The calls for a "nurse-in" began on the Internet mere moments after Barbara Walters uttered a negative remark about public breast-feeding on her ABC talk show, "The View."

The protest, inspired by similar events organized by a growing group of unlikely activists nationwide in the last year, brought about 200 women to ABC's headquarters yesterday. They stood nursing their babies in the unmistakably public venue of Columbus Avenue and West 67th Street. They held signs reading, "Shame on View," and "Babies are born to be breastfed." Ms. Walters, who remarked a few weeks ago on the show that the sight of a woman breast-feeding on an airplane next to her had made her uncomfortable, said through a spokesman that "it was a particular circumstance and we are surprised that it warrants a protest."

But the rally at ABC is only the most visible example of a recent wave of "lactivism." Prodded by mothers who say they are tired of being asked to adjourn to the bathroom while nursing in a public space, six states have recently passed laws giving a woman the right to breast-feed wherever she "is otherwise authorized to be."

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Policymakers and citizens pondering the merits of Social Security reform should consider new evidence showing that 'social security' adversely affects decisions to marry and have children.

A new UB study examining the experience of 57 countries over a 32-year period concludes that in the U.S. and other countries where social security is instituted as a defined-benefits, pay-as-you-go system, marriage and fertility rates fell sharply over time%u2014partly as a result of social security itself.

Those declines were not found in countries utilizing government-managed personal savings accounts or privatized pension funds as a basis of their social security system.

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Although many Americans look at large families and see only hardship, people who've grown up in them see loud, loving broods -- and a whole host of positives.

As moms with lots of kids will tell you, there's always someone to play with, always someone to help with homework, always a shoulder to cry on.

Nevertheless, yesterday's farm family has become today's neighborhood novelty. And on Mother's Day -- as on every other day of the week -- the mothers who've bucked convention find themselves answering questions.

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Part 1:

Where are the autistic Amish? Here in Lancaster County, heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, there should be well over 100 with some form of the disorder.

I have come here to find them, but so far my mission has failed, and the very few I have identified raise some very interesting questions about some widely held views on autism.

The mainstream scientific consensus says autism is a complex genetic disorder, one that has been around for millennia at roughly the same prevalence. That prevalence is now considered to be 1 in every 166 children born in the United States.

Applying that model to Lancaster County, there ought to be 130 Amish men, women and children here with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

...

So far, from sources inside and outside the Amish community, I have identified three Amish residents of Lancaster County who apparently have full-syndrome autism, all of them children.

Part 2 discusses what he learned about the three children:

It was stunning that Julia Inion, the first autistic Amish person I could find, turned out to be adopted -- from another country, no less... Julia's vaccinations in China -- all given in one day at about age 15 months -- may well have contained thimerosal; the United States had stopped using it by the time she was born, but other countries with millions to vaccinate had not.

via Angie Carlson who added: "At least one of the other two children had received vaccinations."

Here are some on line sites and mailing lists, which will help you to hook up with other large families.

• ParentsPlace Tons Of Kids Board Do you have a handful at home -- more than four? Then this is the place for you! Please join other parents in the discussion of how large families operate and issues ranging from meal time to school work.
• ParentSoup Large Families Board Join other moms and dads of large families in discussing the fun and challenges of parenting a large family. Includes stories and recipes.
• Tons of Kids Mailing List I set up this mailing list for parents of large families (five or more). The intent is to support each other and to exchange info and advice.
• Tons of Kids IRC Chat Chat for parents of large families (five or more). Requires a free download.
• The Parent Perspective Tons of Kids Message board for parents of large families (five or more).
• Lotsofkids.com Website for parents of large families (four or more). LOK has message boards (including a ttc/expecting board) and information on how to manage with LOK.
• Quiver-Full Discussion Group This is a mailing list for Christians couples who are allowing God to totally control their family planning and family size or are considering His lordship in this area. For the purposes of this forum, the concept of "allowing God to control family planning" would exclude the use of birth control, natural family planning or sterilization.

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Worldwide, birth rates are plunging in places like Western Europe, Latin America and many U.S. cities. Nationwide, people are marrying later and having fewer children. But in some of the fastest growing regions of the country, like the Great Plains and the Southwest, fertility is on the rise.

People are having three, four or more kids. Who are these people and what is causing them to buck the trend? They are a growing number of Americans that New York Times columnist David Brooks calls Natalists.

Rod Dreher is assistant editorial page editor for The Dallas Morning News, and a self-proclaimed Natalist. He says, "It's an attitude, it's a sensibility where families are open to life, open to children, open to large families."

Dreher continues, "Because we're Christians, we believe our commandment is to be fruitful and multiply. We think children are a positive good. They are not just another notch on the debit sheet. We believe they are given to us by God, and that big families are what God would have us to do."

Dreher and his wife Julie have two children, for now. They moved to Dallas from Manhattan in 2003.

"We wanted to have more kids,” says Dreher, “and we wanted to have kids in an environment that was family-friendly, that supported our faith and our moral values, and, indeed, our political values. So we came down here to Dallas, which is my wife's hometown, because we knew we could afford to live here. And we knew this is a place, a culture, where we could be openly Christian and be part of the mainstream. That's not the case in NYC."

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There is a little-known movement sweeping across the United States. The movement is "natalism."

All across the industrialized world, birthrates are falling -- in Western Europe, in Canada and in many regions of the United States. People are marrying later and having fewer kids. But spread around this country, and concentrated in certain areas, the natalists defy these trends.

They are having three, four or more kids. Their personal identity is defined by parenthood. They are more spiritually, emotionally and physically invested in their homes than in any other sphere of life, having concluded that parenthood is the most enriching and elevating thing they can do. Very often they have sacrificed such pleasures as sophisticated movies, restaurant dining and foreign travel, let alone competitive careers and disposable income, for the sake of their parental calling.

In a world that often makes it hard to raise large families, many are willing to move to find places that are congenial to natalist values. The fastest-growing regions of the country tend to have the highest concentrations of children. Young families move away from what they perceive as disorder, vulgarity and danger and move to such places as Douglas County in Colorado (which is the fastest-growing county in the country and has one of the highest concentrations of kids). Some people see these exurbs as sprawling, materialistic wastelands but many natalists see them as clean, orderly and affordable places where they can nurture children.

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