{"id":303,"date":"2010-07-20T13:35:02","date_gmt":"2010-07-20T13:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/how-many-kids-should-we-have.html"},"modified":"2010-07-20T13:35:02","modified_gmt":"2010-07-20T13:35:02","slug":"how-many-kids-should-we-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/how-many-kids-should-we-have.html","title":{"rendered":"How Many Kids Should We Have?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a new post at her.meneutics, “How Many Kids Should We Have?<\/a>” written in response to the recent TIME cover article about only children. It begins: <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
“One and Done<\/a>,” Lauren Sandler’s Time<\/em> cover story this week, offers a series of reasons why many parents in the West are choosing to have only one child. First, the economic strain: “The U.S.<\/span> Department of Agriculture reports that the average child in the U.S. <\/span>costs his or her parents about $286,050 — before college,” reports Sandler. There’s also the happiness and freedom that apparently come to parents with only one child. Sandler says the vast majority of married couples understand marriage as primarily about happiness and fulfillment, rather than an institution designed to facilitate the “bearing and raising of children.” And if marriage is about personal happiness, as one sociologist writes, “You should say that you’ll stop at one child to maximize your subjective well-being.” And, on a related note, “Parents who intend to have only one say they can manage the drudgery with an eye on the light at the end of the tunnel.”<\/span><\/div>\n

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To keep reading, click here<\/a>. And as always, feel free to comment here or at her.meneutics. <\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a new post at her.meneutics, “How Many Kids Should We Have?” written in response to the recent TIME cover article about only children. It begins:  “One and Done,” Lauren Sandler’s Time cover story this week, offers a series of reasons why many parents in the West are choosing to have only one child. First, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-faith","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Many Kids Should We Have? - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/how-many-kids-should-we-have.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Many Kids Should We Have? - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have a new post at her.meneutics, “How Many Kids Should We Have?” written in response to the recent TIME cover article about only children. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}