Haven't we been saying this for years? YOUR children cost EVERYBODY money!

"Children can be expensive, and not just for parents."

How so, you may ask? From the article:

"As a general principle, a household that's sending more than one child into the school system is probably costing the town money."

What the family pays in taxes doesn't equal what's spent to educate children and provide other services. Childfree and childless households stand a chance of contributing money rather than draining it from limited town and county resources.

Want to help your local economy? DON'T HAVE KIDS. Support efforts to bring age-restricted housing to your area instead of regular housing developments that attract families. Your city's budget will thank you.

Nothing personal, parents; it's just business, and right now, "the village" can't afford your kids.

Octomom! OctoMel! Jon and Kate Plus Eight! Brad and Angelina! Stop it with the human puppy mills.

Thanks to the fine folks mentioned in the title of this post, along with the crappy economy and lingering (deepening?) recession, I sense the winds of change blowing on the reproductive front. It's about time, too. Rampant breeding is going out of style.

Vasectomies are becoming more popular (search this, you'll find the news stories). More people seem to be speaking out against having ridiculously large broods of children, based on comments I see on blogs and news articles. "Quiverfull" just seems senseless right now. 

Could it be that smaller family sizes - or at least, smaller numbers of one's own personal DNA replicants in a family otherwise built by adoption - will be back in vogue? I hope so. Everyone is reconsidering their personal excesses of recent years, and having a lot of children was one of those excesses that showed, "I can afford this."

No, most of you couldn't, just like you couldn't afford the second house, third car, boat, or equity loan. It was all built on debt. The good (or bad) thing is that the kids you had that you can't afford, won't be repossessed. 

Homeless shelters will become terribly crowded places. Imagine losing your nice house and car and having to take yourself, your partner or spouse, and your five kids to a shelter full of other families with several kids. Imagine your family crowded in with lots of other families who all thought they were so special, they should bless the world with more little versions of themselves. Helllloooooooo Calcutta!

Don't have kids yet? Don't be in a hurry to change that. Have kids? Love the ones you've got without feeling the need to make more.  Isn't the world a challenging enough place right now without bringing more hungry mouths to feed, and pay for, into it? Besides, having lots of kids is no longer a status symbol. It's now another symbol of foolish excess and financial overreach, like Hummers and expensive home remodeling.

If frugal is the new black, uncontrolled reproduction is the new green shag carpeting, something to never come back into style as long as there are thinking people in this world.

I'm with you. I'm WITH you.

Why bother saving the world for your oversized brood?

If you have kids, and especially if you have THAT many kids, you obviously don't give a shit about the environment. Don't say otherwise.

Be "green," don't be "green," have kids, don't have kids, it's your choice. However, do NOT claim to be environmentalist in ANY way when you have children.

So how do you like being a mom, Mom?

Not very much, thank you.

I'd never seen this site before. How depressing.

Even on those days when I feel like life sucks, I tell myself, "At least I don't have kids to support or look after or fight with someone about."

I'm sure the confessor will get barbecued on that site. I have no doubt she speaks the truth, and good for her for doing so.

I know a lot of people who cope to varying degrees with parenthood, but nobody who actually enjoys it. That says a lot. To those out there who really do like being a parent, good for you. If anyone should reproduce, it would be you, I suppose. Everyone else with kids should have thought about it a little more first.

Where I've been and where I'm going

I've been asked if I'm still blogging. The answer is: I don't know.

I'm not sure what's left to blog or complain about that I haven't covered already. How many times can I keep plowing the same ground? The entitlement-minded, child-centered culture is here to stay. I don't have to like it, but for my own sanity, I've opted to accept that it is so.

I'll leave this blog up for a while, but I don't know whether I'll post in the future. I'll just be out there living life, which is what being childfree is about. I don't want to be enslaved to either children or causes.