So I was wasting time at the library and stumbled across several stories about how affluent families are now having more children by almost 30 percent in the past 10 years compared to what they were having before. Apparently kids are considered as "status symbol" because it costs so much to raise them!? Additionally, women are competing with one another after they leave the professional world in order to justify staying home with a child (ie, staying home for one child does not seem as noble as staying home with four children.) Having multiple children also speaks of ones femininity, apparently?

Seriously, what the f***? I'm 100% in favor of reproductive rights. If there was ever a goverment enforced population control (like the one child rule in China) you can bet your ass I would buy a gun and establish a secret network like the underground railroad. (interestingly, I'm more convinced I do not want to have children than that I do)  I also don't believe anyone should be encouraged NOT to have children based on their socio-eccinomic status. Comments about people having more children than they can afford bug the shit out of me. But I'm just really disturbed that anyone would have a child to keep up with the Joneses. Additionally, that a woman would feel that in order to succeed as a woman, she needs to pop out as many kids as possible. That she has no worth outside of child baring. Seems like a really archaic idea to me. I cant help but wonder why they aren't concerned with over population either. Particularly, if they are a graduate from a school like Yale or Harvard where they most certainly had to take classes about sociology, economy and other forms of social studies. They can't feign ignorance about the worlds already overpopulated condition. Not that ignorance is a justification for over populating, either.  And not that there should be a forced population control.

I'm not really sure where I am going with this...I'm not trying to pick on any group of people because of their family size or income. And although I don't know what is a justifiable "reason" for bringing more children into the world, I just get the knee-jerk reaction to roll my eyes when I think of a child being born for a parents social status. I think another reason this so bothers me is because of the HUGE number of children in fostercare around the country/world.  Like, I totally get wanting to pass on your genes to a second generation, But after having a few kids, why not adopt if you want a bigger family? Not that adoption should be used as a status symbol either, but I dunno....just seems sick to me.

Among the families that I knew growing up, our family with four kids was the smallest. The largest had 17 children (the youngest of whom died tragically.) I guess when I really THINK about it, some of the explanation for having such large families could have been a status symbol, in its own right. And perhaps has always been so. Although I think in these groups it was more about religious affluence than fiscal affluence (the whole, we-dont-believe-in-using-birthcontrol-and-have-10-children-to-prove-it, thing) Another factor that may have been involved was that almost all the families I knew were biracial, so maybe there was a cultural influence? Socially, the mothers of the larger clans were more reveared by the other parents as wise, patient, good, etc. Of course all this is just retro speclation. Maybe they really just wanted to love 17 birth children? I personally, loved being around the enormous families. I plan on having quite the brood myself one day, maybe 6-8 kids? But I also plan on building my family through the means of older-child adoption. And it actually is because I want to love lots of kids who need someone to love them and tell them they are worth-while.

So, all that said, maybe this is not new thing at all? Maybe it really is a return to the "basics." Maybe women and families are liberating themselves from NOT having children in order to be viewed as "responsible" green-minded, socially-aware people. I don't know but its got to be an interesting debate, no?

I don't have any articles about it but if you type in "competitive birthing" into google you can read all about it.

ADDED: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2007/05/16/nosplit/ftalpha116.xml
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12513004&sc=emaf and this one is from NPR but really has a lot of info.