Fourteen Candles

Fourteen babies—oh my. This is like the movie “Sixteen Candles,” except that those candles all belonged to one person. My brain rings. Fourteen teenage rebellions, fourteen claims of being misunderstood, fourteen college tuitions, and fourteen further claims on the planet—not to mention all the offspring of the original fourteen.

The unmarried mother of six who has just given birth to eight more believes she can support them all and does not consider the food stamps or payments she’s already receiving for some of the older children to be welfare. I suppose we can get into the finer split hairs of what constitutes welfare these days, but in my book it means taking nothing that looks like a regular handout check with a government return address. It’s almost as if she expects to be paid for her services to the nation—an attitude supportable on the American frontier of a hundred years ago and in Canada, which is underpopulated and willing to pay a child allowance, but hardly today with America’s 300 million people and real questions of where to put them.

In parts of the country (like here in Colorado) we wonder where we are going to find the water, let alone clean air, to sustain ourselves. Historically, people have been killed out here in the West over land and water, and scarce resources have led to some of the most Byzantine water laws imaginable (you’re not supposed to collect rain water from your roof because it belongs to the down-stream user). Population growth here means more dams, more court cases over rights, more housing developments spreading like lava over the plains as Denver pours east, and more pollution down the front range as cities extend in one continuous line from Fort Collins in the north to Pueblo in the south.

I know the arguments. The youngest surviving octuplet may be the genius that saves the planet. I wonder if this argument will impress the young man who donated the sperm if he realizes he might one day be nailed for child support if she does go on welfare. I don’t know what California’s laws are like, but here in Colorado fathers who don’t pay up get pursued if the state has to help. All I can say is ouch. He’d better hope that her website generates a lot of donations although mine will not be among them.

In the end I must shake my head. Because of my age, I suppose, I feel for the grandparents who have been providing a roof over her head while babysitting the previous six. How insulted they must have felt when this lady's publicist said that her client shouldn't be blamed for the mess in her parents' home, because she's been in hospital for two months. Translation: it wouldn't have been messy if she had been home. Pullease. I'd hate to think what my house would look like if I was caring for six. It looked like Bedlam when I was caring for only my one grandson.

This mother's choice strikes me as reproductive greed. But why am I surprised? This is only the individual version of what our leaders and business people have done and would continue to do it they could.