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Well, any regular reader of this blog knows I am inclined to lament and regret, and this is surely a situation for just that: we are no longer in the business of baby-making.

Rejoice all ye champions of population control, common sense, reduced carbon footprint, etc.

I look across my desk at the family portrait, however, and sigh. *sigh* My wife and I make good kids, and though we have a bunch of them (4, for you new folk), it's killing me that we stopped there. Each of my children is so very unique, so very precious, so...cool. They have personalities that never-cease to astound me. They are independent little thinking machines that teach me daily. They seem--from my biased perspective--to be pretty smart.

I'd argue that we've been good for the collective gene pool, and it's sorrowful to have to stop now. I'd argue that our mad breeding has made the world a better place, and that there should be a nation of my offspring, like the sands of the--well, you get the idea. I like my kids, I think we're good folks, and I am having trouble adapting to this new hard line of "no more kids!"

I remember just a few years ago, I was baffled by my buddy who then had six kids and wanted more. I thought he was nuts. Now he and his wife are going to have a seventh, his oldest is something like 18. That means he's been doing diapers for almost two decades! What person in their right mind would do such a thing? A parent who really likes parenting--someone like me, now-a-days.

Heck, I can still remember not wanting ANY KIDS. I held that line for 20 years into my breeding years. According to a recent release, it's going to cost contemporary parents about $200 grand per child to bring their kid through age 17! Gadzooks! Who could AFFORD kids anymore?

On the other hand, when you feel the love, know the joy, reflect and bask regularly in all-things parenting, it's easy to come full-circle like I have, to wonder how one could NOT afford it, or how one might afford to live w/o parenting.

I know, I know, I'm still only 7 years into it. I've had a non-stop stream of people wagging their heads and forewarning me of how terrible it is yet to get. People laugh at me that my youngest will be graduating when I'm in my mid-sixties. Evil is coming, I am told.

I say, bring it.

I spoke briefly with my wife about becoming barren, and she told me that the kids we have provide an infinite opportunity to love and be loved. (She also said, eventually, we could always adopt!)

I know all that, too...but it does not make this new era any easier.