Dear Prudence,

I disagree with your telling the mother with 3 children that there is no problem with their having 3 children; that our country doesn't have enough children, that our companies want more consumers, our population declining, etc. Have you compared the traffic jams/size of our cities, lack of water in growing cities as Phoenix, etc., with what it was 20 years ago?

We also have many immigrants with many children in each family rapidly contributing to our lack of resources, overcrowding of schools and services, living space, etc.

It's true that India, China, etc. are vastly more populated than the U.S. But we should be actively helping them control their birth rate and also control ours. You do realize we use more energy and resources than any other country? With more population, that will only get worse.

It now is considered the thing to do for movie stars to have children without being married. The average girl/woman also believes that she has the right to bear children without benefit of a husband or other help; after all, the gov't. will support all the babies a woman wants (or doesn't want.) No limit; no control, no worries, no responsibilities.

In fact, some church denominations encourage having large families to help spread the church's doctrine.

There are specials on t.v. praising families with a dozen or more children. "It's their right," right? And "isn't this just soo cute to see so many adorable children?" Many women have fertility treatments and produce 6, 7 children. In most cases the government and/or community and extended family bear much of the brunt of this "blessed" and ""cute"" right.

Our planet is overpopulated. Our country included. True, we need workers to contribute to social security. And the number of older people is increasing. But instead of having more babies to eventually contribute to social security, we need to screen the people collecting aid, including cutting down on the aid to families who have children who can't afford to have them.

My husband and I have 2 grown sons that we love dearly (planned and supported them.) I will be a grandmother before long and am very thrilled. However, my son and his wife have saved and planned for the child/children they will have and not rely on the gov't. to support them.

I don't give families with large numbers of children dirty looks or make rude comments. I just wish our country and planet would consider that bringing children into the world is a responsibility, not a right, and think of the health of our earth as well as the number of children they think they want at the time (and later may complain about the cost and work the children are causing.)

I was in college when the "save the earth and environment, be responsible for the number of children, Peace Corp movement, think of others, not just your immediate gratification." That has since been replaced by, "have lots of children so the companies can sell more products and make more money, greed/materialism/get rich" movement.

Please start encouraging some thought of what's best for all, not just for what we may think we want.

Tell you what, take my desire for three, and average it against your desire for none and we're pretty even.

The future belongs to those who show up.

If you read my long-winded comment on having children, I did not say I have a desire for "none" (children); only that having children is something to be thought about; both in how the children will be supported and in how the earth will be impacted.

Long winded your post was. It didn't make much sense though. I suppose those of us, who desire our "own" children should just forget about procreating and pull an Angelina and Brad?

How did it not make sense? Let me explain in a more simple manner.

The more children, the more resources consumed, the quicker the planet dies.

2-3 per couple isn't such a bad number. Sometimes maybe even 4 considering how many people die daily. Although if you think about it, we might want to lower our population size. So why not 1 per couple.

Drone, drone, drone..Yawn yawn yawn

We get it, you grew up in the 60s and this is the only thing you absorbed and retained, whatever.

I have always gotten a laugh out of how the generation that tried (and pretended to succeed) to throw conformity out the window managed to look the same, dress the same, listen to the same music, smoke the same dope, eat the same food, and spout the same old tired dogma.

Try this on for size.

The only people who should be permitted to have children should be those that can afford to feed them, clothe them, give them adequate medical and dental care and ensure that they have the money available to get the education that they want. Like it?

I find it utterly revolting to see people surrounded by kids with rotten teeth and lousy diets in foul surroundings who claim that they have the "right" to keep having babies, even though they know that they'll never be able to see them through to a healthy, successful adulthood.

How about sacrificing to make the world a better place for our children: not sacrificing your children to make the world a better place for you?

There's not much evolved thinking in simply criticizing folks with children. "Please stick to one child, so that we can keep the price of gas down for Labour Day weekend."

Did anyone actually read Diane's post before starting on this strawman-burning campaign? She's absolutely correct that the global population is a problem, and potential parents who are concerned about the well-being of future generations should consider that fact in deciding how many new individuals, with all of the needs and demands they will place on our finite resources, to bring into the world. Perhaps stares and rude comments directed toward a family of five is too much, but the mentality that having children is a purely individual decision in which the rest of society has no interest is one that needs to change.

Diane Lou, politically, I agree with you. Though there are more factors that contribute to overpopulation and single women having children, such as rape and the deteriorating government support for abortion. But I digress. The issue for the LW wasn't the population of the country, it was the fact that people are walking up to them and saying that their children should never have been born. Not only is this despicably cold, but what's it going to solve? Is it going to convince the mom and dad to turn around and shoot their kids right there so they'll only have one from now on? Really.

We are not in any danger of "overpopulating" the earth as less and less people are having children these days. In fact, it has been predicted that when our generation gets older, there will be tons of old people and hardly any young people around to support them or the resources needed to take care of us. Damn straight, I'll be having three children, in case two are deadbeats.

My close friend is the youngest of six. He's the only one, who is well off or cares enough to take care of sick and elderly dad, before he passed away with cancer. The man lingered for four years. What if my friend wasn't born? His dad would've been up the creek without a paddle, because none of the other five had the sense to go to the hospital or pay for anything. They couldn't even afford to get the damn TV turned on at the hospital! My friend lives several states away and he called that night and happened to ask his dad if he was watching a certain show they both like. His father said he had no TV. He called the TV department with his credit card and got the TV turned on.

Her take on the situation is outdated and badly argued, as it was from the people she's parroting it from.

Get back to us when either of you has something original to say.

The Earth will take care of itself.

So stop berating other people for wanting to have more than one child.

As for the question posted to Prudie..the people that are telling this woman that her children shouldn't have been born, need to take a flying leap. They obviously came from the shallow end of the gene pool.

There wasn't advice to the woman with a brood of children - just a judgement of her lifestyle.

Anyways - I think your argument is flawed. I would disagree that our country, assuming you mean the US, is overpopulated. No one, aside from the very mentally ill, starves in this country. We waste tons of food. Our government pays farmers not to farm in order to ensure price stability.

What is the point of having less children if people still choose to live in McMansions an hour from where they work? Where is the benefit from having less kids if people than take the money they would have saved for college or braces and buy luxury cars? It's the livestyle choices many of us have made, not the amount of children.

Furthermore - you're argument seems to be that there will be some global starvation event due to a lack of resources. That is certainly possible. Also possible is a global epidemic. The more genetic material out there, as in, the more people alive, the better our chances as a species has of surviving it. By having less children, we limit the amount of genetic material that evolution added for a reason. If you look at what is happening in other parts of the world, people are dying from disease in numbers far greater than starvation.

Lastly - I would say growing up in a large family teaches kids that resources are scarce, that sharing is necessary, and that there isn't always enough to go around for everyone to get exactly what you want. It's a bit ironic that raising your kids in the "enviromentally resposibile" way is more likely to instill a sense of entitlement than it is to instill in them the value of resources.

"As for the question posted to Prudie..the people that are telling this woman that her children shouldn't have been born, need to take a flying leap. They obviously came from the shallow end of the gene pool."

Conventional wisdom is that it is the LW who is from the shallow end and doesn't realise that her brood are an impact on others. Where there is smoke there is fire and most likely the LW has blinders on to how ill behaved her children really are in public spaces and that is what draws the attention and comments.

I would love to have some time to do a little research and find out how people responded to the pubic criticism of breastfeeding/not breastfeeding (from a couple of weeks ago) and how they are now responding towards the criticism of having too many kids.

Alas, I don't have that much time so I'll just have to throw out that the majority of people from a couple of weeks ago were screaming MYOB to strangers that thought it was alright to comment on a mothers choice to breastfeed but are now saying that it's alright to tell a stranger that they are having too many kids or that they are failures at raising the ones they have based on 30 sec of sharing public space.