Addict Nation (28 page)

to try to see what you looked like as a kid

to fit in and gain the acceptance of others who also have children

to try to save a marriage or a relationship

to prove one’s sexual potency and fertility (virility for men)

to try to establish evidence of heterosexuality if experiencing internal conflicts over sexual orientation or in the closet

to prove one’s intelligence or beauty as reflected in offspring

to get money from the government or another party

to have power and ownership over another human being

to achieve a preconceived notion of the ideal family size

If the root cause of the psychological or emotional problem is not addressed, the procreation addict will seek another kid fix, as the first child grows up and becomes independent. Says Beverly Hills psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, “The mom may feel abandoned and act quickly to fill the void again with a new baby who will reply upon her and her partner and define their lives.”
¹⁵

So what is a spiritually sound reason to conceive? How about a motive centered on love. Having a child can be a profound expression of the love that exists between two human beings.

“What is the right reason to procreate? A desire to give . . . a healthy desire to nurture something.”

—Dr. Judy Kuriansky, author of
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to a Healthy Relationship

Get a Life

Ideally, you should have a life to share with your child, as opposed to expecting that your child will give your life meaning. Yet “I live for my kids” is a common refrain from parents. Wow, what enormous pressure on a kid to have to be someone else’s
raison d’être
.

Ironically, it’s likely to cause the child to resent the parent as the child is likely to feel suffocated by and enmeshed with the parent who is living through the kid. That is classic codependency. Or, in other words, the addiction to being “needed.” It should be noted that you can be an addict and a codependent at the same time. It’s called a “double winner.”

So What if I Want a Big Family . . .
Mind Your Own Business

This is the common refrain of many Americans who consider family size a personal lifestyle choice that is nobody else’s business but their own. China may have a one-child-only rule that is perceived as repressive and cruel, but Americans have the freedom to be
Jon and Kate Plus 8
or have nineteen kids like the Duggars, featured on national television. While I’m certainly not suggesting the U.S. government imitate China and create laws restricting how many children we can have, what I am saying is that we need to own up to the inherent irresponsibility of having large numbers of children without any consideration of the impact on the world around us.

My dad used to say, “Freedom isn’t the right to shout fire in a crowded movie theater.” Perhaps that should be revised to “Freedom isn’t the right to pop out a football team and then put them on television with the excuse that you need to make money to feed them.” If you think a massive brood is a harmless curiosity, perhaps this stat will snap you out of denial. The United States population is expected to soar from 309 million to at least 419 million by 2050! That’s about 110 million more people in four decades.
¹⁶

Too Many with Too Much

Americans actually have a greater moral responsibility than the rest of the world to be judicious about procreating. Why? According to the United Nations, a child born in the industrial world consumes and pollutes more over his or her lifetime than do dozens of children born in developing countries.
¹⁷
That’s because kids in developing countries don’t get closets full of designer clothes, garages full of toys, dozens of birthday gifts, and a mountain of video games. Also, I don’t think they have Chuck E. Cheese’s in Bangladesh! Because of our overindulgent lifestyle, environmentalists estimate having one child in the United States is equal to having at least forty kids in a developing country! So, Mr. Duggar, your having nineteen kids in America is like having 760 kids in Africa or India.

Population Control Is Perplexing

There is some good news on America’s population-control front. It should be pointed out that many Americans are opting for fewer children. The average size of the American family is near an all-time low of about 3.2 humans.
¹⁸
Our fertility rate is slightly below 2.1 children per woman, which is the replacement rate.
¹⁹
Sounds like it’s under control, right?

But other stats seem to completely contradict that. In 2007, American women gave birth to more than 4 million infants, the most ever!
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Here’s one key to the puzzle: more than 25 percent of those babies were born to women having their third or fourth child!
²¹
In other words, what we’re seeing is a divergence, with increasing numbers of American women choosing fewer children or no children, but a crucial segment of the population opting for big families. With a population of 300 million and counting, that sizable chunk of women opting for large families is one reason the population is expected to keep spiking.