Did you know that motherhood is a major cause of the recession?

Most families’ experience of the recession isn’t destitution, according to an article in today’s New York Times:  Rather, there are many families who are cutting back and learning to live on less. Hardly a controversial proposition, one would have thought.

To make the point, the Times profiled a family in suburban Sacramento with four kids. The father is a state worker who is now furloughed twice a month, while the mother stays at home with their two sets of twins (aged 7 and 20 months respectively.) Mom has adjusted by shopping savvily for groceries, negotiating a discount on the girls’ ballet lessons, and redeeming some old savings bonds. All very sensible, and typical of the cuts that many families are making right now.

But then I read the comments. Here’s a selection of quotes from the most popular comments (at time of writing), all of which, naturally, are anonymous:

• Does Mrs. Ferrell work? Why did they have more children? Did they think one gross yearly salary of $72K would cover 4 people, much less 6, in California (or maybe anywhere)?
• Your state is bankrupt and mom doesn't seem to work but has plenty of time to "poor me" for the cameras. They should be ashamed.
• Unless dad makes over a hundred thou a year on his own, why have so many kids at his age? And mom doesn't even have a professional job. How did they think they could afford their family?
• 4 kids and 3 pets? If things were tight before why did they have more kids?
  

Perhaps the cure for the recession’s ills among middle class Americans is right in front of us.

President Obama, start taking notes…

A mother should limit herself to one child. If she was foolish enough to have bred more than one child when the recession hit, and she does not already work outside the home, then she must take employment.  If she cannot find a job or afford childcare, she is not looking hard enough.

Meanwhile, her surplus children will be housed at a county-run Furloughed Child Facility. At the FCF, the children will be carefully stored. The cost to taxpayers will be offset by the stored offspring consuming only a healthy, fiber-rich, nutritionally-complete diet of vitamin-enhanced gruel.

Motherhood: The Cause of the Recession. Let’s deal with this appalling social problem NOW.