> When was it not true that you could live larger without needing to support children? When most of society was agrarian and labor-oriented, more people meant

> When was it not true that you could live larger without needing to support children? When most of society was agrarian and labor-oriented, more people meant more hands to do the heavy hand-work of maintaining the city. Modern automation and standardization has largely removed those benefits; a single person can operate a tractor that maintains acres of crops on an almost semi-autonomous basis, with the driver there mostly to handle breakdowns and deal with the unexpected. Having a family of eight kids means you've got one tractor driver and then what?