Opinionatedbubby – I disagree with you. Its not only a matter of nickel and dimes – but people should be prepared for how hard it is (at least to some degree). I think the same is true of marriage. I got married before a bunch of a my friends and when they were ready to get married I told them that marriage is hard work and tried to prepare them for it. One of my friends laughed and said “Its only hard if you make it hard.” Boy was she in for it! She called me later to ask for lots of advice when she hit a rough patch. Is marriage worth it? Yes! But its good to know what challenges lay ahead so you can prepare for them. I am a fan of honesty – its important to understand what you are getting yourself into.
Intellegent, there is a big difference between someone who has their children and someone who decides to bring more children into a situation that they already cannot afford. And yes, it does effect me – after all, they ask for my money to pay for food for these poor children. I think ultimately the choice is between each family and their rabbonim, but I still think its irresponsible.
For those of you who have kids already, do you remember what its like to have a baby waking you up all the time? My son is 11 months old and still wakes up 2X at night. If I had another kid, I don’t know what I would do. Taking care of kids is hard work. So yes, you can have one after another after another…but the psychological health of the parents and other children in the family should be placed high on the list. There are also forms of birth control that require no contraception (such as Natural Family Planning) which just requires charting different changes in your body – I have no idea if this requires a heter or not, but I cannot imagine it really would.
Also, there is another pitfall to having many kids – often, you don’t get to spend quality time with each one. You churn them out, and then the oldest children help raise the others. I’ve seen this many times and its always unfair to the older children. Its one thing for your kids to help out (and they should), its another to make them into parents at 9 years old.