HomeschoolrsRUs
04-07-2008, 08:15 AM
Three Kids? You Showoffs. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040403217_pf.html)
By Pamela Paul
Sunday, April 6, 2008; B02
My husband and I are getting ready to do what many couples in these brink-of-recessionary times would consider unthinkable. No, we're not buying a Martha's Vineyard retreat or planning a month in St. Bart's or eco-decorating our house.
We're planning to have a third child.
What shocks people, when we tell them, isn't the thought of hauling three kids onto a place for a vacation, or even the idea of coming home every night to a houseful of runny noses and homework assignments. What gets them is the sheer financial audacity. Raising kids today costs a fortune. Last month, the Department of Agriculture estimated that each American child costs an average of $204,060 to house, clothe, educate and entertain until the age of 18.
But to me, a family with just two kids seems minimalist, and even a bit sad. Back in the 1970s, when my husband and I were born, sprawling families were more common. My husband had two sisters and, following a Brady-Bunchy set of remarriages in my family, I wound up with seven brothers, real and step. I've always fantasized about creating a "Meet Me in St. Louis"-style household of my own, with children constantly underfoot and enough relatives around to skip to my lou en masse.
And yet nowadays, people seem aghast if a couple wants more than two children. When Elana Sigall, a 43-year-old attorney in Brooklyn, was pregnant with her third, people came up to her constantly, she said, to admonish her: "You've got a boy and a girl already. Why don't you just leave it alone?"
...
...
We definitely wanted more than two, but physically I couldn't. I know plenty of people who have more than two kids, and they have told me they hear the same kinds of things. Good parents SHOULD be having kids -- we have enough welfare moms popping them out for more money from the dole. Yes times are hard, money is tight, it's always been that way. All those children that have been slaughtered in the name of "choice," who among them could have cured a disease by now, contributed to ending poverty, created the next masterpiece, etc.?
If I'm remembering right, however, it's Conservatives who are having more children, while the liberals are NOT producing and reducing their numbers. Works for me, :) .
By Pamela Paul
Sunday, April 6, 2008; B02
My husband and I are getting ready to do what many couples in these brink-of-recessionary times would consider unthinkable. No, we're not buying a Martha's Vineyard retreat or planning a month in St. Bart's or eco-decorating our house.
We're planning to have a third child.
What shocks people, when we tell them, isn't the thought of hauling three kids onto a place for a vacation, or even the idea of coming home every night to a houseful of runny noses and homework assignments. What gets them is the sheer financial audacity. Raising kids today costs a fortune. Last month, the Department of Agriculture estimated that each American child costs an average of $204,060 to house, clothe, educate and entertain until the age of 18.
But to me, a family with just two kids seems minimalist, and even a bit sad. Back in the 1970s, when my husband and I were born, sprawling families were more common. My husband had two sisters and, following a Brady-Bunchy set of remarriages in my family, I wound up with seven brothers, real and step. I've always fantasized about creating a "Meet Me in St. Louis"-style household of my own, with children constantly underfoot and enough relatives around to skip to my lou en masse.
And yet nowadays, people seem aghast if a couple wants more than two children. When Elana Sigall, a 43-year-old attorney in Brooklyn, was pregnant with her third, people came up to her constantly, she said, to admonish her: "You've got a boy and a girl already. Why don't you just leave it alone?"
...
...
We definitely wanted more than two, but physically I couldn't. I know plenty of people who have more than two kids, and they have told me they hear the same kinds of things. Good parents SHOULD be having kids -- we have enough welfare moms popping them out for more money from the dole. Yes times are hard, money is tight, it's always been that way. All those children that have been slaughtered in the name of "choice," who among them could have cured a disease by now, contributed to ending poverty, created the next masterpiece, etc.?
If I'm remembering right, however, it's Conservatives who are having more children, while the liberals are NOT producing and reducing their numbers. Works for me, :) .