Ross Douthat Gets Results
Ross Douthat's column yesterday, headlined "More Babies, Please":
Finally, there’s been a broader cultural shift away from a child-centric understanding of romance and marriage. In 1990, 65 percent of Americans told Pew that children were “very important” to a successful marriage; in 2007, just before the current baby bust, only 41 percent agreed. (That trend goes a long way toward explaining why gay marriage, which formally severs wedlock from sex differences and procreation, has gone from a nonstarter to a no-brainer for so many people.)
Government’s power over fertility rates is limited, but not nonexistent. America has no real family policy to speak of at the moment, and the evidence from countries like Sweden and France suggests that reducing the ever-rising cost of having kids can help fertility rates rebound. Whether this means a more family-friendly tax code, a push for more flexible work hours, or an effort to reduce the cost of college, there’s clearly room for creative policy to make some difference.
More broadly, a more secure economic foundation beneath working-class Americans would presumably help promote childbearing as well. Stable families are crucial to prosperity and mobility, but the reverse is also true, and policies that made it easier to climb the economic ladder would make it easier to raise a family as well.
Beneath these policy debates, though, lie cultural forces that no legislator can really hope to change. The retreat from child rearing is, at some level, a symptom of late-modern exhaustion — a decadence that first arose in the West but now haunts rich societies around the globe. It’s a spirit that privileges the present over the future, chooses stagnation over innovation, prefers what already exists over what might be. It embraces the comforts and pleasures of modernity, while shrugging off the basic sacrifices that built our civilization in the first place.
Such decadence need not be permanent, but neither can it be undone by political willpower alone. It can only be reversed by the slow accumulation of individual choices, which is how all social and cultural recoveries are ultimately made.
British royalty were so concerned by the cultural situation, that we get this news today:
Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton are expecting their first child, the palace announced today.
Way to strike a blow for Western Civilization, guys! And how about that Douthat?
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Comments:
Aug '11
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
I believe it's still true that conservatives (particularly those who consider themselves religious) tend to have more children than liberals/leftists and the non-religious. This, I think, is a good thing if we assume that children raised in conservative households are taught to be conservative. Because it means we'll win in the war of ideas simply by out-breeding 'em.
The message should be narrowed to "More conservative babies, please!" : )
Edited on December 3, 2012 at 5:56pmSep '12
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
Yes, more babies are needed. But I'd rather that some people not breed at all than to have babies with absent and/or uninvolved fathers or mothers in their child's upbringing.
Oct '11
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
I for once welcome our New British Overlord !
I remember attending a Libertarian Conference in the UK were a doctor was basically paint babies as life-sucking parasites that make life miserable for adults ... I guess we have a Royal Rebuttal here.
Aug '11
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
The tabloids speculate that it's Harry's in T Minus 5..4..3...
Apr '11
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
There've been a number of responses to Catherine in the media (Mrs. Of England points out that Kate is not her preferred moniker), but none so awesome as this. Well done, Mollie.
Sep '10
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
Samuel Amaral: I for once welcome our New British Overlord !
I remember attending a Libertarian Conference in the UK were a doctor was basically paint babies as life-sucking parasites that make life miserable for adults ... I guess we have a Royal Rebuttal here. · 10 minutes ago
You should have shot back:
"Judging by your histrionics up here, I'd say its not only the babies that behave that way. Could you tell me about your life as a child?"
Mar '12
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
The Once and Future King
Jan '11
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
What would happen if Ross Douthat and Sandra Fluke appeared together on the same stage?
Feb '12
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
I don't know, but I'd pay to watch ...
Mar '12
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
"And may their first child be a masculine child." (An old Sicilian blessing.)
May '10
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
With tongue firmly in cheek: Mr. Douthat and Miz Fluke in close proximity? Wouldn't that be kinda like mixing matter and anti-matter? Might be explosive, but I would also like to see that (from a safe distance, of course...)
Jan '11
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
When you read the title of the post, and the caption on the picture . . . .
Nov '12
Re: Ross Douthat Gets Results
This trend in the US identified by Douthat is one of the most disturbing things I've heard recently. One of the most important books I read this year was David P. Goldman's "How Civilizations Die". The short answer: they commit suicide by failing to have children. This is already happening all over Europe and--believe it or not--the Middle East. This seems to indicate that we are following Europe's self-destruction not only in political and economic ways, but in demographic as well.