Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Debate over family size hits home

Scott Dickensheets

Tuesday, July 28, 1998 | 10:26 a.m.

THE ISSUE of family size seems like an odd arena in which to observe moral finger-wrestling.

Of course, as a public topic it's been in the air, in a vague, backburnerish sort of way -- doesn't the Chinese government have some distasteful policies along these lines or something? And then there are those welfare mothers who keep having kids at taxpayer's expense. Beyond that, how many kids you have has rarely seemed a subject for public-policy style debating.

Bill McKibben is trying to change that. His book, "Maybe One," makes the argument for single-child families, and makes it on several fronts: environmental (one kid means less stress on resources), psychological (some studies indicate only kids do better academically) and moral (those things make single-childhood a better choice).

Barely were McKibben's dukes up when writer Margaret Talbot responded with an elegant pummeling of his book in the New Republic. She detested the yuppie smugness of his thesis and attacked his facts as selective (we have no idea how many people the Earth can sustain). "He is irritating not only because he is so wrong," she writes, "but also because he is so sanctimonious."

Intellectuals, please!

I suppose I have to side with Talbot. It's absurd to decide beforehand the number of children you should have. You may think you know but you don't know. Believe me, I know.

My wife married me with the clear understanding that I didn't want any children. Zero, zip, nada darn one. I intended to live lightly and unencumbered, pleasantly free of the midnight feedings and colicky squallings of offspring. My wife, while quietly hoping I might eventually agree to least one, accepted my attitude. So much so, in fact, that, a year later, when the home pregnancy test turned positive, she celebrated by repeatedly hurling the test tube into the street.

I was mortified, of course -- until months later, when I first held the little critter. In the rush of that moment, my old attitudes evaporated. I suddenly wanted a dozen more (although maybe not right away, as a courtesy to my exhausted wife). I wanted a troupe, a riot, a family circus.

Even after I settled down, the logic of our family became apparent; one wasn't enough. I didn't put as much thought into that decision as did McKibben -- researching only-child psychology testing, sibling rivalry studies. It was an intuitive decision. We had another. Still didn't seem right. So we had another. That did feel right and still does.

The point, I suppose, is that at no time was it a moral or political decision. I would have loathed the notion of consulting study data and issuing an environmental impact report on each of my kids. And I don't think they've suffered for being part of a brood. Those in school are doing swell academically and none wants for attention. As for the environmental impact of three kids, well, at least they do less harm than your average land developer. I'll settle for that.

We recently drove home from a long weekend in Colorado, 10 long hours cramped in The Mighty Sport Utility Vehicle. Most of that time, my three sons bickered and sniped and giggled and went about the noisy business of being siblings. That's my family circus! I smiled all the way home.