That's One Crowded Apartment!

OK, let me get this straight. This woman whose carpet-layer husband “wanted many children” had IVF after already having two children naturally. The IVF gave the couple triplets, bringing the family size to 7. Then, proving there was no need for IVF intervention in the first place, the woman conceives again naturally. This time with quadruplets! Here’s the kicker: the family of 11 lives in a one-bedroom apartment in LA.

I may be going out on a limb here, but a couple with even just two kids living in a one bedroom place should be looking more into tubal ligation than into IVF. It’s cheaper than IVF and they can use the money they save to get a bigger apartment. Now they have 9 children to support on a single carpet layer’s salary. Are all the kids just going to sleep in the living room? Bet their folks can’t wait until they all need braces and start driving. Can you even add an additional 9 people to your auto insurance?

This type of thing just irks me. First of all, in most circumstances the whole IVF things seems unnecessary, and borderline selfish. With all the thousands of children in foster care waiting to be adopted how can people still justify the expense and ordeal of IVF, particularly when they already have their own healthy, biological children? Secondly, what was wrong with having just two kids? Especially given the couple’s financial and living situation. I’m not promoting one-child policies like China’s or anything, but I do believe it’s everyone’s ecological and societal responsibility to keep family sizes small. Very few couples have the monetary resources to raise 9 children and be able to give all of them what they would otherwise like to. And though I don’t doubt each child in a large family is loved, I do question the availability of the parents’ emotional resources.

Many environmentalists concede that the largest threat to human kind is not air pollution or global warming per say. Rather these things are all symptoms of a larger problem: overpopulation. We have a finite amount of resources at our disposal (quite literally) and already we are facing a situation (in this country) in which many people don’t have what they need to live comfortably. It is not simply a matter of inequitable resource distribution, though that does confound the problem. There wouldn’t be such fierce competition for resources were they not finite.

Back to the couple with the 9 kids…I wish them luck. They’re gonna need it. As for any other couple wanting a large family, check out an organization called Adopt US Kids There are countless foster kids out there looking for a loving home.