Amusement at ZPG discussion

I regularly read Joanne Jacobs' education blog. She posts a lot of interesting articles, and her commentary often has a small personal anecdote related to the articles.

Recently she blogged a picture of a poster hanging in a school hallway that was promoting people having no more than two children each. So as to prevent overpopulation, of course, even though the advanced economies of the world are mostly facing population decline issues these days. There followed a discussion in the blog comments about ZPG (zero population growth). Now, I come from a family of 10 children. My mom was no fan of ZPG, to put it mildly. Though she had a masters degree in family science, she would have busybodies come up to her in public places and ask her if she "knew about birth control" because she was trailing a pack of little ones. My mother has over 40 grandchildren so far.

One Catholic commenter said that if she had seen such a poster in her high school, she would have banded together with other Catholics and Mormons and protested it. The commenter also mentioned that she is expecting baby #7. Well, this Mormon girl (me) just completed week #6 of pregnancy with baby #5. (It's a bit soon to make it very public, but I figure once I start suffering from nausea, it's fair for me to tell a few people so I have some bright moments reminding me why I'm going through this again.)

The old stereotypes about Mormons and Catholics having large families have still got some truth to them. :) Although, I must admit, the "large" families are getting markedly smaller. In my circle, "six is the new ten" when it comes to the number of children.