As the father of 5 children, I am surprised how often I am accosted by callous jerks who don't know me, and yet, seeing the size of my family, feel that I am a ripe target for their rant about the irresponsibility of having many kids in an overpopulated planet. Since it is societally unacceptable to bound and gag them and force them to watch "the Waltons" for 42 straight days, I felt that I would do the next best thing: blog about it.
While I defer to a family the right to decide the size of their family, that holds equally true for large families. Yes, the planet is probably overpopulated, but a lot of the overpopulation is outside of the US. A drive across the American west will tell you there's plenty of land left here, and plenty of resources to care for our population.
The facts remain, however, that we in America have created a crisis as we have driven away from large families. Many families choose to remain childless, still others cap their family size at one or two children. Again, it's their right to make this decision, but as we grow nearer to a social security crisis, we must realize that producing fewer and fewer wage earners will only intensify the crisis. It will also lead to a lower tax base as the number of people on social security and retirement increases to where it meets or exceeds the number of current wage earners. With life expectancy increasing, this trend should continue.
There is also the social component of a large family, when functional. If they've grown to know and love each other, with a sense of civic responsibility, there is less of a likelihood that they will ever need public assistance. They will be there for each others' support, and their families will be richer for it.
Back to the issue of overpopulation: I admit the possibility of overpopulation, only because I am becoming more and more convinced as I look at the facts that it's a matter of distribution, rather than lack of availability. This is common in third world countries, where the only way to get the food past the shipping dock is a good old fashioned bribe. But I digress.
There is no need for a large family to utilize significantly more per capita resources than the rest of the country; in fact, many large families have chosen to utilize less. The size of their family makes bulk purchases practical, and many clothes can be handed down to the younger kids, thus using them longer, as kids so frequently outgrow clothes.
So, if you're one of those Howard Stern wannabes who feels the need to rant everytime you see a large family, the next time you see one....DON'T. It's your future these kids may be supporting.
signing off,
Gideon MacLeish