I heard on the radio about a op-ed piece in an East Coast publication where the writer discussed how she got dirty looks from people when she told them she had 3 children. Apparently, having 3 children is too many for a lot of people. The radio show brought on people who had rather large families (6 and 8 kids); the parents had been called 'breeders' by people the met on the street and talked about how people (mostly strangers) gave them a hard time for having so many children. They actually got one guy on the show who admitted he thought 3 kids was too many because he said it was the uneducated, poor people that had lots of kids and they couldn't take care of them so it was a drain on society (what a stupid generalization). He also said something like how it was an ego-trip for people to want to 'xerox themselves' multiple times by having kids. How terrible is that? What an idiot.

First of all, it's no ones business but the parents on how many children they have as long as they can take care of them financially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Secondly, why do people care how many kids other people have? Why is it any of their concern? Why are they so offended by it? I live in Seattle and I don't think it's a very kid-friendly place; I think if I asked someone what their problem was with big families they'd say something like, "Well, there's so many starving kids in the world, they should just adopt. Plus, their hurting the environment more with bigger families." Puh-leeze. Adoption is a noble thing, but it's not for everyone and it shouldn't be an alternative to having your own children (unless that's what you choose to do). I'm not even going to get into the environment thing (let's just say that Hummer they drive for 2 hours every day probably does more damage).

I just thought this story brought to light a very discouraging truth: many people no longer view children as 'an heritage unto the Lord.' They view them as burdens, as polluters, as taking up valuable space, and as being a drain. I think people are really just more selfish; they don't want their lifestyles be slowed down with kids and that means dragging down those who have chosen to have larger families. What a miserable kind of person to be. What will take to combat this kind of ideology? It's just sad, sad, sad.

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