The Myth That no Brothers/Sisters Harms a Child

Conventional wisdom is that having a brother or sister makes a child somehow better off. Further, the child of a one-child family is somehow flawed. Research shows this not to be true. Economics tells us couples can choose between quantity of children and "quality" of children. The word "quality" refers to how much money is spent on a child. More money spent yields, in this context, more quality, although of course it has little to do with "quality" in a broader sense. 

When I was a child on the farm, children did farm work or housework and contributed to the family income. This meant in most cases children yielded profit to his/her parents. Economists called them "producer goods" just as were tools and machinery. Later, we all know, families came to live in cities and children became "consumer goods" like cars and TV sets. This doubled the expense of children, less income and more expenses. The number of children people fell rapidly and it still falling. 

Clergy, especially Catholics, continually point out "problems" with fewer children. They try to make a case that it is "better" to have lots of them. They don't offer to pay the expenses. The "problem" is job security for clergy. More Catholics means more money for clergy. Fewer children is not a problem for most couples. Instead, it is the solution to the high cost of family life in cities. That the children and later adults are somehow flawed is not true.

We all know the Bible admonishing the faithful to go forth and multiply. Who wrote this? Both the original authors and later scribes who edited the ancient writing were wealthy men. While we have no records as to who the original authors or many scribes who recopied the Bible's essays were, we know only very wealthy males were literate during that period. 

Maybe they, themselves, benefited by having many children. We can be certain they benefited when their slaves had many children. In the U.S. South, the healthy child of slave parents was regularly sold for $50,000 in today's money. Slave couples sometimes did not have children just to deprive owners of this money and to save themselves the heartache of watching their children be hauled off. Clergy back in the times the Bible was written apparently approved of selling these children as did clergy in the South U.S. during the 400 years of slavery. 

Criticism of one-child families and no-child families comes from self-serving ideas in religion.