When Babies Disappear (What to Expect When No One's Expecting)

RealClearBooks ^ | January 14, 2013 | Heather Wilhelm

[Mrs. Don-o]

So true. We told both of our boys that we would not be paying for college for them. Our philosophy was (and is): if they have the academic ability, they can get scholarships based on merit. If they have the motivation, they can work their way through. If they have neither ability nor motivation, why should they go to college?

So The Older One is finishing up a Law Enforcement degree at the State University and will soon be in Officer Training in the USMC. All planned out and financed by himself. The Younger One is a bagger and stocker at Food City, and learning the lesson that he, too, has to plan and finance.

In all things, may God be glorified.

[Tax-chick]

God is glorified by a grocery-story worker just as much as by a doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, Coast Guard gunner, alternative-metal guitarist, or whatever one’s weird offspring do. I think a lot of people don’t get that. If it’s legal, moral, and supports you, knock yourself out, I’ve always said.

Here’s a funny: my 3rd-grade RE class last night was about vocations, and I asked the children to think of “what you want to be when you grow up,” and then fit that into religious or lay vocations. Several of the boys thought they would like to pursue their occupations in religious vocations, including a biologist, a paleontologist, and a drummer! I couldn’t figure how a police officer could also be a religious ;-).

[Mrs. Don-o]

There have always been scientists in religious orders. Gregor Mendel, yay! Teilhard de Chardin, er.... As for the cop-padre: how about a police chaplain? Do they still have those?

Drummer? Well, here's a seminarian who doubles as a bagpiper!

[Tax-chick]

I mentioned Mendel in the class, as well as the Vatican’s astronomers. Teilhard ... er ... well, whatever. (He was sincerely wrong, at least.) I talked about military chaplains. Catholic police chaplains aren’t officers. It wouldn’t surprise me if Protestants had congregants who were both police officers and designated spiritual supports, just as Catholics in the military can be lay ministers charged with leading Bible study groups or para-liturgies.

Back in the day, most music came out of religious communities. Drumming wasn’t always a big Christian thing, but a good one does keep the choir from getting slower ... slower ... slower ....

[hout8475]

Actress Patricia Heaton has four children. The first was born when she was 36. So she managed to have more than the average number of kids at a somewhat advanced maternal age. Then of course, you could always go the route of Kate Gosselin or Nadia Suleman.

[Tax-chick]

I had Pat when I was 35, James when I was 37, Vlad when I was 39, Frank when I was 42, and Kathleen when I was 45. (That was children 6-10.) Ms. Heaton, I, and the rest of the old-ladies-with-babies aren’t impacting the stubbornly downward trend of overall fertility in the U.S.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

We told both of our boys that we would not be paying for college for them.

Same here! Our oldest will be going to college next year. She wants to be a teacher. She got accepted to the local state college, which she will commute to. She got a partial academic scholarship, and will pay the remaining tuition, about $6k, from part-time work. And she will graduate debt free. She will have her feet on the ground, much more than I did when I was her age. I'm a proud dad 8-)

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

God is glorified by a grocery-story worker just as much as by a doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, Coast Guard gunner, alternative-metal guitarist, or whatever one’s weird offspring do. I think a lot of people don’t get that.

I'm 50, and I remember my parents pressuring us to go to college. I know that message was reinforced in school, at least inasmuch as we were always reminded about our "permanent record." I bought the college thing, hook, line and sinker. If I didn't get into a great college, I was pretty much worthless as a human being. Embarrassing, but true.

My theory is that the threat of college is one of the few means that teachers have of controlling their students. I mean, if they couldn't touch you in class, and they couldn't ruin your future, what control would they have over you?

[Little Ray]

Been saying it for a while. Abortion is no longer “just” a moral issue, but a National Security issue.

Too bad no one is going to listen until it is too late...

[Tax-chick]

Those are good points.

[elk]

No one is attacking those who are childless by choice, or who prefer not to be childless. Nor are singles being attacked here. A frank discussion of babies shouldn't be viewed as an immediate attack on those without children!

If anyone is being attacked, it is those who do have babies. Does today's stay-at-home mom like being lumped in with the various categories of "undesirables" accused now of having "too many babies?" (and I don't view ANY baby as undesirable - I'm using the description that seems to circulate that "undesirables" are having too many babies). Or with the bunch of females, especially singles ones, today who vote for Obama? And, where are the responsible men? Plenty of personal responsibility issues raised.

"Childless Prejudice?" Wow, it's taken to a whole new level, I see. The traditional family is being attacked and redefined, if you haven't noticed. Treaties are being pushed that destroy parental authority, inserting governmental authority in its place. Even if one has no children, I would hope that they don't remain in a defensive posture against those on the same side, but rather see that the battle involves all sober, freedom-loving peoples.

[Brightitude]

That’s an example of why Chicken Littling about this stuff is just silly — people adapt to circumstances, whether or not the adaptations are whether you or I or some clever intellectual thinks are the correct ones.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Sounds wonderful! Any time I'm tempted to say something gripey about my boys (ages 20 and 23) I think of what an absolute dingbat I was at their age. That quietens me down some. ;o}

[Mrs. Don-o]

Note that the U.S. Government (and that's just the feds, not the state, county, or your local school board) has spent literally billions of dollars since 1970 on Title X birth control advocacy, propaganda, drugs, devices, and surgery; authorized the cool clinical killing of 55 million American children; and is now requiring us to pay for 100% you-and-me-subsidized contraception, sterilization and abortion, to be available to every female of reproductive age, 12-52, from sea to shining sea.

And that ain 't Chicken Little.