360 Degrees: Number of Kids in a Family

For as long as I can remember, when someone asked me how many kids a family should have, I always answered, "a lot." No question, no doubt about it. It was always about having a lot of "play friends," after all what else mattered? However, now that I look at the significance or meaning in number of kids there's a lot to think about....
       In many different cultures, for example, Chinese, the number of kids you had was a sign of welfare, of wealth. On the farm, the more hands you had to help, the better off your family would be living. So exactly how did this affect our society intellectually as a whole? Had we decreased the number of kids we had then, possibly brought the era of technology a couple of decades earlier? After all if we hadn't removed so many children out of education to work on the farm, many kids would be contributing to the science, technology, research, development part of our world. Then, the Great Depression hit the U.S. and we saw a sharp decline in the number of kids in a household. During that time the perspective changed, and saw a large number of kids as a burden. In that situation, if we hadn't increased the number of kids in a family, what would be the result now? We are already spiraling towards a depletion of resources, including drinkable water, what would've happened if we had a baby boom rather than a bust during those years? The truth is that many things could have happened, either we would be that much closer to running out of resources, or we would have proceeded into a new era of technology and discovery. It's difficult to decide whether having a child boom or bust is ever a good or bad thing. For one thing it is quite paradoxical. Take our recession, we are statistically experiencing another bust in the number of kids families have, we see many single-child households, households with no children, and we have yet to fix the economic problem. Economists, Wall street businessmen toss and turn in their sleep waiting for anyone who could fix this problem, and ideally it could be the kid that would have been born had it not been for the high cost for maintaining and caring for a kid.
      The question is, is this topic meaningless because there isn't much that can be done to regulate it? Should it be regulated? I feel that if this situation were to move towards law, it would be a violation against our rights as humans, but when mothers are moving towards abortion because they can't afford to have a child, where does the situation lie then? Is there a way to address the paradox, or should it even be addressed? The way I see it, it would be extremely difficult and unreasonable trying to construct a law against/for the number of kids a family should have, but rather we should use the information as data. For example, I believe that by observing the number of kids a family might have it tells us a lot about the time of the society. For example, during the bust of number of kids born could tell us about the economic situation, the political situation, etc. However, the decisions are simply subject to each individual household, and should stay that way. It's just interesting to see it happen in real time and see exactly the extent of how our decisions may affect the future.
          From all these different booms and busts, it's safe to say that the number of kids that a family has depends on the conditions of the world, which is beneficial for those living at that moment, but who knows maybe by doing that we may have prohibited another Einstein from being born... 

Metacognition: Kite Runner Essay

The first thing that ran through my head as I began writing this essay was exactly how the puzzle pieces were going to fit. I had a general idea of how things would sound especially the tone and sound of my voice that I wanted to portray in this essay. I really wanted to to get across formal and yet sounding as if I was holding a conversation with someone. I wanted the ideas to come out naturally and playing on the string of phrases not each letter or each word. I think one aspect that I find interesting is that I come across new (sometimes better) ideas as I'm writing, and unfortunately as much as it is a boon it is also a demise. I find myself having so many ideas that I want to tell the world and explain, but this causes me to go astray. This is the one thing about myself that I wish I could fix; I get lost in my own ideas and that causes the most panic, anxiety, and frustration for me. As a result, I can't focus on the singular idea that I first thought of. This part of my thinking is the most flawed, in my opinion, and I would like to work on it so that I can still come up with these ideas, but keep my thinking focused on the original idea that I have. On top of that, the reason why my thinking goes astray with these new ideas is because I want to continuously relate my original theme to these underlying layers and most of the time that requires a lot of extra time to think in order to find a good way to connect them, but there is also a time limit. So as a goal I think I need to find a way to restrict myself to keeping myself intact with the original points. That's one of the major things that needs a little work on. However, there are a lot of aspects of my thinking that I'm glad of having. I'm able to think artistically as well as a generic student, which I think is beneficial depending on the writing piece, and I find that the best pieces involve a mix of both. For me personally, I noticed that with a little bit of time my thinking can be deepened and that I could think with a mix from outside influences, like history, languages, and other subjects.

           Specifically, for this essay, I had to think about how the evidence would have to directly relate to the thesis and how it would support it. At first I saw the literal (the language aspect) of each evidence, but then I saw the overall effect on the book. For example the parallel between the bond, no bond, bond, and the appearance of the kite solely at the beginning and the end, and missing in the middle. However, I think because this essay had such a strict formula, I found it difficult to incorporate other ideas in fear that it would distract the reader and the purpose of this essay. That was a little irritating, but I also found myself pleased that I was able to think of the overall picture. I think one obstacle that I was faced with was trying to find the "So What" of the essay. I found that my thinking in another way was limited in that it took me a great deal of time to try and figure out why my ideas were so important. I think we take our ideas for granted in a way that we never have to explain why they're important. So, I think one thing I should work on is developing that hidden factor, trying to expand my thinking before I dive into writing a piece or try supporting it.