Sean you are right! - Desire for the male child in many developing countries including India is one of the main reasons for adding more and more children into the family. There are many socio-economic as well as religious connections to this problem and most of them have been proved wrong time and again.
Poor people add male children to the family to increase earning hands!!! For others, having a male child is a sure ticket or visa to heaven!!! So they will produce a number of daughters while trying their luck or 'bad luck' for a male child.
Someone on this blog mentioned about being educated to plan a family. This is not just about education or economic status; there are as many educated, well placed and rich people as there are less privileged ones who desire for the male child. This is sort of a mental disease if I am allowed to put it this way. Even in this high-tech age, couples who have only daughters are asked this silly question many a times - "Do you have any children"? As if daughters are not children.
The mindset has to change.
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It is so good to see your post here on this forum! I will tell my classes about you, a Ph.D. doctor teaching in India. Your perspective is more valuable than any of us, because you are experiencing all this first hand. Of course I was born and raised in India and I understand most of the issues, but I left that coubtry 20 years ago. Thanks again!!!
This is a great post! You're defintely right when you say that the mindset has to change. Thank you for the good information and points!
It's exccellent to have first-hand information on this. Thank you Dr. Rajiv Kalsi.
You bring a up a good point about how "This is not just about education or economic status..." and that it's about the mindset of human beings.
I'm afraid the human mind is a very difficult thing to pursuade one way or another. I think it would take something very drastic to spur such changes...
love,
John
I agree that education and family planning can only go so far. People need to set aside their own desires for a male child and consider what impact that choice is making on the planet. Having eight daughters in order to have one son isn't, in any way, helping our world's population problems.
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