You Cant Always

Do It Yourself

Why do people have children? First there is the nine-months dis comfort of having them; followed by the first year or so of getting used to them, followed hy the two-to-five hellion stage when life for Mum and Dad can he sheer misery.

AFTER this, when the children come into head-on collision with school and the outside world, there is a somewhat halcyon period when they are apt to seem almost civilised, but this leads inevitably to the teens when Mum and Dad again begin to wonder if they are matur ing vipers or changelings in the bosom.

Why then do people have children?

Even the theorists don’t have all the answer, although they say it’s compounded of deep human urges, spiritual needs and the pattern of our culture that revolves around the family. Totted up and compared with the coldly logical disadvantages, the best thing to do is to lay it all at the door of illogical human cussedness, and leave it at that.

But even in this day, when we appear to be brewing up something tasty on world dimensions for the next generation, it is obvious that people do still want children, and it is for these (generally), and for the small proportion who have dif ficulty about it (in particular), that Children for the Childless (edited by Morris Fishbein, MD, and J.

Stallworthy, FRCS, FRCOG) has been produced.

It has long been a standing joke that the world is composed partly of people who have children and don’t want them, and partly of people who want children and don’t have them.

But according to the editors it’s no 50-50 deal. About 90 per cent, of couples have no difficulty what ever in becoming parents. Ten per cent. —often for no obvious reason— do have difficulty and as the apparently unobtainable drives most

humans to extremes, this minority is the most vociferous.

Human sterility is, of course, as old as man himself. The Bible abounds with “barren” women who were generally held in contempt.

And up until quite recent years it was still believed that it was the woman at fault in all childless marriages.

What is comparatively new is the effort of childless couples who de sire children to do something about it —and that is mostly what this book is about. In this aspect, it is a pretty clinical account of what goes on in a sterility-clinic, gynae cologist’s surgery or a hospital, and as such is calculated to make all but the most ardent and determined prospective parents think twice.

Which perhaps is a good thing.

According to the authors, the reasons that some women have for wanting a child aren’t, in their opinion, valid. The invalid reasons include wanting a baby because other women have them; to patch up a shaky marriage; or make a husband face up to his obligations.

According to these experts, a baby won’t save a shaky marriage—it will just end in a third human be ing miserable; nor will it make an irresponsible or we a k-m ind e d husband assume responsibilities.

Apart from telling you how to try to have a baby even if it kills you, some of the writers of the articles in this book take excursions into Malthus’ theory of over-popula tion, birth control, artificial insem ination, and Mendel’s theories on dominant and recessive genes.

(Children For The Childless.

Published by Wm. Heinemann Ltd. Aus tralian price, 15/6.)