Family Planning, the Other Way Around

Generally, when we say "family planning" we mean limiting the size of our families.  Just recently, it occurred to me that many people who have very large families actually plan to do so - it's not just an accident.  They're "planning their families" too, but simply planning to have lots of children.

This weekend we visited my wife's grandpa's farm again.  One evening we were sitting in the house for the evening snack, and my wife's great uncle showed up.  As with everyone else, we told him the exciting news that we were expecting our third child.  Like everyone else, he was very happy to hear the news.

"That's wonderful," he said.  "It's a good start.  There are people out there these days who don't want to have any babies."  He shook his head in disapproval. "We need to have children.  There's always enough work for everyone." (On the farm, they always end their day without finishing the many tasks that could be done.)

Great-Uncle Palemon, Proud of Our Good Start

He then went on to tell various stories of couples he knew of who had had 15, 20 and even 30 children.  My wife simply nodded as though she agreed this sounded like a good idea, not daring to argue.  Her great aunt stood by listening, nodding in real, heartfelt approval of these wonderful stories.

My wife's grandpa had also given another perspective; "The more children we have, the more we have.  We all work hard together and share, and that way no body is ever lacking anything."  (By "we" he meant the extended family and even the community as a whole - not one isolated family.)  More children is a form of stability and a guarantee that there are always people to help each other.  For my wife's grandpa, this point was especially important, since he is now older and unable to manage his farm alone, and is becoming more and more dependent on his children and grandchildren. There's also a social importance - the simple love of being around family (in their view) makes it good and pleasant to be around many children and grandchildren and have their company.

These three elderly people believe in family planning.  Not in the sense of actively limiting your family size as we use the phrase now, but rather planning to have as many children as possible. Having more children is a good thing all senses - morally, economically, socially, etc.  So you plan to have many.

(It's important to note that these people aren't Catholic - in fact, there quite aggressively anti-Catholic.  This is simply a matter of traditional values.  They also aren't rich or even average in wealth - even by the standards of the impoverished countryside where they live, they are among the poorest.  But again, lots of kids is an economic support as well, besides being morally correct and more pleasant.)

As a disclaimer on behalf of my wife's beloved family members, they weren't spitting out babies once a year for several decades.  One of them had 6 children and the other had 7 - far from the 15 and 20 of her uncle's wonderful stories.  This was as many children as they could physically have.  Back in their days, they didn't have access to baby formula or bottles, meaning the babies were breastfed as long as they needed milk and couldn't drink out of a cup.  This was an obstacle to their having more babies, not a method of avoiding babies.  So instead of having babies every year, they would have a baby every 3 or 4 years.

(On the farm, entire families share one bedroom - although I don't really know, I'm guessing this factor also created certain practical limitations on parts of the process.)

So my wife's great uncles and aunts didn't have 15 or 20 children. They wish they could've.  But they couldn't.  It simply didn't happen.  One thing is for sure - they weren't trying to prevent it.  They were trying to have as many as possible.  That was their plan.

I was talking to my brother-in-law about this on the drive home.  We realized the gigantic families of 15 - 20 are not a product of old-fashioned ideas, but rather of modernism getting mixed up with old-fashioned ideas;  when innovations from the modern world remove the natural obstacles to having children, suddenly people who want to have as many children as possible can have 15, 20 or even more.  Those who don't want this many children need to find artificial (or natural) ways to prevent it.

Thus, in the past family planning meant planning to have as many kids as you could.  You wanted 15; if you were lucky you'd get 7.  An "accident" (e.g. the wife got sick and couldn't have kids for a while) meant you didn't get as many kids as you wanted. Now, family planning means you plan to prevent having kids, whether it be artificially or naturally.  You want one or two children.  An "accident" means you have a second or third that you weren't planning on.  To most of our generation it's absurd to think that a third child could actually be a part of a plan of any sort.

The phrase "family planning," wouldn't necessarily have to mean limiting family size.  We simply assume that it does. It's incredible how things change.