Three things we will discuss:

• First, let's discover what we didn't realize about the population, birth rate and fertility rate, both in and outside the United States.

• Second, we will look at the relationship having children has on you and the whole world.

• Third, this is my favorite thing we learned, we'll talk about the importance of siblings.

What is population? This is the easy one to answer, it is quite literally just the amount of people in an area, you might see a sign in your city that says "POP. 14,000".

What about birth rate? This is the number of births per 1,000 people already within the population. If you have 7 births and your city's population is 7,000, than your birth rate would be 1.0, you have 1 live birth per 1,000 people.

Then we have fertility rate, is the average number of children born in the lifetime of a woman.

Now, that you understand these, we can talk about what happens when these numbers decrease. Over the past few decades people have been talking about over-population, the idea that we would overrun earth and her natural resources. That we would never end world hunger, but that everything would increasingly be at risk, and survival would grow increasingly difficult. We can largely attribute this fear to the baby boom, what many don't realize is that this "boom", was not actually that significant. Fertility rates were only at 3.8, now in order to keep things going (with jobs, careers, economy, etc..), we need to have a fertility rate of 2.13. So it's a little high, but not much. Certainly not enough that it should scare us, but a book was written on this topic of overpopulation and young couples getting ready to start their families started using it as a textbook for their lives. Suddenly we started worrying about how many children we were having and one or two was a popular idea of a family. Slowly, this becomes a problem, more so now than ever especially since there are many who do not have children, whether by choice or are unable to have children.

This is troubling to the economy and thus affects even those not involved with a particular family. Some of these reasons are obvious, but let's take a look at some you may not have considered. It affects the capital, which is the capacity that the child acquires to be competent out in the marketplace. Their lifetime learning for their benefit, and the benefit of the economy. Capital is also used to describe basic human resources. Productivity! Its hard to sustain life and people when we have fewer workers, an increase of workers would add greatly to the GDP (Gross Domestic Product, this affects capital. It seems crazy to say, but whether or not we have children everyone is affected.

Why would it matter if your only child had a sibling? They can get along well with others, they have cousins, they play with the neighborhood kids, and they are very social at school. Isn’t that what matters? I personally love having two siblings, I have one older and one younger and I have one sister and one brother, I literally have one of each of everything. I can see why having one child would be beneficial to you and even to them, more resources could be put towards their development, they could have all the attention in the world. There are benefits to having a sibling though, and as an expert in that area I’d like to open your mind to a few thoughts. I promise our professor brought up some of these in class as well, so I’m not making this up.

Let’s say you are a boy and you have a older sister, basically you have two moms now. If you have a younger sister you are likely to be a sort of dad figure in her life, help her navigate life and boyfriends, but she can help you be kinder and learn patience and she will bring out the best in you.

Now if you are a girl and have a younger brother, you will be another mother, but this will prepare you for any kind of child care. If you have an older brother, he will help you understand guys who don’t make sense to you, and he will be a shoulder you can lean on. We talked to all the girls with older brothers or similar aged brothers, and they said growing up they were in fewer bad relationships, and if they always listened to what their brothers said they weren’t in any bad relationships. Having both a brother and sister in my life was a positive thing, not every experience was positive, but I learned to work well with others, to be more considerate, and to love even those I did not understand.

Having children affects not only you and your spouse, and of course extended family, it affects the world!