On Having More Children

Why yes, I would love to have more children. If I could, I would have twelve. Yes, that's right, a dozen little chiltins running around, doing things like raising the farm animals, tending to the garden, cooking and cleaning, all those good things children should be doing and learning. Children bring so much joy and happiness with their innocence and willingness to learn all about the world around them.

The problem lies with the world that we live in today. I spend every single day wondering how I am going to bring Emma up in this world of excess, direspect and selfishisness.

Now, I have never been of tree hugging hippe set, or the devout Christian set or of the anything set really, but in my utopian world, I would live with my husband and children in the Montana mountains, miles from anyone, raising my own food, making my own clothes and teaching my own children. Teaching them the three R's of course, but also about nature, art, culture, music and obedience, respect, so on and so on.

I hate, yes, I hate the public school system and dread that day when Emma must attend her very first day of kindergarten. I abhor the children whose parents provide for their every want including Louis Vuitton handbags and Dior sunglasses (at age 5!)and the way Emma will feel when she has to endure the tauntings and the teasings for not wearing Juicy Couture sweatpants or Seven jeans to school. I detest the fact that when Emma is kind and obedient to her elders that children will write terrible things about her on the Internet and perhaps wound her little soul into thinking she is an outcast or not good enough.

I live in fear that everyday will bring a new challenge about how much money she has to make, or how big of a house she has to live in, or how fancy of a car she must drive. Or, how much she will hate me for trying to raise her to believe that McDonalds is not healthy food, that being a good wife and mother are noble pursuits, that sex is something special and that love does not equal cost of the wedding.

I worry that she will meet the right person to start a family of her own, that she will meet the wrong person who will take advantage of her. It hurts me to think that she will have her heart broken, that she will not truly appriciate things until she is older.

I worry about the state of the country that we live in, and the state of democracy and how that will effect Emma's children, and their children.

And so, yes, I would love to have more children, but I somehow feel as if I would be doing a great disservice to those little humans by bringing them up in the world in which we live.