Children

    When discussing children with my husband we always discuss the usual question. When should we have children? That’s the main question. Sometimes we ask how many should we have? Which is usually followed by, “We will see as we go along and with guidance from God.” Never have we asked, “How many should we have and how will that affect others? How will having children affect others?” Having children has always been a very personal topic to me. The only people who really get a say is going to be me, my husband, and God. But lately I’ve been thinking, how will my children affect others? Recently in my class we talked about a book called “The Population Bomb” by Paul Ehrlich.

    It talks about how the earth is going to be overpopulated and people will starve to death. It also mentions how we will overuse our resources. I got really upset. It was my decision! Not anyone else’s! And I didn’t like the idea that people were going to go around saying I’m robbing others of resources with my decision to have too many children. Since then I’ve learned more and it isn’t true. In fact, the fertility rate is down so low that the U.S. and many other countries aren’t even meeting the fertility replacement rate. The fertility replacement rate is how many children need to be born on average per woman to replace the population we have. The replacement rate currently is 2.1 children. We are currently below that, as are a lot of other countries. 

    You might be asking, “But what could be so bad about that?” I know I did. The reason the population has been so high has been because people are living longer, our elders are living longer. Our population rate is not growing. For the U.S., this means many things. One is that we won’t have as many people to support social security. We will have too many retirees compared to workers. Another is that the elderly will be putting larger houses on the market as they look to downsize and there won’t be enough people to buy them. With a lower replacement fertility rate, it can eventually become difficult to maintain standards of living. These are only a few things that can happen. 
    I don't know what will actually happen and I certainly am not predicting what will happen. I would need to study more before making any claims. What I do know is that how many children one has is up to them. I feel like it should be a choice made between one’s spouse, them, and God. I do see where others come from though when they ask me how having many children will affect others. It’s important to ponder and pray about thoughts on children, especially how many to have. 

"When to have a child and how many children to have are private decisions to be made between a husband and wife and the Lord. These are sacred decisions—decisions that should be made with sincere prayer and acted on with great faith." -Neil L. Anderson