In the mission field, not many families with 6 or more kids these days.

But back in Utah, you still read about local church and other civic leaders with 6 and as many as 13 kids. Wow. Who does that nowadays?

I never wanted kids so I just don't get the need to breed and breed and breed. The economy is one thing to consider, but also we need to think about our already over populated planet! It drives me crazy that so many reglions (LDS, catholic come to mind immediately) push having lots of kids.

That mindset was ok back when it was common to lose a kid or two, and they were all needed to help out on the farm, but come on. The population is growing at an exponential rate. The planet can support a finite amount of people. Doesn't take a genius to see those numbers are on a collison course.

You touched on one of my biggest pet peeves about religion. LOL.

"It drives me crazy that so many reglions (LDS, catholic come to mind immediately) push having lots of kids."

One of the reasons Palestinians in Israel do not have the same rights as Israleis is because they are trying to breed themselves in the majority....

I just spent my beach weekend with a young couple who have their first baby, who is about 12 weeks old right now. Cute baby. The parents are in that no-sleep zombie zone in that they look like zombie apocalypse survivors, being on BabyWatch 24/7.

Every time I spend some time with young first-time parents like that, I wonder to myself, how does anyone, ever, have more than one kid? How does that happen? Because I watched these two try to put the kid to bed for about 15 minutes, both exhausted and running on pure adrenaline and mommy love and I can't imagine why they'd look at each other and say, "Well, this is so much fun, let's mate and make another one! Or three!" So I don't even know how second children get down the chute, nevermind the dozenth kid. Seems like the first one just about kills parents. And, after all that intense focus on Kid 1, by the time Kid 10 rolls around, do the parents even care anymore? Is that how you see dirty toddlers wearing nothing but a saggy diaper, playing in a gravel pit next to the freeway?

Bad Sheep - yes, after you get out and see your giant carbon footprint and all you do feel bad. Even though we "reduce/reuse/recycle" and try to be "green" you understand the nasty looks even when you pull up in the suburban and the people just keep climbing out. We live in eco-groovy land of the Prius populated by organic eaters...

Dogzilla - after you survive all the early months and the baby gets about 12-18 months old you feel like you have tons of time on your hands. You are sleeping, not nursing all the time, etc. So you figure it is a good idea to have another one. After you have a whole bunch, you realize you are on an endless hamster wheel and you will spend the rest of your life saying "Shut the door! Did you wash your hands? Yes, you do have to help out around here." Unfortunately, survival requires that you tune some of the pandemonium out. Depending on how effective the parent's tune out is defines on how close to the freeway said saggy diaper child is playing. Unfortunately, under the spell of the morg you keep having kids because having them will make it better, it will!

Not justifying that it is right. For me it is more of a "things that seemed to be a good idea at the time" thing. Just trying to explain it from the other side...

First of all, let me say I personally am not pro large families. I only had two children myself. It may work for someone else but for me, my little boy/girl pair was just perfect. But I think the idea of overpopulation is a cop out because there isn't much you can do about other people having kids except complain. If you really are concerned for the planet, work on your own consumption and carbon footprint. Didn't they find a family of 12 in India is less detrimental to the planet than a family of 4 or fewer in the U.S.? Complaining about overpopulation may sound good and it's much easier than changing and making saving the planet fashionable and a societal norm. We need to work on our own personal selfishness and our own sphere of influence if we want to do good in the world. There would be plenty of food if vegetarianism was the universal norm AND if we could work on the chain of supply and not have food stores hijacked by wars/greed/corruption.

Next, even among my friends in Utah, four kids is the norm. More than four kids is a large family. And this isn't a new thing - most of those four kids are teenage/mission/marriage age so obviously the smaller families have been OK for a while. Not when I was a kid back in the 80s though - then it was 8-9 kids as the norm in Mormon families. I can't speak to what the Utah farm folk do though. Maybe away from the Wasatch Front it's different.

Finally, I think everyone has a breaking number for kids. For me, the first one was really hard, a learning experience and a huge adjustment. The second was a piece of cake. Partly because she was so easy-going and partly because the older one was 2 1/2 and starting to be able to do things like "run get Mommy a diaper" or "do you want to watch Barney while Mommy is feeding the baby?" He no longer needed the Helicopter Mom. Plus, he was soooo funny. He could almost sense when I was having a hard day and he'd do something that just cracked me up. It was much easier having him around to lift my spirits and keep me company when my daughter was tiny. Other people think it's easier to focus on one child and have a hard time when their attention is divided. Some of my friends said three was the hardest for them because they no longer had a hand to hold each child - one had to run around loose. But like I said, almost all my friends stopped at four.