Outline of Essay "Speaking of Children" | The Magic of Words Class 11 English

UNIT TWO : MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN

SPEAKING OF CHILDREN

ENGLISH | THE MAGIC OF WORDS

Barbara Holland

‘Speaking of Children’ is an essay by Barbara Holland in which she delightfully and critically examines the idea of having more than one child and the consequent expenses of parents. The entire essay centers round the issue of having a single child is far better than to have many. The essayist goes on arguing the possible difficulties and disasters which the parents have to bear if a house is filled with many children. She has raised the burning issues of overpopulation that has further generated series of challenges and risks to the living beings of the present world.

She begins this essay with a humble statement ‘one child is an appendage and more than one is a way of life’. The statement genuinely implies that single child is like our body and we can attach him or her in our body and we can carry wherever we go or whatever our circumstances may be. But having many children in the house is certainly a matter of burden. It is obvious that it is quite hard for the parents to provide proper care and affection equally for their all children. Consequently the children are deprived of good education, proper health care and other facilities, which are the key components for the overall development of children’s personality. Moreover they disturb the privacy between husband and wife without letting them chances of private talk related to their job, income, business and their experiences of their duty and so on. In a sense they need to be worried all the time for their future prospects as well as to satisfy their unsuitable demands of hunger and enjoyment. The essayist minutely examines some other dark sides in this regard like they make their house dirty, create unnecessary noise, and make wounds in their body, which ultimately goes in the hands of parents.

Eventually, the essayist makes an appeal to the readers so as to make us aware of in time from committing such blunder. She strongly suggests us to have a single child for the happiness and prosperity of family life. Every details and illustrations are quite prescriptive in nature that intends us to be aware of such mistakes. The essay is quite funny, humorous, informative in quality and filled with various fragments.

OUTLINE OF ESSAY

• Problems of having more than a child in a family. One child is outnumbered and easy to manage.
• Plural children weaken the pleasure and peace in the family. The family life can be disturbed by the plural children and the situation can be very worst.
• Mutual understanding, co-operation, love and harmony are almost impossible.
• The parents become tired and they can unable to control the family and destructive situation comes finally. The children make the house untidy and dirty, break things and produce unwanted noise.
• The consequences of having plural children cause the adverse impact in the family. The family status decrease day by day regarding social, economic and cultural factors.
• One child is appendage (addition, attachment) in a family. But more than one is the way of life or the adverse way of life.
• The peace and privacy in family is possible when the parents have one child. The parents do not get an hour to talk separately when they have many. 
• One child leads the parents to live in easy way but more than one makes them difficult to live with all their problems and difficulties.
• One child is easy for upbringing, educating and feeding. The child grows up in the perfect environment and gets all the facilities or can live by his all child-right.
• The writer also addresses the child-spacing; at least two children are manageable in the family. But her serious concern is for a single child. The writer faces the serious problems in the family because of the plural children.
• The family expenditure rises highly if the parents have more than one child and the parents should face the economic crisis.

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