In Earth's past, mortality rates were significantly different from today, making larger families necessary for the unit's survival. Even just a century ago in this country, a significantly larger portion of our population lived off the land in rural areas. They lived in a way that was more sustainable, mostly due to the lower population volume. The chance for children to reach adulthood was mush slimmer compared to today, so parents tended to have more children to increase the odds of a family surviving to the next generation. A large family also meant that the work required to provide the resources for the family's survival could be spread across the family, with more children meaning that a farm could be sustained by a family, raising the crops and livestock required to feed the family. As populations became urbanized and lost that ability to provide for themselves and the independence it rewarded, we shifted to a reliance upon the industrialization of agriculture through fossil fuels. As we come to realize the limitations of those fossil fuels, we should also recognize that we could potentials see that urbanization as a risk to the modern urbanized lifestyle.
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