The dirty little secret that no one dares talk about is that most of the world’s environmental problems would go away if people would just start having fewer children. We’re faced with an overflowing bathtub of humans on earth and we’re reaching for towels to clean up the mess. Is it asking too much of parents around the world to just shut the faucet off once in a while?

I’ll give you an example. There was a popular TV show that cerebrated a family that included 19 children. Do you realize if those 19 kids had 19 children of their own, and those kids had 19 children, the original parents would have 361 grandkids and 6,859 great grandchildren sitting at the kid’s table for Thanksgiving?

How many kids is too many? I’d suggest you may have too many kids if...

You can’t remember all their names.

When you take the family to COSTCO and the food vendors see your family approaching they immediately shut down their free food sample booths.

You have a child and a grandchild on the same day.

You’re going for the Guinness record book of births by a single mother which is 69 held by a Russian woman, Mrs. Vasilyeva, who gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets. (She never gave birth to a single.)

Toys R Us and KMART went bankrupt because you had a gigantic yard sale and sold all your kiddy toys and clothes.

Your family car is an old converted school bus.

You have your own show on the Discovery Channel.

Your “kid’s horse” that you used to teach all your kids how to ride commits suicide after the news of the birth of your latest set of triplets reaches the barnyard.

The PTA made you an honorary life member.

One time you accidentally left a child in the light bulb section of Home Depot and didn’t realize it until the next day.

Your family takes up more than three pews in church.

You fill four grocery carts at two different grocery stores and the long bed of your pickup to overflowing at COSTCO every week and still run out of milk, hot dogs and cereal.

You haven’t had a good night’s sleep in 30 years.

Your local school district had to build a new school when your brood hit school age.

You have enough children to field your own football team (both offense and defense) and a girl’s soccer team with enough left over to have a cheerleading squad and a marching band.

You are on the stork’s annual migration route.

For Halloween your kids went as the Duggar family (currently includes 20 kids). 

The Goodwill Store where you buy most of your kid’s clothes had a sign made just for you that reads, “All unattended children will be towed away at owner’s expense.”

Forget keeping track of all those report cards, you’re just proud that none of your kids has ever jumped bail. (At least that you know of.)

You have a 55 gallon drum filled to the brim with old and broken crayons.

Instead of stockings hung with care at Christmas time you have one piñata and let your kids fight it out because you think it builds character.

The IRS audited you because you listed 22 dependents on your tax forms.

Verizon kicked you off their family plan because you nearly put them in the red last quarter.

This column made you mad because I have no right to criticize how many kids you have. 

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