Date: Friday, July 24th 2015

Participants (from 7 countries):

Panel PRO: Miho, Dilowar, Sunita, Riya

Panel CON: Marwa, Rick, Kelly

AUDIENCE: Eliana, Sekiko

Host: Rick

Moderator: Johny

Panel PRO summary:

Children often need some level of competition to develop their general skills and knowledge.
A Child can share more things about himself/herself if he or she has siblings.
A large family could provide more security to the toddlers and young members.
Having more members can increase the family income helping the family’s economy.
With more family members, the bond becomes stronger, they all can help each other and a kid can learn good morals and values and using it as an adult to help society.
There is more joy when you have more family members.
When parents become busy, if there is an only-child kid, he or she may feel very lonely.
Having more members in the family would allow the children to socialize and may learn more about being a better member of the society.
It’s crucial for children to grow up in a large family.
Laws focused on reducing population may not be as good as it intends to.
Fewer members provide fewer opportunities for the elder members of the family to find protection and care.
In some societies, where the children are expected to help care for family members as they age, if there are more children, they can share this responsibility

Panel CON summary:

Having fewer children provides better education possibilities.
Having fewer children allows parents to have more money to sustain the household.
Countries with population problems, can’t afford having large families, as this can increase poverty and a welfare state.
Siblings are important but, as a single child, you can use a network of friends and people for having good relationships and learn the same things.
The parents shall have the responsibility to teach values, not siblings.
You can still have people around you to learn good values and good morals.
Loneliness is a state of mind; you can approach the issue in other ways and still find happiness and support in other people not necessarily by having a large family.
You can still establish meaningful relationships with people who are not necessarily related by blood.
Having a child is a completely separate issue, and it will not necessarily mean the child nor will the parents have healthy or happy lives.
Having stronger bond between siblings or relatives may not be due to the blood link, it is more about personality of each person.
Our future may not be tied on having or not having a big family, because our future would depend more on a wife or husband and not so much on your siblings or parents.
Quality is more important than quantity; having less children would mean the child would get more love, attention, education possibilities and care than having to deal with a lot of children.

AUDIENCE summary:

Sekiko left early.

Eliana chose team B, therefore, team B won this debate. Congratulation team B! And thanks everyone for participating. Below are the links to listen to our chat:

Listen online:

Download:

Growing up in a big family is better than growing up in an only child family - Voice chat Recording File

For people who did not join the live discussion, feel free to contribute the ideas in the comment blanks below.