How Many Children is Too Many Children?

    Have you ever wondered why people are having less and less children? Have you ever stopped to consider how this might influence the world? Well, if you're wondering, stop wondering! If you aren't wondering, start wondering and read below!

   What would you say the average number of children per household in the United States is today? If  you chose anywhere from 1-2 kids, you are spot on. The number of children being born to each household is drastically decreasing not only in the United States, but all around the world. Many of us might look at this and think, isn't that a good thing? Less people in the world means less people stealing resources and more room to inhabit, right? Let's take a look at the facts:

    In a renowned book known as "The Population Bomb", Paul Ehrlich claims that populations would always be growing and that growth was exponential. He elaborated on this growth saying that population increase was not only a negative trend, but detrimental to our society. At the time, he was right about a population increase. During the Baby Boom, population increased. However, fertility rates didn't actually go up that much. In fact, shortly after, fertility rates began to decline. So why was the population increasing and was that increase hurting us?

    Researchers have found that the increase of population came from people living longer. With new medicines and technologies, people as a whole have longer lifespans meaning that more people were staying alive while more were being born. Further studies have shown that it is healthy for population to grow because it increases human capital or in other words, the knowledge and skills that people have. There are two ways to increase it: population growth and productivity growth. If population decreases, the people need to pick up the slack and work harder for less payment for their efforts to keep things balanced.

    So, if population growth is a good thing, then why is it viewed so poorly?

    Because of "The Population Bomb", people jumped into a fear mindset in which they became afraid of this terrifying future. It is seen in much of our media these days in movies, books, TV shows, etc... People seem to think that more people means taking up resources when in all reality, more people means more efforts to provide. World hunger has decreased since population has increased and why is this? It's because there are more people available to help provide.

    Knowing all of this, this question stands: How many children is too many children to have? Is it too hard to take care of that many children? Too expensive? Is it too noisy? Does it take up too much time?

    The answer is a personal one. Only the individual can determine their number of children. That being said, we should make it a priority to increase our population, whether to increase human capital or to simply follow God's commandment to multiple and replenish the Earth. We must look beyond ourselves and seek to do our part in society and/or as followers of God. If you are in a place where you can raise a strong, supported family, take that opportunity to bring many children into that atmosphere. We need more kids brought into a loving home that can contribute to our wonderful society.

    “Children are our most valuable resource.”-President Herbert Hoover

    Children are our future. As we look to bring more into this world, our future will be bright and we will make sure that their generation will be taken care of. We must look past our own desires and look towards bringing them a world in which they will thrive.