A few months ago, we had an ugly incident down at our Knights of Columbus hall. One guy had just paid his quarterly taxes and after a few beers made the comment that he could've cut out the middle man and just written the check to this father of 7 who was standing there next to him. The father of 7, instead of ignoring the crack or laughing it off, or saying he wished he didn't need the money, accused the taxpayer of not being pro-life and then the taxpayer, who's a father of 4, accused the father of 7 of breeding like a dog in heat. It was tense and very awkward. But things calmed down quickly. One of the other guys filled me in that the big family was on both WIC and CHiP and the wife was pregnant again.
Ever since then I've been paying close attention to the religious big families that we know. And darned if every single one of them (so far, I still have a few families that I don't know either way) isn't on some kind of government benny.
I thought Catholics were encouraged to have large families!
But the thing that shocked me was the guy's attitude - like the world owed his family a certain standard of living. It was a real eye opener for me.