growing family. Michelle Duggar now says, that even though she is
a 47-year-old mother of 19 children, We would love more!
At Duggars age, the health risks of pregnancy to both the mother and child are
high, but some people question her desire to keep growing her family for different
reasons. Is it responsible or ethical to have this many children? Of course, the
environment cannot support everyone having large families, but the Duggars are
wealthy, live frugally, and have no problem supporting their large family. They
live in a 7,000 square foot home, and own 8 cars, including a 21 seat bus.
They consume a lot, but they also rarely buy anything new, and all their cars are
bought used. They do laundry 35 times a week and go through 36 eggs, 5 pounds
of bacon, 3 pounds of green beans, 2 watermelons, 2 pans of brownies, and a
gallon of ice cream everyday.
On the other side of the planet, Chinas one birth policy, taxes people severely for
having more than one child. Even though people living in Chinese rural areas
are exempt from this rule, the Chinese government says that the one child policy
has prevented 400 million births in Chinese cities from 1979 to 2011. While this
policy has lessened some of the social, economic and environmental stresses
created by a population well over a billion, it has also caused problems. Because of
a cultural preference towards having boys that can help support parents as they
age, some families have chosen to abort female babies in China. This has created
an imbalance in the ratio of men to women in the population. By 2020, there will
be 24 million men of marrying age that will be without wives because of this
imbalance.
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While no other country has followed Chinas one child policy, in many countries
people are voluntarily choosing to have less children. According to surveys of
Americans, 2 children is the ideal family size. What do you think is the perfect
number of children? Do you think there should be limits on how many you can
have?
Vocabulary
Precious: Very valuable or important
Reality TV: TV about normal people
Aptly: Appropriately
Ethical: Following what society says is good or right
Rural: Describes people or places in the country
Exempt: Free from obligation
Imbalance: Not balanced