Baby Boon?
A number of my more liberal friends have emphatically decided that they are done having kids.
“It’s irresponsible," I've heard them say. "It’s expensive, not just for us, but for society.”
Or: “It’s bad for the environment. We already produce so much garbage and consume so much. We shouldn’t keep doing it.”
You’re familiar with this argument, I’m sure.
Here's another: “I’m ready to do my thing, now. I finally have time back to be productive or start up a charity. I don’t want another setback.”
Another setback. Not a child – a setback.
To an ear tuned a certain way, statements of this sort are empathetic and community-minded. When my friends say these things to me, I feel a mixture of shock and embarrassment. It never even occurs to me to think this way. I guess I’m not being mindful of our environment. Nor am I mindful of the ways I might be more productive in society. Nor have I considered others. I guess I forgot that society pays for my kids’ education and the park where they go sledding and the library where they drool on books. More kids just jack up the prices for others.
But I’ve read some things lately that seem to bolster my innate sense that having children is a good thing, something to be joyful about. Adding to your family is, in fact, something that should inspire a hearty “Congratulations!” rather than a chilly, judgmental pause or a reminder of all the resources we waste. Is that what a bulging belly represents to you? A waste of the earth’s resources?
For one thing, according to this fascinating piece (first published in 2009), the planet is not all that overcrowded. Neither are we days away from using up the world’s resources.
I was also entertained and delighted with the implications evident in Peter Robinson’s interview with Daniel Hannan on Uncommon Knowledge (fast forward this clip to around 15:30). Basically, if I follow Hannan’s thinking, societies that are both a) rooted in religion and b) wary of the welfare state – in other words, conservative societies – are out-reproducing liberal societies.
Finally, in more sobering news, New York City – the “Greatest City in the World” – has been determined to be a city where an absurd percentage of pregnancies end in abortion. Our own Bill McGurn wrote about it today. His point, a rich and humane one, is that our world should find greater joy in a baby than in an abortion. It’s such an obvious point, but the numbers – and the statements of some liberals —seem to indicate that there are plenty of people who cluck with disappointment hearing of a pregnancy and feel some measure of satisfaction hearing about an abortion. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
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Aug '10
Re: Baby Boon?
Just as well, then. With the attitude you describe them having, would they make good parents anyhow?
May '10
Re: Baby Boon?
Read "America Alone" where Mark Steyn discusses the issue of demographics, and how the indigenous populations of places like Japan and Italy are dying out. To be replaced by whom? Muslims in the case of Eurabia.
Take a look at your tax bills, you may find you are paying more towards your child's "free" education and "free" library than you thought. And for the childless or "single designer baby" couples, someone's got to run the country (of my five children, four are either serving in, or have served in, the US Military, you're welcome) and wipe their butts for them in the nursing home when they're 80.
Edited on Jan 18, 2011 at 1:28pmRe: Baby Boon?
I'll never understand the environmental-impact arguments. For whose benefit are we hoarding all those wonderful environmental resources if not the next generation?
I thought Bill's piece today was right on point. As he says, the Clintonian mantra of making abortion "rare" implicitly recognizes that there's something wrong with abortion -- an implication that drives the choice lobby bonkers. But the statistic that really floored me was that in 2008, Planned Parenthood arranged 324,008 abortions vs. only 2,405 adoption referrals. How can such an organization continue to operate under the name Planned Parenthood?
Dec '10
Re: Baby Boon?
Ursula - I've noticed that most of the excuses for not having children are rooted in selfishness. Of the ones you listed, the setback one is at least the most honest. The strain on society argument is particularly specious since the end result is that MY children will end up paying for THEIR social security.
What truly saddens me is when I think of friends who desperately wanted to have children of their own and were unable to. And I've been massively disappointed in people in this category who've felt it necessary to come up with excuses to hide behind.
But I've also seen friends who've chosen to go the adoption route and been blessed over and over for it.
As far as abortion goes, I know of 3 women who are quite close to me who have undergone that procedure, and all 3 of them have astronomical regrets. The psychological damage to the mother is still ignored.
Re: Baby Boon?
Raising a large brood children to become God-fearing, compassionate, generous, civic-minded patriots seems darn near the highest calling one could hope to have in life, not to mention a great act of service for Western civilization. I hope to one day have the privilege.
Jun '10
Re: Baby Boon?
Liberals believe in collectivism. That means inspiring collective guilt and exacting collective punishment. It's how they roll.
Jul '10
Re: Baby Boon?
About 20 years ago, Redbook magazine commissioned a poll by Roper that was designed to measure a wide range of attitudes among American women.
The most astounding response was when mothers were asked, "If you had it to do over again, would you still make the decision to have children?" 83% responded, "No".
I'm reminded of that response every time I'm at an airport, watching harried parents struggle to shepherd their progeny and all the paraphernalia that goes along with them.
Children may be a boon to some, but a burden to others. I don't think it's a moral or political judgment.
Edited on Jan 18, 2011 at 1:41pmNov '10
Re: Baby Boon?
This is what happens when countries stop having babies:
http://www.economist.com/node/17909982?story_id=17909982&CFID=159833278&CFTOKEN=65703241
From the article: "The prefecture of 1.45m is shrinking and ageing so fast that one of Nagasaki’s main department stores, Tamaya, has closed down its children’s department and stocked up on undergarments and hearing aids."
Nagasaki is a harbinger of what is going to happen to Europe, except that Japan does not have a horde of Muslim immigrants waiting to take over.
May '10
Re: Baby Boon?
A woman I know recently lost her premature baby. Her baby girl was old enough that the state required her to be buried, but not old enough for insurance to cover the burial costs.
May '10
Re: Baby Boon?
Well, as they say, "the hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world." Holocaust survivor Yitta Schwartz died at the age of 93 with nearly 2,000 descendants, "thumb in the eye of the Nazis," as the NYT says. Keep on rockin'.
Nov '10
Re: Baby Boon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duggar_family
God bless the Duggars. Michelle deserves a medal of some kind.
Re: Baby Boon?
Kenneth: The most astounding response was when mothers were asked, "If you had it to do over again, would you still make the decision to have children?" 83% responded, "No".
... Children may be a boon to some, but a burden to others. I don't think it's a moral or political judgment. ·
Wow. That's an odd statistic. Do you have a link for that? I have to say I find that hard to believe. Not that I don't believe you, Kenneth, just don't believe that the poll was legit. I might believe 40%, which would still be a shock but more believable.
As for your final sentence, I agree ... to a degree. Parenting might be thought of as a broad boon but a daily burden. When you can step back (physically and mentally) from the housework and diapers and whining and money woes, etc., most mothers can come to a place of peace about their parenting life. However, the day-to-day (or, minute-to-minute) grind is tedious and, sometimes, defeating. But aren't all good things in life the same? Exercise, writing a book, making a car?
Aug '10
Re: Baby Boon?
Many of the people who worry about childrens' environmental impact see people on the earth as if we were microbes in a Petri dish:
Microbes who reproduce more will, all else being equal, exhaust the nutrients in the Petri dish faster than microbes who reproduce less, and when the Petri dish is exhausted, everyone dies.
If you want the microbe colony to last as long as possible, then, you slow down reproduction, ideally to just about the point where if it were any slower, the colony would die off from under-reproduction. Now substitute people for microbes and Planet Earth for the Petri dish, and you have your model for the ideal human reproductive rate.
This is a gross oversimplification, of course -- even for microbes -- but it is the gist of what a lot of folks who worry about the impact their children will have on the planet believe.
And if you accept this Petri-dish model as valid, then the environmental-impact argument against more children seems sensible and moral.
Edited on Jan 18, 2011 at 1:57pmJun '10
Re: Baby Boon?
Kenneth, I guarantee that poll is bogus.
Personally, my only big regret in life is not having more kids. My husband & I were completely on our own with all child raising responsibilities, plus elder care issues to juggle. If we'd had some family babysitting support, we definitely would have had more. Too late now, but I tell my kids that we'll do everything in our power to help them choose a big family.
Jul '10
Re: Baby Boon?
If someone feels they have nothing to contribute to the gene pool, I absolutely trust their judgment in the matter and fully support their decision. I embrace the Darwin. My heroes are the career military that raise a house full of kids, change towns every couple of years, do the church and sports and scout things with their kids, and then watch the kids sign up for their turn in the barrel.
I have done nothing so absorbing, daunting, heartbreaking, exhausting, and rewarding as raise children, and I know I don't do half the job they do.
The childless university faculty couple that know they are the most accomplished, cutting edge elite the Republic has to offer are fooling themselves. But their reproductive choices also serve the Republic.
Aug '10
Re: Baby Boon?
StickerShock:
My husband & I were completely on our own with all child raising responsibilities, plus elder care issues to juggle.
Yeah, that's where we're going to be. I pray to God every night that we don't have a baby before my most needy and crazy elder drops off the twig. Call me selfish if you like: I call it knowing my own limitations.
Between insane elder problems and having health problems of my own, I barely get through family life as it is. The thought of pregnancy in the midst of this family maelstrom just scares me -- how could I possibly be a good parent?
You may pray for the relief of my cowardice if you feel so inclined.
Jul '10
Re: Baby Boon?
What do you expect from a group that supports the concept of Killing Millions of unborn every year with NO limitations what-so-ever?
In order to support that concept one must deny the humanity of the unborn child.
If you want to find what they really beleive, find a properly sized egg, and decorate it in the necessary manner to make it appear to be the egg of a California Condor.
Then in the presense of Liberals, destroy the egg. See how far you get with them and their anger when you use all of the abortion arguments regarding the unhatched egg.
When it becomes a choice and not a child in the womb, how far is that from becoming a setback?
To those of whom there is Nothing Beyond Themselves the thought of a place in eternety becomes no more than 'Doing My Own Thing!"
Oct '10
Re: Baby Boon?
Sadly, the Left mind, that is liberal/progressevism has so embraced the culture of death that they are rapidly approaching, if not already at the point, where they are below replacement level. That is why we need to wrest control of the schools from them, so they cannot proselytize from the only productive population there is... conservatives.
Darwin had it right, at least on this score.
It's understandable that if you are surrounded by people who see child rearing as tedium or distraction, then you will fearfully contemplate your future and decide against. But, growing up in a large family and learning to enjoy the occasionally near chaos moments, you discover that the void would be unendurable.
Your friends, Ursula, will not realize their loss until too late. If they never realize their loss, then the world, and especially their unborn, are better off anyway.
Edited on Jan 18, 2011 at 2:36pmRe: Baby Boon?
Jaydee_007:
If you want to find what they really beleive, find a properly sized egg, and decorate it in the necessary manner to make it appear to be the egg of a California Condor.
Then in the presense of Liberals, destroy the egg. Jan 18 at 2:12pm
This is funny ... and sad ... and apt.
Re: Baby Boon?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
StickerShock:
My husband & I were completely on our own with all child raising responsibilities, plus elder care issues to juggle.
Yeah, that's where we're going to be. I pray to God every night that we don't have a baby before my most needy and crazy elder drops off the twig. Call me selfish if you like: I call it knowing my own limitations.
Between insane elder problems and having health problems of my own, I barely get through family life as it is. The thought of pregnancy in the midst of this family maelstrom just scares me -- how could I possibly be a good parent?
You may pray for the relief of my cowardice if you feel so inclined. · Jan 18 at 2:06pm
I don't think you are selfish at all, Midge. Rather, you are selfless to consider the power of your caring instincts within your family. I do pray, however, that the burden eases for you.