Are parents with many children irresponsible?

My parents on both sides had eight siblings. In the early twentieth century and before that time families were still large, especially those who lived in rural areas. City dwellers didn’t usually have many children. In was different in villages and rural areas. Children were considered cheap labour to help with the work in the fields. And there was always enough food on the table. Clothing was handed down from one child to another. Kids didn’t have to wear designer clothes to be cool. Mothers made the clothes themselves. They sewed and they knitted.

But that has changed. Farmers now have machinery to make life easier. They don’t need as many children. And yet, we still have couples who have too many children. I say too many, because it seems it is the poor people, who can’t really afford to feed so many mouths, who have all those children. I don’t even want to talk about the third world countries. That’s another sad story.

With Christmas near, some of the charities have drives to buy hampers with food and presents for the needy. It is a noble thing to do. But the other day they showed a single mom with nine children. I don’t know if she was widowed, divorced, or never married. They didn’t say that. But in either case I’m wondering: NINE  children? It is bad enough if she is divorced or widowed to have so many children, but should she have never been married, then it is a great tragedy. Obviously, she was poor, since she got a food hamper. So why would she be so irresponsible and have nine children?

When the subject of having many children in this day and age came up a while ago with somebody in my family, I voiced my opinion and was told, “Well, that woman with those eight children (not the one I saw on TV), has a lot of love to give.” Maybe she has, she is also very selfish if she can’t properly feed, house, and dress all those kids. And how about giving them a descent education? Where is the money coming from?

The other day it was in the news about some politician (I don’t remember his name) who said he doesn’t think it is his responsibility to raise his neighbor's children. There was a great uproar over that remark. They called him heartless and other names. Sorry, I have to agree with the man. My wife and I had two kids, mainly because we realized it was expensive to raise children properly and give them a good home. Too many people in a regular house have to live in crowded conditions, to have more than three children requires a larger car, and, of course, demand many other expenses. Food is expensive, clothing is expensive, education is expensive.

A while ago somebody else said that it takes a village to raise one child. Wonderful.
So you just go ahead and produce a whole herd of children and don’t worry about raising them? The village will look after that? Give me a break! You make the children, you raise them. Why should it take a whole village to raise a child?

I’m sure there will be many who will take offense in what I’m writing. That’s okay. I just write how I feel about it. It is my right. People need to take more responsibility for their actions and not shoulder them onto other people. If someone runs into hard times with no fault of their own, of course they need help and should be helped. That is just the descent thing to do, but I make an exception when people are reckless and do stupid things without any regard of the consequences and then expect everyone else to help them out, like feeding nine children they should never have had in the first place.

The time for large families is a thing of the past, unless one has the means to look after them properly. We have to be responsible and bring only so many children into this world as we can feed and take care of. Anything else is irresponsible and stupid, and, actually, a form of child abuse.

Unfortunately, love is not enough. It takes more than that to properly raise a child.