Posted on 06/30/2006 4:05:49 PM PDT by ChessExpert
Over the past years, a new demographic crisis has emerged as a subject of intense debate: the most affluent, most advanced, freest societies of the world are not having enough children to sustain themselves. Recent books—including Phillip Longman’s The Empty Cradle (2004) and Ben J. Wattenberg’s Fewer (2004)—have described the potentially tragic consequences of this decline. Lamenting the collapse of modern birthrates, world leaders as diverse as Vladimir Putin and Pope Benedict XVI have advocated pro-natalist state policies. Popular magazines and newspapers that once worried about the horrors of a “population explosion”—mass starvation in developing countries, environmental catastrophe, the subjugation of women trapped by the excessive burdens of serial motherhood—today ask whether free societies mean to perpetuate themselves at all.
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
One possible solution to the thing..... I almost hate to mention such an obvious idea, but here goes. A country with 300 million people and fewer than a million in its armed forces clearly does not need for 150 of those 300 million to be males. In theory at least, you could artificially skew the sex ratio to something like six or eight to one instead of the natural one to one, i.e. see to it that there were something like six to eight females per male walking around, and at that point, a birth rate of 1.2 - 1.3 would be more than enough to maintain your population.
I'm not even married yet, but I see children as a way to grow closer to your wife while experiencing the wonders of life in again novel ways. A chance to laugh as well as knowing that your life will pass having left behind someone who can continue the good fight.
There will be effort involved, to be sure, but I think it can be more than worthwhile.
It would be nice to see the once little girl who became my wife become a mother--something for her body was explicitly created.
I'm a proponent of children, if for no other reason, because I once was a child.
You just want more women from which to choose...
Not a bad idea.
With a child going through puberty, I've asked myself this question at least a few times now ;)
The biggest real problem with it would be the question of whether the men in such a society would ever have time or energy to do anything (else) productive.....
Who cares?
Good. I hope you have many. You seem to know what it's all about. :0)
Yes, a generally intelligent article. But I think some of those whom he cites such as Weigel and Steyn have put the matter more clearly.
Also, I think he seriously underestimates the determination of most secular leftists to cut down on the population, and also underestimates the number of people who still imagine that there is a population explosion, because that's what the media have been constantly telling them.
Warren Buffet just gave billions to the Gates Foundation, which will be used to cut down on world population growth.
The economic problems that he mentions still are not being faced up to by any of our politicians. Most Democrats still support abortion fervently, and they would never in a million years admit that Social Security is in trouble largely because of Roe v. Wade.
People don't have children because they don't see any reason to have children. The economic penalties are obvious, the burdens of care are obvious, and they simply don't understand why there are important rewards that are more important than these burdens. You almost have to be religious to understand why big families are a blessing.
In these days, people put money into 401K's, or expect social security to support them.
The big problem is that all these options assume that there will be a productive younger generation when the current workers are old. If that's not the case, then all your investments will be bust
great answer. also, God told us to go forth and multiply. He gave us the opportunity to co-create an immortal soul with Him.
To piss-off the neighbors...
According to some Orthodox rabbis, there's no law (except for laws made by some governments) against promiscuity for Noachides (all who are not Jewish), and grounds for divorce are now many and easy in Judaism. As for Noachides, they are not commanded to have kids.
According to many Christian leaders, promsicuity, divorce and refusing to have kids are terrible sins. But the worship of romanticism/feminism supercedes all in their ranks, too.
And as for abortion, men are not the "root" of that problem. Feminism (all prongs of it) causes it. Oooooooooo, that smell. It leads our religious, business and government leaders and masters astray. They easily pay off their harems and hordes of children, while working men are imprisoned for the crime of trying to have only one wife each.
...hypocrites, all.
"But it's a valuable resource, if this topic interests you"
It does interest me very much, and in fact I was just thinking about it today. So thanks in advance for your post!
I have had a great live (age 58) and career (close to retirement), but having my two children has been the about the best part of my life.
There are benefits to being single and to being married, benefits to having children and to not having children. In my opinion, being married and having a family is much higher up the list of priorities than having money to have a good time. I'd rather have a loving child than a more expensive car.
You don't HAVE to be religious to value the idea of family, but it helps, because religious people tend to have a less self-centered order of priorities.
To put me a crappy nursing home?
I must be a Third-Worlder - I have six children.
Puberty is that period of mental instability a child's life when they begin to know it all and you begin to know nothing. It is a temporary disorder for most, and usually has run its course by the time they turn 30...
Additional responsibility has been known to shorten the affliction period.
All joking aside, it is the toughest time. Their body is changing, their role in society, and their relationship with you, the parent. You make the transition from godlike provider and authority to mentor and advisor.
It isn't an easy ride, necessarily, for either parent or child, and probably has something to do with mother birds kicking fledglings out of the nest.
All that is complicated by the fact that the biological occurrences (of adulthood) happen at roughly the same age they did hundreds of years ago, but the social framework has altered to continue the imposition of childhood, legally, mentally, and socially for an extra 5 years.
That is going to cause friction, even though some handle it better than others.
Just remember your developing years, and stay the boss..
Your ideas are intruiging to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Manhood and fatherhood go hand-in-hand, IMHO. :)
I'm an RN. I have had a number of psychology and development courses. It was a joke.
The principle of Social Security is that your retirement security doesn't depend on your children and is not compromised by the lack thereof.The definition of American conservatism is the Constitution, and the mission statement is the preamble to it. And the bumper sticker is "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." So having posterity is conservative.
lol. My oldest of three is 8....I have a long road ahead. Still worth it though. I believe.
Why have children?
Because being with them is a joy unmatched otherwise in life. Helping them grow and loving them is better than anything else life has to offer, and life offers a lot of great things. I've been childless and I've been with kids. No amount of adult fun matches the deep, incredible joy that bonding with your children gives you.
Nachas (Yiddish word meaning pride and joy in your children) trumps orgasm. And orgasm is pretty good!
"...but having my two children has been the about the best part of my life."
Mine too! See post #26.
"With a child going through puberty, I've asked myself this question at least a few times now ;)"
With a married son and toxic DIL, I am still asking myself that question, even after the puberty years.
Yes, the advantages to a nation of having children are obvious, which is why it is extremely puzzling why so many left-wing politicians support abortion, birth-control, and population-control, not to speak of euthanasia. A country with less than the replacement rate is committing suicide.
It's especially puzzling why governments of countries like Japan have let this happen.
At the same time, in spite of a few minor changes Bush has instituted, tax policies in most countries including the U.S. penalize married people and families. There really is a "marriage penalty," and I believe that can only be deliberate on the part of left-wing politicians and country-club Republicans. The Democrats like it because married people with families tend to vote Republican. The Republicans like it because, well, they are stupid.
But of course individuals are the ones who decide whether or not to marry and have families. The main cause of the birth dearth is cultural--as Weigel argues, the loss of a Christian culture.
I realized that after I posted.
Sorry, I am just a new great-grandpa (12 grandkids, 1 great grand, so far...).
What do I know? (8^D)
Likewise. That, and 13 years in Neonatal ICU.
I dunno. Just because.
I have 9. I am very glad I did, sorry that I didn't have more.
Now I have 15 grandkids (& counting)
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel/Russian Jewry ping list.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Maybe people want children because they see children as an extension of themselves.
Three great-grandchildren.
Eigth grandchildren, and one on-the-way.
How old are you?
I'm 55.
Probably equally valid clap trap.
'cause they're just as cute as a bug's ear and give great hugs?
Response: The fact that this question is widely asked implies a dying Western Civilization.
Have at it Darlin'
Tax deduction.
Well now, isn't that what it is all about? If not we could just eat the children. (Sarcasm off)
10 years older than you.
Ha. My children have promised me a window. Of course size of said window varies in accord with how much I have screwed up on the day's "mother of the day test." I also sometimes rate a view that is not of a dumpster or the parking garage.
I have always told me littluns " you need to have a good education so you can get a good job. Otherwise you will not be able to put me in a nice home AND I WILL HAVE TO COME LIVE WITH YOU.
These child policies are the biggest confusions yet. It is a hard job to raise children, it does not occur as "Darwinian" naturaly as people think. Fact of the matter, not having children is the lazy way of tackling life, "people" do that because it is easier, because they cannot do it.
They have confused the origins of modernity (a heart to work and true welfare) from materialist benefits it created and multiplied/compounded on those efforts.
With attitudes like these at the UN and what not, it is no wonder that at a time we talk population control we end up contradicting ourselves and paying families to make children, virtualy forcing them into some sort of child bearing conscription by force.
To the feminists, I have this to say: either the one man marriage traditional army, or THEE ARMY, period.
MY kids just promise to duct-tape me into my wheelchair.
As diverse as Vladimir Putin and Pope Benedict XVI? Actually from the first pious Orthodox head of state Russia has had in 80 or so years (and the first Russian head of state to ever visit Mount Athos) to the Pope of Rome most congenial to the Orthodox since the lamentable schism of the Patriarch of Rome from the Church in the 11th century is a much smaller span than the author seems to believe.
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