蜜芽传媒

Good morning. Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the birth of their third child. That鈥檚 an unusual number in a country where the average total of children is 1.9 per family. I鈥檓 an only child and I always missed not having brothers and sisters, imagining it was a case of the more the merrier. Now I鈥檓 all grown up and have no children 鈥� and I look with a mixture of envy and relief at the families with half-a-dozen kids who arrive to church in their mini-vans. They tell me that when your family gets that big, it becomes your entire life: the whole world, under one roof.

They also say they experience prejudice. Sometimes they are told, to their face, that it is 鈥渋rresponsible鈥� to have so many children. The assumption can often be made that taxpayers are financing a lack of self-control, while others point out 鈥� I鈥檓 sure with genuine ethical concern 鈥� that the world鈥檚 resources are finite and its population large enough already. I suspect it also offends a few critics as a throwback to an age when there was no contraception, when women might be compelled to obey God鈥檚 instruction in Genesis to 鈥渂e fruitful and multiply.鈥�

Those words, of course, were a commandment. The truth is when people have large families now, it's generally because they want to. Yes, many of them are religious, but not all; and far from this being an attempt to create an army of Catholics, it鈥檚 an expression of human love. Isn鈥檛 that what having a child ought to be about? And what a counter-cultural decision it is. Friends tell me that the cost of raising children is going up all the time, and they sense that the presence of babies in public can be resented. It鈥檚 as if society wants to be composed entirely of adults. The problem is obvious: you don鈥檛 get adults unless you have babies.

When Catholics like me talk about being 鈥渙pen to life鈥�, it鈥檚 dismissed as an obsessive opposition to birth control. But the sentiment actually goes well beyond the conception of a child 鈥� to their education, their health and putting them at the centre of everything we adults do. We don鈥檛 all have children of our own. For some that is a choice, for others a personal sadness. Either way, whatever you think about family sizes in the abstract, what鈥檚 striking is the immediate, unfettered joy felt when we hear a baby has been born. The philosophical debate goes out the window. All that matters is there's a new addition to the royal family, and I wish his parents the very best.

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