‘3-Kid Families’ Have 1 Too Many

We were dismayed to see your article “Three-Kid Families.” Most distressing was the fact that the overpopulation problem was mentioned only in passing, as if it was a fad of the ‘80s and that now “people are doing what they want to do”--having three children. This is most irresponsible journalism.

We believe that many people continue to be concerned about the Earth we will be leaving to these children but apparently are unaware of the tremendous impact population growth is having on our, and our children’s, environment. The Times has an obligation to inform its readers about the serious impact of their decisions, not to brush off such vital concerns as if they were some outmoded and silly trends of the past.

The population explosion is still going on. Indeed, the problem is now more serious than ever. There are more than 5 billion people on the planet, compared to roughly 2.5 billion in the 1950s, and there are a quarter of a million births every day.

Some Americans think, “Oh, that’s because so many people in the Third World have too many kids.” But remember that each American child uses about 25 times the resources each child in a developing country does.

Perhaps most terrifying of all is the idea that anyone would do something so serious as bringing a child into this world because, as one woman in the article stated, “everyone was doing it.”

It doesn’t seem too much to ask that people limit their family size to two.

ALAN and KATHRYN MORSE, Sylmar