The Wickedness of Creating Large Families (Sanger)

[Sliceitup]

I've mentioned this before, your social & economic status often determines how people view a large family. When I was doing good before the recession, I was told how great of a blessing our family was. When I lost it all, I was told that I should have been more careful and used birth control.

Funny how money plays a role in so much.

Such a good point.

[joshuabgood]

Large families...

The new status symbol

https://dailywellness.com/blogs/health- ... tus-symbol

[mike]

Large families...

The new status symbol

https://dailywellness.com/blogs/health- ... tus-symbol

One would think more people would have large families as a goal or ideal if this were the case. Instead, anecdotally speaking, as we raise our large families, we hear little but dire warnings, mostly from fellow Christians, about how awful it is to have too many children too close together.

Is it actually the case, as this article alleges, that higher income classes are expanding their family sizes, while lower income classes are sizing down? If so, could that be because the wealthy historically have had the fewest amount of children, and so if they are having two these days instead of 1, or 4 instead of 2, it has the effect of doubling their family size statistically speaking? The inverse effect would be true for lower income families. If they're finally having less kids for whatever reason these days, it might be that they now are having 3 or 4 instead of 6 or 8. I really doubt that we are seeing a trend of upper income families beginning to have 6 or 7 or more kids.

[mike]

I've mentioned this before, your social & economic status often determines how people view a large family. When I was doing good before the recession, I was told how great of a blessing our family was. When I lost it all, I was told that I should have been more careful and used birth control.

Funny how money plays a role in so much.

Such a good point.

My wife and I have discussed this before. I don't think it's all about money. If a family with 3 children is dysfunctional, it's bad enough. But when a family with 10 children is dysfunctional, it's really painful. In other words, if there are problem of any sort in the family, the larger the family is the more exacerbated and visible to the public eye the situation is. And it's easy to pin the blame for the problem on the size of the family. In other words, smaller families can hide their problems better.

[joshuabgood]

Large families...

The new status symbol

https://dailywellness.com/blogs/health- ... tus-symbol

One would think more people would have large families as a goal or ideal if this were the case. Instead, anecdotally speaking, as we raise our large families, we hear little but dire warnings, mostly from fellow Christians, about how awful it is to have too many children too close together.

Is it actually the case, as this article alleges, that higher income classes are expanding their family sizes, while lower income classes are sizing down? If so, could that be because the wealthy historically have had the fewest amount of children, and so if they are having two these days instead of 1, or 4 instead of 2, it has the effect of doubling their family size statistically speaking? The inverse effect would be true for lower income families. If they're finally having less kids for whatever reason these days, it might be that they now are having 3 or 4 instead of 6 or 8. I really doubt that we are seeing a trend of upper income families beginning to have 6 or 7 or more kids.

I think the article is accurate. The NY Times a few years ago ran a similar argument. My guess is folks at the bottom of the spectrum tend to have a few more perhaps (think immigrant families etc) and the "in betweeners" trying to "make it" to the upper class don't have as many for economic reasons, but at the upper end, there definitely has been a swing to large families in some circles at least as a status thing - and it is more in the 6 or so range rather than the 3.

Now feeling defensive - we wanted in the 6 range but in the end they didn't come quite like we though they would and we have 3. But we do really like those 3 =).

[Josh]

I read her Wikipedia and from the beginning of her life I doubt she would have the biggest chance at living a biblical life. She also seemed the kind to jump into the next “big” leftist leanings.
I haven’t read through the article yet, but I wonder if she would be repeating this considering there are studies now that support that mother’s of 4+ kids are the happiest?

https://www.elfac.org/parents-with-four ... e-happier/

Or her stance on eugenics, now that overpopulation is a considered a myth?

Or that abortion is used a form of birth control and women can access late term abortions due to change of mind?

That study is quite interesting. It would be nice to see more about how it was done.

I wonder sometimes how much the ‘birth control’ discussion is changed by our distance to a world without it. Being Mennonite we might be a bit closer to that world, but it’s within a small subset, not the larger populace.

One of my parents and some of their siblings believe that their mother had too many children and it negatively affected her mental well being. She was incapable of caring for them. That burden fell to the oldest siblings.

My father had a vasectomy because my mother was deathly ill with a life threatening disease and a pregnancy would have been disastrous. Most of his siblings had families that were double or triple the size of ours.

Living in a world where many people do have some semblance of control over their reproductive matters severely limits our views on some of the harms that come without that ability.

Sliceitup,

Do you believe abortion is wrong?

[mike]

Curiously uplifting, according to the New York Times author, is the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/clim ... ction.html

[RZehr]

Curiously uplifting, according to the New York Times author, is the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/clim ... ction.html

Genuine Oregonian right there.

[Falco Underhill]

But even transhumanism is not, cannot be, the logical end of this road. Rothblatt is the enthusiastic evangelist for a new kind of faith: a “transreligion” called Terasem, which “believes we can live joyfully forever” if only we sacrifice our bodies for a digital consciousness – a consciousness that will in time “ultimately connect all consciousness and control the cosmos” for ages unto ages. “We are making God as we are implementing technology that is ever more all-knowing, ever-present, all-powerful and beneficent.”

In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings one of the powers of the ring is to bring whoever bears it unnatural long life. The hobbit Bilbo Baggins who has the ring (found it accidentally, doesn’t understand its evil) explains to the Wizard Gandalf that even though he still looks very young for his age (111) he doesn't feel right anymore. He complains that he feels "thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread" and so he's desperate for a long holiday.



Unnatural long life was not something to be greatly desired by Tolkien (or C.S. Lewis). In Tolkien's world the elves (who are immortal in a sense) don't understand the death of man and the grief of men at death, yet they regard it as a great mystery and refer to it as the "gift of the Illuvitar."

Whatever transhumanists have in mind by uploading one's consciousness into a computer cloud and existing in that mode forever, I think C. S. Lewis said (but I can't find the quote) that if it really became possible we would have an obligation to just voluntarily let life run its course and willingly lay down our lives when the time comes.

[steve-in-kville]

And it's easy to pin the blame for the problem on the size of the family. In other words, smaller families can hide their problems better.

To a degree, yes.