The best reason to have kids

This is my final article in a series about how parents can apply principles of freedom to raising their children. And I think it’s a great chance to clarify my attitude toward parenting and children.

After reading my first article, which called parents’ care of their children a “sentence,” one commenter questioned my agenda. He asked whether what I really objected to was the continuation of the human race, since I talked about the creation of children as a “crime.” But nothing could be farther from the truth.

As the mother of six children, I would never want to limit how many children someone else chose to have. I would never try to prevent people from having children at all.

For one thing, it would be awfully hypocritical of me. For another, trying to ban or limit a person’s children is a grave violation of their rights. It is the stuff of coercive governments, like China’s — and our own.