China enforced a one child policy. The majority of
Chinese have only one child. This means, two parents,
four grandparents, per child.
All the money, time, attention, hopes and aspirations are
invested in that child. That one child is important.
He isn't just another mouth or number, he isn't going to
starve or suffer or have to go without. He will attend
the best school he can, get all the materials he needs
and more extra-curricula activities then he can manage.
He will grow, knowing he is loved, with all the confidence
and more to succeed in life.
China's true Great Leap Forward was fueled by various
aspects, but none as significance as the One Child Family.
Although culturally China had always had the huge extended
family with lots of children, it had also had a great deal
of abject poverty, starvation, and a condemnation of the
majority to a life of hardship.
By enforcing one child most of the problems have been
alleviated. Less poverty, starvation, and the sudden
opportunities that occur when there are more jobs than
people to fill them.
Education is important. This one child will go to school.
There will not be a choice between eight kids and one is
elected to get a chance, seven to live in squalor.
If food is rationed, this one gets from the plates of the
two parents, the four grandparents. Hence, better nutrition,
better development.
In one generation China went from being a third world
nation, categorized with those at the bottom to a first
world nation, which competes and sometimes exceeds the
United States.
Interestingly, the poorest nations in the world have never
thought of following China's example. The first thing you
notice when dealing with poor nations is that each person
tends to have a large number of dependents.
Eight children is nothing unusual, the children of dead
relatives being absorbed is not unknown. The idea of
birth control is dismissed. AIDS is rampant, and the
largest segment of deaths in a year is due directly
to poverty; starvation, disease, and it's off spring of
crime and riot.
Every time a limitation on family size is suggested in the
Third World it is treated as "genocide", and so beyond the
middle and upper classes who recognize that less children
means each gets more, the birth rate remains high.
Barbados, which should be one of the poorest nations in
the Western Hemisphere, considering it's size and lack
of natural resources, is one of the richest and most
advanced.
This is because in the 70s Barbados, flying in the face
of outside pressure, legalized abortion and made it on
demand.
With birth control free, abortions free, and a kind of
invasiveness of government to insure that all children
are in school, and behavioral problems will be addressed,
the population is made up of wanted and cared for children.
As the birth rate in Barbados dropped, opportunities
rose. More money could be put into education than
security.
Crime is, on the whole, quite low in Barbados. This is
because few people are born who are unwanted, unprovided
for and without hope.
With less people, each gets more and goes further so that
citizens of other islands are imported to cut cane.
It's simple math but poor nations are ill numerate.
