Dear Mr. Businesshearted,

My husband and I are at a crossroads. He seems to think we should have more children, and I believe that two is already enough. He comes from a large family of four kids and he is used to the dysfunction it brings a household. I come from a family of two and I like the perks, especially the ability to scatter into different rooms without seeing each other for hours and hours. I feel with two more kids, we will have less ability to do this. As well, family vacations and back to school shopping will be considerably more expensive. He is adamant however, saying it will bring our family closer together, and I am wondering if you have any advice for us.

Sincerely,

Too Many Children Already
Sherwood Park

Dear Too Many Children Already,

Alas, it is a serious situation you are referring to, and you are right to be anxious about the introduction of more children into your lifestyle. What can come of large family is a definite sense of belonging and an uncontrollable dysfunction that is endearing to some people. However, not everybody can enjoy this. Just look at the thousands upon thousands of childless gay and lesbian unions in our province that do whatever it takes to not have children. Kids are messy and expensive, they have a tendency to only pick up our bad habits, and they talk on hours on end about useless subjects that are boring even to their own age group. Unless of course you somehow manage to have some ‘cool’ children, but they say only one in twenty are like this by nature, unfortunately. Most likely, you will be stuck dealing with a flock of whiny assholes for at least 26 years per child (by today’s standards) who will sit cutely in your lap like those cats who don’t understand that you need to get up and go to work. I was raised in a family of several children, which is way more than necessary for anybody to have to go through. I like a nice, solitary dwelling, shared mainly with one or two people of choice – and preferably people like maids or cab drivers that will leave when you tell them to. Big,down-home country family ‘Brew-ha-has’ are obviously unappealing, but it does give you a deeper question to ponder.

I say this because I find the most common mistake that new families make is that they forget to think about our planet’s ability to support them. Canadian children especially, since they enjoy a superb quality of life, require sizable investments in infrastructure. More needy and dependent minors will mean increased resource demand, which in turn means higher prices for you at the pump. Even worse, you’ll be burdening the economy with two more idealist riff-raffs, demanding you be taxed to pay for their liberal arts hand-outs.

The most important question – now listen carefully – is there a job waiting for them at the end of their stay with you? The number one most important and overlooked duty a parent will have is job creation. As a parent, in your career you will need to create new employment options that you can pass down to your children. If you choose to ignore this, and hope that it will all just ‘work out’, they will be left to wander aimlessly in the job market like those starving, rogue teenage elephants in Africa- creating havoc and destroying the resources of other, already maxed-out institutions. With the current global recession, this has become more important than ever.

Ignoring job creation is a terrible irresponsibility of any parent, but it seems many of us have not registered that children do not just exist in this world for ‘free’ anymore. If we lived in a warmer climate, where the outdoors acts sort of a nurturing goddess, maybe. But in the frozen witchbag of a nightmare that this province leans towards, a cold-hearted cost-benefit analysis is necessary before families can consider franchising their very special brand of genetics.

At your credit, and yours 4 eva,

Mr. Businesshearted