Friday, August 14, 2015

The Hatred of Big Families



I'm neither a mom nor am I married. But I can't wait to be. I know any kids, much less lots of them, aren't for everything. Even marriage isn't as popular an idea as it used to be, with the ever-growing divorce rates discouraging people out of commitment. But while we tell each other, "It's OK to not want a family and settle down. Chase your dreams! Do what YOU want and respect others for not wanting to be parents!" we sure don't seem to think that those of us who DO want that deserve to have our choice respected.

I like reading blogs about moms of large families, particularly ones who homeschool. It's so different from what I know and just interesting to learn about, though I personally don't plan to have more than three kids tops. I understand not everyone wants a big family or thinks they can afford one.

But a dislike of multiple kids and suspicion towards adults who want them in our culture has started and just kept growing, it would seem. I often hear mothers of these families talk about the kinds of comments they'd get from friends or even random people at the store:

"Are they ALL yours?"
"You're done having kids now, right?"

And so on.

Some questions are just curious, some are just plain rude and nosy. Strange, for a culture that's always quick to get defensive and say "Who are you to judge? It's none of your business what I do! It's not hurting anyone else!" we don't seem to hold that to big families also. Some people seem to just feel... offended by them.

Why? What's so offensive about many kids? Because unless they can be manipulated for political agendas to garner sympathy, our culture just plain hates children. They're too innocent for its obsession with sex, and most of all, they demand us to sacrifice our own wants for their needs which contradicts the me-first culture here.

Nobody's attacking anyone if they don't want a big family or even kids at all (though I realize some people do get bothered for not having any and they should be left alone too), so why don't we extend the same courtesy to big families?