According to the Canadian Press, a British Columbia woman, age 44, just gave birth to her 18th child, a girl who weighed almost eight pounds. Her oldest is twenty-three. Her husband, Alexandru Ionce, said he wouldn't say no to more children: "We never planned how many children to have. We just let God guide our lives, you know, because we strongly believe life comes from God and that's the reason we did not stop the life. We let life come."
The large family is out of fashion these days, but maybe it's making a comeback.
Mother of four Katie Allison Granju writes on Babble.com about wanting six kids, and about how she doesn't feel her choice is widely respected:
While we do appear to have a pop culture fascination with big families - witness the interest in the Duggars, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, and even the Jolie-Pitt brood - our focus is somewhat akin to the way one would observe a circus sideshow act, complete with requisite smug ridicule. In fact, many of the people I know personally who make it a point to actively support reproductive rights don't seem to believe that those rights should also extend to actual reproduction; this is especially true for pro-choice folks who seem to believe I am committing some kind of heinous eco-crime by giving birth.
We never would have thought having a passel of kids would be controversial if you can take care of them, but judging from the feedback so far people have very strong feelings about the relative benefits and dowside of having birthing a small army. What do you think: heinous eco-crime, or god-sent miracle?
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 9)
31. janesophie1,
THANK YOU!!!!! I couldn't have explained it better. I'm GLAD that I'm not the only one standing up for my faith!!!
Sally at 7:06PM on Jul 29th 2008
32. Anyone willing to keep arguing with me??
BRING IT!!
Sbrhouse@aol.com
Instant message capable
Can do it on cell phone but if I don't respond then I'm busy.
BRING IT!!
i_luv_idol at 7:09PM on Jul 29th 2008
33. Not sure why it did that - i_luv_idol is Sally. Not sure why it's doing that.................
i_luv_idol at 7:11PM on Jul 29th 2008
34. "is it really necessary to limit the amount of children we each have?"
In the not-so-distant future that question is going to be like asking "if petrol is a nonrenewable resource should we use alternative fuel sources?"
Mokele Mbembe at 7:13PM on Jul 29th 2008
35. ryan - hate to burst your bubble, but even with birth control, they still get pregnant.
i_luv_idol at 7:14PM on Jul 29th 2008
36. No, it isn't nessessary to limit children.
Did not God say "Be fruitful and multiply?"
I'm going to keep posing, so don't even tell me to stop.
This is ONE teenager that's standing up for her faith. Thank Steubenville of the Rockies for that!
i_luv_idol at 7:16PM on Jul 29th 2008
37. God bless this family. It's only been in recent history that couples only have a few or no kids.
There are so many blessings to having and being in large families.
In our modern, consumptive and expen$ive society, it makes that blessing so much harder to do.
I hope this famiily receives much love and support in every way from those around them. They deserve it.
Nina at 7:24PM on Jul 29th 2008
38. So, some of you are so involved on an emotional level with what this husband & wife have decided to do & how to do it with regard to their own family, that you feel some government intervention or social reprimand is justified here.
"How disgusting"... & "How irresponsible" to quote some of you Socialists & other liberal Population Control advocates.
Children…what a headache. Definitely not a blessing, especially since the word is associated with God, who has stood in our way long enough.
Perhaps some day you'll get your wish & a true Socialistic government propagated by a modern day Stalin, Lenin, Hitler or Mau will be enacted & they will start sterilizing, euthanizing or mandating abortion to solve this crisis. We really do need people to tell us how to live our lives.
How dare they actually have a positive impression of God rather than a bitter, resentful & hateful one like some of you? A good old-fashioned Socialistic dictator will solve that problem too & get rid of these people who don’t share our convictions & beliefs, especially with regard to Religion, & Christianity in particular.
Just remember to support your local, or national Socialist in the up-coming election, & we’ll be on our way.
Winston Sanders
Winston at 7:24PM on Jul 29th 2008
39. It's only been in recent history that couples only have a few or no kids.
Winston,
Look up Socialism. Soviet Communism was NOT "a true Socialistic government". Just sayin'.
Mokele Mbembe at 7:32PM on Jul 29th 2008
40. Woops,
"It's only been in recent history that couples only have a few or no kids."
Huh?
Mokele Mbembe at 7:33PM on Jul 29th 2008
41. As a woman, I say that natural family planning is cruel to women (and thus to their partners!) because, if a woman doesn't want to get pregnant, it requires her to abstain from sex with her partner during the time in her cycle when she has the greatest libido, around the time of ovulation. I nearly died during childbirth, thank goodness my husband was loving and kind enough to get a vasectomy. Otherwise, our two daughters might have grown up without their mother.
Yvonne RN at 7:37PM on Jul 29th 2008
42. Firstly, almost any person regardless of wealth is going to have a negative balance with respect to their environmental impact.
Common sense dictates that a person born into the lifestyle typical of a developed and in many cases also a developing nation is going to have a negative impact of greater magnitude than a person born into a third-world socio-economical setting.
On the other hand the few individuals among us who are pushing for awareness about man's impact on the environment as well as those who are most effective at performing and inspiring action and change toward the goal of mankind becoming an eco-neutral species tend to come from developed and developing nations that possess the educational infrastructure to provide a background that teaches the necessity of these things.
Not to mention that if you do not procreate, your genes will not be passed on.
Since Catholic doctrine was brought up with regards to birth control I might as well mention that "Be fruitful and multiply" is not an outright ban on having sex for any other reason. The Catholic church only holds this belief traditionally because it is believed that the disciple Peter, first bishop of Rome and the basis for the doctrine of papal authority, fervently held this view. However you may rightly note that nowhere in the actual canonical scripture is this view echoed and in fact if you take the time to read Song of Solomon you may get a completely different idea of the full extent of God's intended purposes for married monogamous sex.
On the issue of abortion however I'm with the Catholic church when it pertains to non-health related reasons. A woman's choice AS WELL AS A MAN'S is to accept or decline the risk of pregnancy when they choose to engage in sex (protected or not) and furthermore to accept the responsibilities if she and he lose that gamble. Extinguishing another human being's life for selfish reasons should be illegal no matter if that life is 50 years or 50 minutes old. From every biological perspective the instant the mother and father's DNA combine the result is a new human life that is no more an appendage of the woman's body than the man's. Part of the female reproductive system is in charge of defending the child from the mother's own immune system which sees it as a foreign body (because that's what it is).
Easy for me to say, I will never be pregnant and abandoned, but I can still have an opinion. As an American man, if I do want to own up to my responsibility should I take part in conceiving a child and thus become a father, the choice is not mine to make.
Whether it's your first or your fifth or your eighteenth child, before you engage in sex with someone, read up on your contraceptive. If you find that there's only a 1 in 10,000 chance of pregnancy, choose to accept that gamble and have sex or choose not to have sex. The bottom line is that if you lose that bet, you need to be an adult and take responsibility for your child.
Shaun C. at 7:41PM on Jul 29th 2008
43. Mokele Mbembe,
Actually, the definition of the word "Socialism" is "the transition from one form of government, especially Capitalism, to Communism."
In other words, Socialism is enacted, under the auspices of other names such as Liberalism, Progressivism & the like, with the ultimate goal as being Communism. In this stage, many of its proponents are unaware of that ultimate goal.
During the transitional stage of Socialistic government, the political & social climate of a particular nation is not entirely ready to go through the "Cleansing Stage" of a "Red Revolution such as the Holocaust of National Socialist Germany, The Bolshevik Revolution of the Soviet Union, or the Cultural Revolution of China, often because of small arms circulation among the citizenry & a strong Conservative social & political presence. So propaganda is promoted in the media, educational institutions & on the political front with the goal of preparing that society for it's own "Red Revolution by breeding hatred between various people groups, & especially against those of a more conservative &/or monotheistic religious bent, usually Christian & Orthodox Jewish in nature.
That is why gun control is always a part of the agenda, along with the cheapening of life through abortion, euthanasia, sterilization & other similar political movements.
Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pok, Castro & many other Socialists of various sectarian bents advocated all of these.
Winston
Winston at 3:15AM on Aug 1st 2008
44. Just to correct myself, I shouldn't say that nowhere is the Catholic church's doctrine of opposition to contraceptives echoed in canonical scripture. There is room for interpretation to be sure, what I should have said is that nowhere is there an explicit and definitive prohibition on recreational sex.
Shaun at 8:09PM on Jul 29th 2008
45. Winston; I'm a happily married father and captilist who strongly believes women have a right to control her own body. Not sure how you are making the leap to us all being socialist.
Ryan Anderson at 9:04PM on Jul 29th 2008