Nadya Suleman, the mother of the octuplets, is being resoundingly criticized all over the country for basically having children she can’t afford. I know of no one who says they support her decision, for obvious reasons: unmarried, unemployed, bankrupt, living on welfare and homeless. She and her six kids are living with her parents in a little three-bedroom home, three of the kids have “special needs” that require money from the state, and they’re poor enough to qualify for food stamps.

She says she simply wanted more children because she grew up as an only child and she didn’t want her six children growing up without sufficient siblings. So, she gathers the money she had saved from her disability claim against the state from a few years ago and finds a fertility doctor willing to implant the rest of the embryos she created with her long-time boyfriend that gave her the previous six children. She says she implanted the six remaining embryos, two of them split into twins, and she gave birth to the longest-surviving octuplets in American history on January 26.

You know the story.

But, here’s the question: Who are we to criticize her when—at least in some respects—we’ve been doing the same thing for so long?

We, too, are having children we can’t afford. We’re getting benefits from the government that we didn’t pay for. We make decisions every day to do things we know we won’t be able to afford, all the while assuming that someone else will pay for it.

In many respects, we’ve become a nation of Nadya Sulemans. Who are we to tell her, “No! You can’t do that”?

Think of all the Americans who aren’t paying their own way, their “fair share”—who can’t afford the children they now have, who still choose to have more, and who rely upon someone else to feed, clothe, house, educate and provide medical care for them.

We’re an incredibly compassionate, generous and caring people—especially for those who, through no fault of their own, are thrust into unfortunate situations where they need our collective help. Widows, orphans, the disabled, those with illnesses and injuries that make it nearly impossible for them to care for themselves.

But something is wrong, very wrong, when we’re growing so many citizens who don’t even try to pay their own way, who willfully choose to take limited resources away from deserving others, and who live in such a way that they just assume it’s someone else’s responsibility to take care of them.

What ever happened to “If you don’t work, you don’t eat?” And, “Thou shalt not steal?” Continued...