I woke up to a village of 32 dead people today. Odd -- I had plenty of food and plenty of everything for the whole bunch of them, and only two were children who weren't working. I even had a doctor (who died.)
The only ones left were one male and one female builder. I immediately renamed the two of them Adam and Eve, and poor Eve is nursing her third baby of the day while poor Adam has been switching between farming and research. The first two kidlets were boys, so they got named Cain and Abel. I may go through the whole Biblical geneology this way...
First things first -- make sure they have food and you have research points and at least two builders for the hut you'll need before ANYONE gets purposely bred. I wouldn't even encourage breeding until you have an overstock of food.
HTH -- Hang in there. It'll work.