Good points. I’ve also heard that people should limit the number of children they have because of their carbon footprint.
There are underlying assumptions behind such suggestions, that people will use birth control, and be expected to do so.
It’s such a tricky area of life anyway. On a personal note, my late wife and I had two children, and were open to more. We never conceived again after our 2nd child. So you just never know about what will happen.
It’s true that many couples have fewer children, or none, because nature worked out that way. However, for those who are naturally more fertile, the pressure is always against having another child. You’re destroying the environment, you’re crowding the schools, you’re dividing your resources and all your kids will be Failures, your 15-passenger van is hard to park, yadda yadda.
It comes down, in my opinion, to a visceral, rather than rational, concept that there’s just something *gross* about the fact that sex makes babies. Like the idea that humans should really be past something so primitive and *ick* biological.
Not according to Chesterton.
You'd be surprised how many of these middle-class suburbia bred mass shooters (from Columbine onwards) justify their need to kill with Darwinistic language like that. You know, because time, resources, and space are running out for our 'species' and all that crap. Just read their manifestos. The contraceptive mentality is MENTALLY UNHEALTHY, SOUL-KILLING, and MATERIALISTIC.
Take the mass shooters out of the equation, and you see that the mere 'expectation' that couples oblige in only having 1.5 to 2.5 kids max props up the workings of our entire culture from insane work schedules to insurance policy setups and nursing homes...SO that: rather than surrender fully to God's designs, and allow the culture to fall in place. Christians have unknowingly made cultural norms their starting point, and adjust the Bible around flawed concepts of the "American Dream." (and all the romance-killing practical concerns therein.)
And even still, it's not that the Catholic Church is saying everyone should have 10 children. Just that there is a way "doing marriage" that puts God, and respect for life, rather than sexual desires or material concerns at the forefront.
And back to the mass shootings...It's clear that while not all of them were only children, a good many clearly had WAY too much time alone. (And almost all had absent fathers in particular.) Adam Lanza's mother was a doomsday prepper. You know, gotta be practical!