If one wants to have a normal family planning,how many children do you think one should give birth to.

I often have spoken about this to all of my friends and siblings some who do have children and others who do not. I can see the huge difference in how people in their 20's now feel compared to majority of those when i was in my 20's. In that good half now do not want children or if they are they plan on adopting. Where my generation most wanted children it was just something you did with out much thought.
I was aware of over population back than and just felt fine never having children. Most guys thought i was crazy or not being honest because as they said i was the mom type. lol! what ever that meant...like when they say you are the type of woman we marry.
My husband did not want children either....he worried he would be a bad father but than my brother had a daughter. Both my husband and I fell deeply in love with her and she with us.
I have lupus so i spoke to my lupus doctor about it since I knew i would be high risk pregnancy as well as possibly having to terminate the pregnancy in the last trimester to save my life. My husband said right from the beginning he would not agree unless i agreed to save my life if it came down to that. I agreed thinking it won't happen to me.
My lupus doctor whom i loved was wise older Doctor and he said to me why do want to have a baby? I did not know how to answer his question so he said to me go home and think hard about it, speak about it with your husband why he does as well. If it comes to just procreating ...you want to keep parts of you alive or your name well that is the wrong reasons.
I agreed with him on those reasons and i have seen enough people who only had kids for those reason who as my internist Dr would say, never should have had kids! She wanted me to have a child which was a great compliment. But her reasoning was that she saw more than her share of people who should have never had kids...that were just continuing the abuse that was done to them.
Or they were not mature enough , just many reasons but mainly it all came down to they put themselves first not their children.
That does not mean that you and your husband should not plan and have date nights or weekends of course you need to keep working on your marriage. That is one way of showing your children how to really love one another respectfully.
Now my generation (in my mid 50's) we just were learning about over population and all of my friends had only 1 or 2 children. We had manager hired at our company who had 12 kids ( i had aunt/uncle with at least that many) and we all would say haven't they heard about over population?!! Plus, how do you give each child enough attention when my friends and siblings found it hard to do it with even 1 or 2 kids. Many people were very angry at them for having so many kids when so many kids need homes.
Than we who have chronic diseases must take that into the issue. I read about 3 books by mothers (2of the books) both parents authored the last on how it affected their children. That was very depressing. In every case the kids as young adults would say that they often felt roles got reversed. They resented having to take care of the sick parent and had to give up a lot things their friends did not. They did not sound like kids who did not love their parents in fact they clearly did but they were just being honest. I even saw in my own life with my 2 nieces. Oldest was happy to just draw , read or watch a movie if i needed to rest while the other one if she wanted to do something she would not let it go. Plus they both got very scared when I was bad sick. Than their father died from disease similar to mine and the oldest one again, I could just see how she was terrified i was going to die on her as well. I tried to let her know that i was not as sick as her father plus i did not smoke like him and took better care of myself but she worried for many years....she just got married and was even worried about me driving down to her wedding. So it lasts no matter how hard you try when they experience death and know how real it is . I got it since i also had experienced death of loved ones at early ages but not a parent.
So i think that as a responsibility to this world ...people really should have only 2 children naturally and if they want more than adopt.
I think though that you must put a lot of thought into how much time you will have for your child. Such as if both parents either will have to work or want to keep working well than maybe just 1 child is better idea so you can give them all the love and attention. If both are working it is so hard to give even 2 children all the attention they should have and deserve. I have friends who have done it but they also gave up great deal of things they would have liked to do in order to give their children their time.
And they were all healthy parents who I think only went to the doctor for themselves at most once ever few years. You have to plan in case of the unthinkable happens and your spouse dies....can you take care of both or do you have the family support like my sister in law had once my brother died.
Between both grandparents and I we each had them at least one day a week during the summer and after school in the winter. I personally loved that time since it gave me my child fix that i could not do myself. My husband and I had great times sharing them and my brother had a sense i guess he was going to die that night though he had been that sick many times before....he made me promise that i show his children all the cool places and things he and I had done together growing up. Which was just joyful for me and I would have anyways. I felt lucky because they let me have their children from the get go.
My friend who is in his mid twenties and both my nieces ...and their friends all believe more along these lines. That they should have one child of their own and if you want more adopt or do foster care. One of my nieces, younger one, does not want kids at all at this point and her older sister does...but she believes strongly in adoption so plans on only 1 naturally. Many including a good friend who is male in that same age group believes there are too many people in the world now period and people should stop having children or adopt. He always is pointing out places like China or India and even here in America where so many children are not wanted. He believes that people both men and women who have un planned children after 1 should be sterilized. Yes i think that is extreme but i am hearing how they grew up under different life experiences. He for example speaks to people all over the world on the internet and has since elementary school. Yes he speaks more than few languages but with Google anyone can with translate.
My oldest niece has spent time in Africa thinking she was going to become a pediatrician doctor. She original spent time in hospitals down in Southern Calif (Ojai) as she says a hospital for rich women having babies. Over in Ghana her experience was that women come in from their jobs and give birth to their baby, Than go back to their job after giving birth. She said that never again will she have too much sympathy for the 'rich' women screaming their heads off. She has been lucky to travel in Asia and India as well as South America, Europe both including Eastern. She finally realized two things, how women have so many rights here in the US and how many unwanted children, babies and older all over the world. So she instead has decided to go into adoption with medical background.
I know this is long....but in fact it is a common conversation I have with most of my nieces and friends of friends in their mid to late twenties now. As well as i said my own friends often discussed this as well.
It is not easy answer and i know in this country i doubt we will ever be like China who allows only 1 child...so the girl babies either get aborted or dumped since boy babies are valued much more. Thankfully those beliefs are changing over there with younger generation of women and young men. But as we know that is common or was in many countries.
Even here....how many have babies to carry on the family name? That is lousy reason to have a child. Exactly what my first lupus doctor's point he was trying to make...and i recall when my oldest sister got married my father got upset because she was keeping her maiden name....my father said it was his name that she should now take her husband's...well from that day i never wanted to keep "his name' even if I never married i was going to change it i thought!
One last thing....i recall in one of my high school classes it came up about having children and over population etc. One student said that you have to have your own children because you never will love an adopted or half sibling as much as your own.
Everyone in that class knew i had older brother as i brought this up to them....and i said we kind of look like twins even though we are not...but depending on how long they knew us...we were called twins in elementary and part of jr high schools....so they said yes.
What you all do not know is he is my half sibling his real father died of polio in matter of 3 days when he was infant. You all know i love him and that i get along better with him than my real younger sister.
So it is baloney that you will love an adopted child or half sibling or even step child not as much as your own child. If you do that is your prejudicial beliefs that i hope you open your heart and lose.
I know that after i said that in that class it changed a great many of how they thought or were afraid they might feel. some even went on and did adopt or had broken marriages than remarried and later told me how they often thought about my brother and I how close we were and tried to raise their children to love one another like we do still.