Posted on 01/15/2013 6:23:44 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o
Five years ago, on a quiet, leisurely Thursday night, my husband and I sat at the dining room table with a yellow notepad, discussing when we should start having kids.
"See, here's how it works," he said, drawing a graph. "With a dog, you put in a medium amount of work, and you get a medium amount of reward. If you were to, say, purchase a lion, you'd put in a lot of work, but you'd get pretty much no reward - and you might even get eaten. Horrible deal." He paused, drawing a straight line that hit each point directly between the axes. "See? With a kid, you put in a ton of work, but you also get a huge reward for years to come. It's a great deal!"
That was three kids ago, and I can assure you that the "ton of work" part is true. The "huge reward," happily, is also true. Children are a source of great joy, and, as a bonus, often hilarious. This is especially useful to remember when the preschooler gives you pinkeye, the toddler flushes your contact lenses down the toilet, and the baby cooks up a habit of happily, inexplicably, all-out yodeling at 4:30 each morning.
What's strange about our dining room child-planning summit, from a historical perspective, is that we considered it at all. "A few generations ago, people weren't stopping to contemplate whether having a child would make them happy," wrote Jennifer Senior in her much-discussed parenting treatise, "All Joy and No Fun," which ran in New York magazine in 2010. "Having children was simply what you did."
But not, apparently, anymore. Around the globe, fertility rates are plummeting. Countries like Japan and Russia teeter on self-imposed fertility cliffs, facing dramatic population shrinkage and the potential collapse of their welfare states. Europe, with stagnant birth rates, isn't far behind -- and, contrary to popular opinion, neither is America, according to Weekly Standard writer Jonathan V. Last. His new book, What to Expect When No One's Expecting: America's Coming Demographic Disaster, documents a remarkable demographic shift: the global baby un-boom.
Last has good timing. A new Pew report shows the traditionally robust American birthrate falling to record lows. Recent data from the Census Bureau and other studies suggest that the world's population, once a source of widespread hand-wringing, could stop growing within our lifetimes. Meanwhile, in its latest annual report, Planned Parenthood cited a record number of abortions: 333,964 in 2011 alone.
The magic fertility number, if you want the population to remain stable, is 2.1 children per woman. Today, the U.S. fertility rate perches at 2.01. Compared to countries like Poland (1.32), Germany (1.36), and Singapore (1.11), that might seem impressive. But as Last points out in What to Expect, America's buoyant fertility may be a statistical mirage.
Break the numbers down demographically, and the trends seem less promising. For college-educated women, for instance, the fertility rate is roughly 1.6. As education goes up, fertility shrinks. Hispanic women, meanwhile, pull far more than their own weight, with an average rate of 2.73. The problem? Their fertility numbers are falling fast as well, and continue to plummet as immigrant women assimilate into the larger U.S. culture.
For certain environmentalists, misanthropes, and frustrated motorists in Los Angeles, less people on the planet might sound appealing. But as Last argues, "Very Bad Things" have historically accompanied depopulation, including disease, war, and economic disaster. In the case of the United States and Western Europe, the latter seems to be the most pressing. In the case of our other global neighbors (China, Iran, or Russia, for instance), the second-to-last may loom equally large.
When people, particularly males, start talking about how other people should have more babies, certain ladies start freaking out. In December, when Ross Douthat published a New York Times column titled "More Babies, Please," shrieking erupted in various corners of the Internet. "Douthat," wrote one outraged Slate.com commentator, "is clearly irritated at his countrymen and especially his countrywomen for their persnickety desire to enjoy life rather than see it as a dutiful trudge to the grave."
Upon reading this, I must admit, I laughed out loud. Perhaps it was because, just moments before, my toddler had taken a giant mouthful of applesauce, coyly turned my way, and sneezed. But perhaps it was also because, in its own way, laced between the paragraphs of hysteria (Overpopulation! Climate change! Women chained barefoot in the kitchen!), this snippet of Internet hyperbole really said it all. What does it mean to "enjoy life"? What is our purpose? Why do we have kids, anyway?
Not so long ago, people had children for simple economic and religious reasons. Some people had children just because everyone else was doing it, or, most obviously, because they lacked reliable birth control. Today, "a thousand evolutions in modern life" -- Last cites education, delayed marriage, the Pill, urbanization, abortion, modern capitalism, insane parenting costs, secularization, and even car seat laws -- have shifted our view of children. For some, Last notes, having children is almost an "act of consumption." For others, it's an "act of self-actualization." For many, it's simply a lifestyle choice. The individual, in short, reigns.
But as we've seen, those reasons aren't enough to inspire multiple babies, probably because having kids isn't exactly a trip to the Four Seasons Bora Bora. It's not even a trip to the grungy Super 8 off the local highway -- there, at least, you can sleep in. To have kids primarily as a "lifestyle choice," in fact, would border on insane, considering it's a lifestyle largely devoid of "me time," leisurely breakfasts, spur-of-the-moment plans that don't involve going to Target, and, as my dad liked to hopelessly request when I was a kid, "peace and quiet."
The best arguments for having children, unfortunately, run opposed to modern, secular American culture. Good reasons to have kids tend to be about delayed gratification, prioritizing family, putting others first, transmitting serious values and beliefs, focusing on something larger than yourself, and understanding the difference between joy and fun. Perhaps this is why, as Last notes, "American pets now outnumber American children by more than four to one." It's also why, if American fertility continues to slide -- and, as the author notes, that's still an "if" at this point -- there's little the government can do.
What to Expect When No One's Expecting discusses potential policy solutions to the global fertility drought. Many are vague, and few are convincing. When it comes to pro-natalist government policy, welfare-state support for parents seems to work a bit; outright bribery, as recently attempted in Singapore, does not. But the main driver of faltering global fertility -- and the reason Last's book is so interesting -- is based on culture, not policy.
The good news is that culture can be engaged and changed. The bad news is that change can be plodding. America still has time to adjust its priorities in terms of marriage, community, and family. Other countries, having already jumped off the fertility cliff, may not have that luxury.
Heather Wilhelm is a writer based in Chicago. http://www.heatherwilhelm.com/
HUH!? This doesn't correspond to any history that "I" know about. In the past, "depopulation" was CAUSED BY "disease, war, economic disaster". Add to that list REAL "climate change" (specifically sudden shifts from WARM to COLD). Population increases have historically happened when climate was WARMING, and population crashes when climate was COOLING.
The current "child dearth" is completely different, being a voluntary limitation on fertility. And I don't see how, given the increasing availability of automation, that an "economic disaster" is in the offing for anything other than the welfare state, which depends on stealing from future generations to finance current largesse.
Far more critical is that fact that the "best and brightest" are severely limiting their fertility while the "worst and dumbest" are breeding like flies. Basically "reverse evolution".
Not sure what a "propestive" mother is. Probably a qwerty?
Humans went through this once before. When women became aware of the relationship between getting boffed and getting pregnant, they stopped getting boffed. That was who knows how many hundred thousand years ago. Natural selection then went to work, and only those women who’s menstruation was so horrible that pregnancy was preferable would get pregnant. In fact, the menstruation became so horrible that the entire tribe would make sure that every woman who could get pregnant, was pregnant.
Now, menstruation is eliminated by birth control and we’re back to women not getting pregnant.
Goodbye world.
:oP
It's an excellent conservative principle.
Govt. can do defense and (maybe) postal services. That's it.
Your many-hundred-thousand-years-ago menstrual theory is ...interesting. What you be smokin'
What a great article. Thanks for sharing.
I was never blessed with kids of my own, but I raised three step-sons from ages 3, 4 & 5 to adulthood.
Unfortunately, we lost one to a drug overdose, the other appears to be asexual and the third and most eligible one STILL doesn’t have it together enough to marry and raise his own kids...at age 25.
So, I guess I really didn’t contribute much to the sustainable population solution, did I? LOL!
Eh. It was fun while it lasted...
BS. There’s always something to be scared of. A thousand years ago, it was Vikings and Saracens. If anything, this should be an incentive to have MORE children.
[ Peter Sellers voice ]
...and, when... did you first develop this this theory?
/Peter Sellers
We already do this, and there's nothing wrong with it. Childbearing is a valuable service to the state (look up the original meaning of proletariat). The state has an obligation to reward fruitful family life, and to privilege it.
And yet your depth of joy doesn't seem to fulfill unless you marginalize those who do not share it. All the childless people who are bitter, of questionable sexual orientation, or whoever, as you describe.
For people who never had families of their own for whatever reason, not always through their own choice, the self-righteousness of those who have made procreation their ultimate good, is cloying.
Back to the top.
The Title X Family Planning Program, officially known as Public Law 91-572 or “Population Research and Voluntary Family Planning Programs” was enacted under President Richard Nixon in 1970 as part of the Public Health Service Act. Sine then they have poured literallybillions of dollars into anti-childbearing propaganda and fertility-maiming paraphernalia.
I'm pegging that to the publication of fraudster Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" in 1968.
For self-centered whiners, everything they don’t like is a personal attack inflicted intentionally on them, just because they’re so damn important.
Yep, the advocates of servitude to the state don't even bother hiding their red roots any more.
Now, if you want to propose doing it fairly (move to a tax-exempt island with the understanding that the United States armed forces won't do diddly if it gets invaded), well, OK then.
As you can see on this very thread, even FR has Big Governmentalists for whom the pruning of any of Big Government's tentacles would be the worstest disaster ever.
[[ What’s strange about our dining room child-planning summit, from a historical perspective, is that we considered it at all. “A few generations ago, people weren’t stopping to contemplate whether having a child would make them happy,” wrote Jennifer Senior in her much-discussed parenting treatise, “All Joy and No Fun,” which ran in New York magazine in 2010. “Having children was simply what you did.” ]]
Well, something happened to change that.
And Loretta Lynn knew what it was:
You wined me and dined me when I was your girl
Promised if I’d be your wife you’d show me the world
But all I’ve seen of this old world is a bed and a doctor bill
I’m tearing down your brooder house ‘cause now I’ve got the pill
All these years I’ve stayed at home while you had all your fun
And every year that’s gone by another baby’s come
There’s gonna be some changes made right here on Nursery Hill
You’ve set this chicken your last time ‘cause now I’ve got the pill
This old maternity dress I’ve got is going in the garbage
The clothes I’m wearing from now on won’t take up so much yardage
Miniskirts hotpants and a few little fancy frills
Yeah I’m making up for all those years since I’ve got the pill
I’m tired of all your crowing how you and your hens play
While holding a couple in my arms another’s on the way
This chicken’s done tore up her nest and I’m ready to make a deal
And you can’t afford to turn it down ‘cause you know I’ve got the pill
This incubator is overused because you’ve kept it filled
The feeling good comes easy now since I’ve got the pill
It’s getting dark it’s roosting time tonight’s too good to be real
Aw but Daddy don’t you worry none ‘cause Mama’s got the pill.
There’s only one way it will ever “change back”.
You know what that would entail.
And no one is ever going to do that...
See, those who cry "keep your hands off my body" have a huge hypocracy going on as they tend to judge those who do choose to procreate (those pitiful barefoot and pregnant types/sarcasm). Well, I daresay that the state, the planners, the whoevers, need to keep their hands off the products of my reproductive choice (to procreate).
A mom should not need to apologise if she chooses to have children, one or more, and is able to stay home with them - it's not an attack on anyone, just a defense of the Mom.
Mom, Baseball, and Apple Pie. What used to be the summary of much of what was good about America. Sad that poor Mom has to bear such attacks.
Lowering taxes usually gets a tip 'o the hat of respect at Conservative websites.
(Shifting glance to the right and the left, shrugging): You never know who's out there, though.
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