Why so many kids?

I'm an Aunt!! My gorgeous sister-in-law just had the first kid out of my crazy huge family and little redheaded Mason is so cute. After hearing about how painful her labor was and how much work little Mason is, it's hard to imagine her or anyone having any more than one child! So now I understand why people would look at my mom with wide mouths and big eyes when she told them she has 8 kids. EIGHT KIDS. That's a lot! It's the same look I get one I tell people I want at least 7 kids. I would love more, but we will see. Big families are old fashioned these days and are slowly becoming extinct. Currently, I have 14 brothers and sisters! Eight of them I grew up with and then the other six got added after freshman year of High School with my parents remarrying. The question I've been asked in so many ways is "why?"  Why do I want to have a big family? And to take it a step further, how could having a big family help the world and the environment? I'm going to answer both of those questions.

Why do I want to have a big family? Part of it is probably because I grew up in one and I loved it, even though it was crazy. But also, before we came to Earth we lived with Heavenly Father who created us and made it possible for us to come down to earth and receive a body. Everyone God ever made will have the chance to receive a physical body, so I want to be able to love and nurture as many of God's children as I can. If I don't where will my potential children end up? They could be graced to come to wonderful families, or they could have really hard lives. My husband and I are working hard so that we can provide not only a stable home, but a happy, healthy, and loving marriage that our future children will be able to thrive in. God's children will be born, either way, so I want and will teach and love as many of them as I can so that they will have every opportunity to grow up in a successful family.

Now Some people depending on their physical, mental and emotional resources can only have small families and there is nothing wrong with that. I might have two kids and then realize that is all I can physically and emotionally take care of and that will still be perfect! But too often people are choosing their family size based on selfish reasoning. Whether it be because of career choice, lifestyle, or poor decisions, the amount of children a couple chooses to have is becoming more and more about the surface level of thinking of "this sounds like a good number."

Within the bonds of marriage between a man and a woman, we have the sacred privilege of loving and taking care of children. This is one of the most important roles anyone will ever have and should include God and be taken very thoughtfully.

But wait, isn't the world dying going to die because there are to many people being born and not enough resources? This idea started in the '60s from an article written by Paul R. Ehrlich called "The Population Bomb" that became widely excepted by the world very quickly. It is false. Today we know that in fact, people aren't having enough children to support the world we have created today. This is a huge problem. So much that there are so many different places around the world like Russia, Japan, and England that are paying women to have children to help the problem of population loss. Bigger families will help the world.

Google says that Human Capital is "the skills, knowledge, and experience possessed by an individual or population, viewed in terms of their value or cost to an organization or country." This is what is affected because people aren't having many kids. The Documentary "New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter" gives more detail to exactly what this will look like.

For starters, Education is getting worse and worse and that combined with fewer children makes for a smaller pool to pull from of because who can invent and continue to create and innovate. This means that our children are going to have to work 10 times harder then we had to and make less in the process. Another thing they mention is how disproportionate retirees are too young people. Right now it takes 3 young adults to financially take care of one elderly person, but in the future, it will be two adults financing retirees. This puts more pressure on our future children financially and in every other way in the workforce. My last comment is about entire cultures being gone and lost because of people not having children. The numbers project that by 2050 the majority of America will be Hispanic. This is nothing against Hispanic's, but immigration will run the world and, in a way, get rid of many cultures which can bring its own set of problems. The French could be entirely lost within several decades.

The point of all of this is that having children is too much more than just "what sounds like a good number." It should be a thought-out decision between you, your spouse, and God. More and more people are having fewer children and we will see negative effects in the future because of it. Those who want to have big families shouldn't be looked at as monsters for taking resources away, but quite the opposite. Our children will be the ones to help support physically, financially, mentally, and every other way the mess we are creating. If anyone would like to know more about the effects of population effects watch the documentary I mentioned earlier created by BYU-tv. It is a great resource. 

Me with baby Mason <3

Most of my siblings <3