Originally Posted by Goblin Tears

Ditto this! I think it's definitely a case of poor judgement versus anything else. I live in Ireland, and many people from the generation before mine came from families of up to six or seven children. Why? Because Catholicism was rampant. People believed they would go to hell if they had small families. Sound stupid? To me it does, but when one is raised in that kind of hell-fearing environment from birth, it's all too easy to judge. As others have said, it's everything to do with misinformation/stupidity and little to do with selfishness or egoism, in most cases.