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

RealClearBooks ^ | January 14, 2013 | Heather Wilhelm

[Wonder Warthog]

"But as Last argues, "Very Bad Things" have historically accompanied depopulation, including disease, war, and economic disaster."

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".

[Mrs. Don-o]

I've got no problem with tax deducations. That's not a gift. That's keeping more of your own money.

Not sure what a "propestive" mother is. Probably a qwerty?

[Born to Conserve]

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.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Haha. I am not a Communist, and neither are any of my comrades!!

:oP

[Mrs. Don-o]

I'm all for tax breaks for childbearing families--- and anybody else who can get one. This is not about government money. This is about not paying so much of your own hard-earned money TO the government. That's not a gift from the public: it's keeping your own income.

It's an excellent conservative principle.

Govt. can do defense and (maybe) postal services. That's it.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Everyone (everyone human, that is: not talking about the other large primates) everyone knows that sexual intercourse causes pregnancy. Nobody has ever encountered an actual primitive tribe, clan, horde or political party that didn't know that, with the possible exception of one very dull boy named Bronisław Malinowski.

Your many-hundred-thousand-years-ago menstrual theory is ...interesting. What you be smokin'

[Diana in Wisconsin]

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...

[Romulus]

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.

[OKSooner]

Mind if I give it a try?

[ Peter Sellers voice ]

...and, when... did you first develop this this theory?

/Peter Sellers

[Romulus]

why not just back up a dump truck full of government money to their house and dump it in?

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.

[fattigermaster]

Pundits, bitter feminists, metro males, whoever, can go ahead and head into old age alone, skip the work, yes; but they also skip the depths of joy that children bring.

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.

[EternalVigilance]

Back to the top.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I can't speak for others, but I suspect elk is not dissing the occasional persons/couples who are childless for whatever reason, but reacting to the barrage of anti-childbearing crap from the liberal child-rejectors who've controlled the schools, media, and large chunks of both major political parties for the past 45 years.

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.

[Trailerpark Badass]

For self-centered whiners, everything they don’t like is a personal attack inflicted intentionally on them, just because they’re so damn important.

[Brightitude]

Childbearing is a valuable service to the state (look up the original meaning of proletariat).

Yep, the advocates of servitude to the state don't even bother hiding their red roots any more.

[Brightitude]

Ah, so you want some freeloaders to get defense while everybody else pays for it. Gotcha.

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.

[Brightitude]

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

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.

[Road Glide]

[[ 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...

[elk]

Indeed, my intention is not to judge, but to note the judgment placed upon those who do have children. There has been a war on families for a long time. Think about Betty Friedan's canard about the suburban housewife being akin to a workcamp slave in "The Feminist Mystique," or the calls over the years to start a Momy Wars between those who work and those who are full-time homemakers. Note that moms who work and those who stay home full time aren't interested in judging each other - each family has to make tough calls about these matters.

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.

[Mrs. Don-o]

No, no, no, no, no. We'll pay for defense. That's a wonderful conservative principle. Although perhaps it could be argued that childbearers should get some extra consideration there, too, since we supply the troops.

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.