I was sitting with a good friend, watching the world go by, on a sunny, August day when a group of people–what appeared to be a family–passed by. The man was carrying a baby, the woman was pushing a stroller and three other pint-sized kids were with them, for a total of five. No one was crying and they looked to be having a pretty nice afternoon stroll. My friend says, “I hope they aren’t all theirs!” to wish I say, “I hope they are!” And we continued chatting.
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*Facepalm*.
Having many happy and well-raised children should be seen as an accomplishment.
I would like to give my friend the benefit of the doubt and say that she was commenting on how much work that would be, which it is, clearly. I didn’t ask her to flesh out why she said that. To me, anyway, simply saying “wow–what a lot of work” would have been the thing to do, were that the case.
Because I overthink things, I saw this as evidence that we don’t really welcome children into our lives anymore. Not if people choose to have more than the sanctioned number.