Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for May 25, 2013

@John Pike ** I left you an epistle at the end of the last strip’s comments….

My nephew and his wife have triplets, a challenge, but Alex and Leo can handle what comes their way. Two plus one might be easier in some ways, but would stretch out the diaper time.

That’s really quite funny.

Some people want a whole bunch of kids. As long as they can love and take care of them and won’t turn them into freak show for some cable network, I have no problem with that.

I really enjoy these two, my favorite characters in this strip.Alex and Leo. And it is a lot, she’s right. Huge transitionscoming up. I personally think she should forget the job, ifpossible, right now. Finding housing, moving, having twosmall babies at once and taking care of them and Leo willbe a full time job.

The babies will need a Mother, full time. Of course theywill need the money. I wonder if she could work fromhome, part time, maybe. Until the boys start school.And yes, DUHHH, it’s called BIRTH CONTROL, people. Thisis a basic.

My Dad bought the record (78) Twenty Tiny Fingers and Twenty Tiny Toes, when my sister and I where born. (Middle of last century). I think we drove both of them crazy in the end. Plus I give the sound bite to anyone with twins to drive them nuts by letting the kids keep replaying the dumb song.

Remember the old saying: “The rich get richer and the poor get children.” It was only half true when work and a little luck could pull you through. But nowadays, with upward social mobility on the decline, and poor children mostly being abandoned to their fates …

Z- z- zone defense. Th- th- that joke is old.

I take it you’ve seen “Idiocracy”?

Family sizes are too small, the lack of sibblings may be contributing to social, and emotional problems in the next generations.

“zone defense” Yeah, old joke – Baby Blues did it years ago. Still cute, though.

Of course, having children can change one’s perspective. At the same time, being childless does not mean that one is totally unsympathetic to the challenges of raising a child. In my case, I put off having a child for pretty much as long as possible, precisely because I assumed there would be challenges and wanted to be ready financially and emotionally.

In the last 70 years – one lifespan – the human population of the earth has more than tripled. This has never happened before, at any point in human history.

Lots of things on the overpopulation front should be interesting to watch. In China, the one child policy has resulted in a rather large shortage of girls. Although my teen daughter would like to visit over there, I would rather that she didn’t.

“A ‘PAIR’ of twins is four children.

“Overpopulation is a frightening reality; but YOU telling ME how many children I can have is the ultimate tyranny. Whose your coach, Mao or Hitler?”

…………………………………………………...It is that kind of ignorance that is going to bring about the extinction of the human race. The people who are aware of the “O” problem hope that we will come to our senses and devise a remedy for this. They are beating a dead horse. We have already passed the breaking point, so it’s only a matter of time. Every child is born into a worsening world. And every generation will be contributing to a worsening world.

Your statement, ‘but YOU telling ME how many children I can have is the ultimate tyranny.’ shocked me. The audacity in that statement is the exact reason that we are doomed.

There is a formula (exponential) that illustrates this: 2 plus 2 is 4; times 4 is 8; times 8 is 16; times 16 is 32; times 32 is 64….and on and on ad nauseum.

I am normally in favor of traditional marriage. But Alex and Leo are an exception.Leo is the most mature male in this strip. After what he endured in the military, he can easily handle staying at home with the kids if that is what they want.Alex with her new PhD will be making far more money for their family than Leo ever will. They will be fine.

All a phd qualifies you for is to teach. My guess is Leo will do quite well

Well put! Civilization requires we help one another.

bawana, care to supply us with a reference that “the planets [sic] ability to be self-sustaining” was surpassed in 1938?

Dogs and pigs have litters. They can’t help it. They don’t know any better. Humans presumably know better. Presumably can control themselves.

Zone defense! SNERK!! Nice sports reference, GT.

So a pair of scissors has four blades and a pair of pants four legs?

or, have 19+ kids.

ha ha ha

Holding a patent means nothing. Unless someone has contracted with Alex to actually build something based on that patent, she gets zero income from it.

We don’t want to end up like Japan and some European countries, with an aging population and not enough young people to provide a decent labor force or tax base.

“A ‘PAIR’ of twins is four children.” Yahoo answers agrees with you, but I don’t. In my opinion, the expression “a pair of twins” is understood by most people as referring to two people.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070820001459AANkSN2

I think you’ve been sold a pup.

We wouldn’t be running out of resources yet, if we weren’t wasting them so recklessly. In fact we aren’t, but the alarmists are happy to use the threat as a lever to further restrict our access to resources.

We are destroying the soil with monocropping and petroleum based chemicals.

We are wasting food by turning good food into empty junk food calories.

And we are letting the rich and powerful hoard resources that could be put to better use, and continue to pillage the environment for their own gains.

I don’t support that, and I won’t take responsibility for it. We need to stop the runaway fascist train and bring this thing back to some kind of balance.

Well, yes. In this country, the government has been committed to smaller families and slower population growth for some time. Overtly, at least. And if you are going to sell that package to people who think that four kids is probably a nice number, and a couple more can be managed, you have to find a way to sell them smaller families. In this case, two children or less.

In larger families – four or more, say, kids support each other. The older ones help to raise the younger ones. They all learn a sense of responsibility and teamwork.

I think that there is some truth in the theory that a ‘middle’ child, that is, the second of three, sometimes does fare worse than his siblings. But ‘sometimes’ is no guarantee, and I concur with Q4horse that in terms of social stability and general function, larger families are happier and more functional.

Clearly there are exceptions to that very rough rule of thumb, but my personal observation confirms it.

If worse comes to worse Alex’s dad is filthy rich.

If somebody were to have a minute to explain “zone defense” to this-here sports-ignorant girl, she would be most grateful…

rgwalther, your point about Mao and Hitler is…..? Mao wanted fewer, healthier children and Hitler wanted more, blonder children. What are you trying to say?

Doesn’t dovetail with the point I was making,but I agree,overpopulation is a problem.

“Birth control, intelligent people do this.”-How would you know? Are you saying your parents weren’t intelligent?They obviously weren’t prescient but they may have been intelligent.

What? A pair of twins? She’s having quads?

I love that Leo is aware parenting is defensive.

From cradle to the grave.

@John Pike Thanks! Now I actually get the joke, which is always a good thing when you’re reading comic strips.

I have a real problem with your sterotyping. My wife and I are both college education and we have raised four children, all of whom are healthy, employed and contributing to their community. Many of our friends, college educated friends, have raised more with similary results. To imply that only stupid people have large familes is offensive and shows how close minded you are.