Is Having Children a Personal Choice?

In our textbook “A History of Childhood” Heywood states that people may have children to feel closer to their partner, assure the family succession, provide pleasurable company, and children would take care of their parents when they are older. In my Sociology 332 class we discussed if having children is a personal choice in Canada or not. The class thought it was, because in Canada we have more freedom. People can decide how many children they want they can have 1 or 18 kids it is up to them, as the government will not say anything. Women do not even need a man to have children anymore, as they can have in vitro, surrogate mothers or adopt, but my sociology teacher disagreed saying that it is not our personal choice to have children. In North America the average person will have only 1 or 2 children, most likely because of financial reasons and that is the norm in our society, just like having more kids in the preindustrial society to work and make money was the norm then. Children are not an economic assess anymore they are now an economic burden. Are we tricked into thinking that we have a choice on how many kids we want? Many people may first want 6 kids then once then start having children that number decreases, because it is a lot of work and money to raise children in our society. I am also in Sociology 371, which is Sociology of the Family and in that class we talked about how the role of the family is always changing. The role of children was to work and be an economical assess, but know it is to go to school and learn and parents have to raise them for adulthood.