Procreate or perish

Based on anecdotal experience of my generation (I was born in 78, so I kinda straddle a line there), there's a real schism: those who want kids want several (3-4 instead of the 1-2 average of our generation). But an equal number want none. It's a bit distressing how many of my peers in their late 20s have no intention of ever having children.

Is it true that Greece and Rome's birth rates dropped before their collapse? I don't remember hearing that before.

Is there any evidence that Evangelicals have more children? When you factor out income, do middle- and upper-middle class Evangelicals have more kids than the general population?

What Rod's reader fails to recognize is that libertarian social values are the lubricant that greases the wheel of the global corporate economy that fosters the atomization that (almost) everyone across the political spectrum decries. The reader is absolutely right to suggest that those on the cultural right ought to worry more than they do about libertarian economic values and their effect on private life. But those on the cultural left ought also to worry more than they do about libertarian social values and their effect on public life. No private ethos centered on personal libertinage is ever going to produce men and women committed to a public ethos of social solidarity. Left-fusionism has been as much of a failure in the past forty years as right-fusionism has been.

Rod quotes Dr. Zimmerman, "Fundamentally, people are familistic because they think it right and for no other reason."

In other words, it's right because ... it's right. (Or at least, in terms of what Rod considers hostile societies having more kids than the West, might makes right.)

And Rod WONDERS why people consider this "2.1" stuff "right-wing boilerplate"?

Oh, please, Larry, actuarial tables don't much care if your feelings are hurt. Nobody wants to force you to procreate. But if you don't procreate, and if we collectively don't procreate past the replacement rate, there will be consequences, whether it hurts our feelings our not.

Daniel: Is there any evidence that Evangelicals have more children? When you factor out income, do middle- and upper-middle class Evangelicals have more kids than the general population?

I don't think there is. In fact, I told Dr. Kurth that as far as I could tell, the vaunted faith factor in the US (versus Europe) was pretty much pointless when it comes to reproduction. IOW, the vast mainstream of US Christianity had accepted modernity's view on fertility and families. He said yes, that was true. I'm certain it's also true for Catholics as well. Traditional Catholics and what I call "full quiver" Protestants, like ultra-Orthodox Jews, are outliers within the broad swath of their own religious traditions.

That' my guess too, Rod. Even among the outliers, it would be interesting to see the data when income and education is considered. The ultra-Orthodox have high levels of poverty and women with low-levels of education, as do many so-called "full quiver" Protestants. It would be interesting to see research that considers education level and income.

Larry,
It's troublesome for several reasons. Not on an individual level, necessarily, but on a large scale basis. Who will take care of this entire generation, when they can no longer care for themselves? And what does it say about a generation that doesn't think that continuing itself is a worthwhile endeavor?

Some of my friends don't want children for really good reasons. Some of them have serious genetic issues, or familial issues, they don't want to pass on. One friend of mine has inherited blindness, and doesn't want to pass that gene on. Another comes from a long line of bipolar, abusive, nasty people. Yet another is the only person in her family NOT to have struggled with schizophrenia. (Please understand: I'm not saying that NOONE with that family history should reproduce, or even that we should discourage it. I'm saying that I understand why those individuals might not want to pass on their family inheritance to future generations.)

But I know one woman who doesn't want to have children because she doesn't want to ruin her figure. A man who doesn't want kids because it would mean not sleeping with a different woman every week. (And god bless him. If he's gonna act that way, at least he's not bringing children into the world. That he knows of.) Yet another who thinks its simply not worth the bother or the expense. And so on.

LDS also have rather large families and so I think support the "full quiver" hypothesis. I will always remember being amazed at the preponderance of Really Big Vans(tm) in the parking lots at stores, restaurants, etc., when I worked for Novell back in the day (early 90s) and made many trips to Provo.

As for "it's the economy" vs. "it's the moral degradation", one could make a pursuasive argument IMHO that the drastic changes in the economy and the nature of the employer/employee relationship are very much part of moral degradation. Greed is one of the 7 deadly sins folks; moral degradation isn't limited to our sexual and familial relationships, it's also about how we treat our neighbors, our coworkers, our employees, and most importantly, the faceless people living in our community. Political corruption, corporate corruption, cheating on taxes or insurance or welfare benefits -> it's all the same beastie.

Why is the desire not to have kids distressing?

On a personal level, I have no kids, and I'm not sure I want them. That being said, on a grand strategic level, a lower fertility rate means both a smaller workforce and a smaller pool of military manpower, which in turn eventually means declining economic & military strength. Yes, technology can help to some extent, by increasing productivity in both the economic & military realms, but there are limits. The other alternative is to import both labor (e.g., guest workers) and soldiers (e.g., foreign legion), but these, too, are limited - the former by the rate at which we can assimilate immigrants, and the latter by the following:

"And then the legions discovered the dread secret: that emperors could be made in places other than Rome."

This is a worldwide issue (see japan and China). Was it their loss of basic Christian values which lead to smaller families?

Steve

No, I really get why some people don't want to have kids. But again, there's an old maxim that runs along the lines that having children is the ultimate expression of hope. That so many end up NOT having children says to me, at least, that a great many people are simply giving up. THAT is an almost insurmountable obstacle.

a lower fertility rate means both a smaller workforce and a smaller pool of military manpower, which in turn eventually means declining economic & military strength.

There was an article a few days ago saying that by 2029 the thought capacity of computers will equal humans. Just speculation here, but with military becoming more automated with computer based warfare and more jobs being done by computers and automatons, would a declining fertility rate and human population really be an issue? Are we automating ourselves into extinction?

Rod and his reader both have great points. I think it is fair to say that both culturally and economically the deck has been stacked against the family in this country. With both parents working and the corresponding economic pressures that seem to necessitate this, easy divorce, the crud on television, and our culture which is encouraging more and more people, especially men, to forego adulthood it is no wonder that families are cracking.

I don't want to be a parent because I don't think I'd be very good at it.

>>>
Don't know if I'll be very good at it either, but if I let my lack of ability stop me from doing things, I'd be parked on my couch all day.

Posted by: Insane Kitten | February 18, 2008 2:11 PM
>>>

True enough, the thing is that if it turns out that I'm not good at, oh say beekeeping, the only result is a few stings and some empty hive boxes.

Parenting is a committment of a much higher order and has tragic results if done badly.

Some pretty terrific and insightful comments on this thread!

Insane Kitten, :)! But I celebrated my first wedding anniversary with my tiny nursing infant in tow. Honeymoon babies are great!

BrianF, I certainly hear you. Were it not for my husband's eligibility for VA loans we'd still be renting, I suspect. However, it may be more possible to live on one income than you might think; but you end up living a pretty crunchy lifestyle almost by default. For us, one income means one car, a homeschooling mama, no vacations to speak of (visiting relatives in other states for major life events every few years doesn't really count) and a commitment to examining one's budget for unnecessary luxuries that can be cut out. We'd like to be doing a better job, especially on that last, but overall the most important factor is not wasting a lot of time and energy bemoaning all the "things" everyone else has that we might like, the bigger house/yard, the newer car, cable or satellite TV, the vacation that was really a vacation, etc.

Marian Neudel, your 1:41 comment does have me thinking--it has me thinking that you hope other people's kids will take care of you. And in some sense I'm sure they will--but as my 90-year-old grandmother approaches the end of her life, it's been a lot more comforting to her to have been visited by her seven children than it ever was to have any number of other people's children pay into her social security. Family does matter.

Jim's 12:25 comment is probably the most important thing I've read on this thread. As much as the decline of family can be traced to a radical individualist view that sees marriage as stifling and children as unnecessary excrescences, it can also be traced to the devolution from the desire for one's offspring to have a better life than one did to the perceived need to have only those offspring to whom one can "guarantee" a better life defined in strictly materialistic terms. An image of that sort of thing came within my view yesterday: a woman was in her car with one child, but she apparently had two children with her most of the time--or at least, there were two individual DVD players strapped to the back of each of the two front seats. Heaven forbid that the children should be bored in the car for even a second; and heaven forbid that only *one* DVD player be purchased, lest the children should have to share the solitary and inadequate screen for their car ride/viewing pleasure.

I'm not judging this woman; how many times have I been suckered into thinking that my children absolutely NEED something that didn't even exist a century ago? But soon the line between things that are truly good to have (indoor plumbing, for example) and the things that are just expensive toys gets blurred, until parents begin to think that each child requires her own computer, cell phone, portable DVD player, brand-name clothing, four-year degree at a private college, etc. And if you're convinced that those things really are necessities, you're going to limit yourself to the one or two children for whom you might possibly be able someday to provide them.

Without a radical re-imagining of what family means and what parents should be giving their children, we won't break free from the consumer "paradise." But without the support of a community of like-minded people this radical re-imagining ends up being more wishful thinking than reality--which is why some sort of intentional community of people who share these values is much more than a merely nice idea.

Rod:

If it's not all about me (which I certainly agree it's not), why do you keep responding to me instead of just letting what you obviously think are my insane (literally) rantings go?

Is there any consensus of opinion on just how many childen one must have to qualify as one of those wonderful godly people who are self-sacrificingly saving our culture from itself?

I don't have time for a comprehensive survey, but I did take a brief look around.
William Bennett: 2 kids
Robert Bennett (his brother): 3 daughters
Newt Gingrich: 2 daughters (and the less said about his marital record, the better, from a conservative POV, cough-cough)
Trent Lott: 2 kids
G.W. Bush: 2 daughters
William F. Buckley Jr.: 1 son
Whittaker Chambers: 2 children (and he was probably gay)
James Dobson: 2 children
Jerry Falwell: 3 children
Willmoore Kendall: none as far as I could tell
Richard Weaver: none as far as I could tell
Rudy Giuliani: 2 children (and as many divorces)
Mike Huckabee: 3 children

Am I noting a certain failure to walk the walk? Whatever is to become of us! Conservatives are depopulating the land of themselves! Soon they will be extinct! What a tragedy!

Granted, John McCain has seven children, four of whom are biologically his, but he had to go through two wives to accomplish this. Hardly an example to be emulated.

I'm going to try to avoid grand sociological or philosophical pronouncements. I will suggest that there are some economic factors that may be influencing the choices individual couples make, and that these vary by region. Rod has commented numerous times on the vast difference in the cost of living and the cost of raising children in his former home city of New York, and where he lives now in Dallas. The cost of housing, the length of commutes, the quality of schools and the cost of alternative education are playing a role in the decisions people make on when to start a family and on family size. In turn -- it is being argued -- because of the influence of these factors on individual family choices, these factors are beginning to influence who chooses to live in particular areas and, by doing so influencing the prevailing attitudes such people hold. Steve Sailer, writing for The American Conservative, has a fascinating piece where he compares state-by-state voting data with family size and housing cost, available here:
http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_02_11/article.html.

"Value Voters: The best indicator of whether a state will swing Red or Blue? The cost of buying a home and raising a family."

I'm not trying to inject a political argument on this thread, so much as to observe that a phenomenon of the time we live in is that in greater numbers, people are selecting where to live based on a mix of economic and attitudinal factors, and that these factors are beginning to drive strong differentiation among regions. Thus, before I would presume to "judge" a young couple's decision whether to have or to defer children, I would ask where it is that they live, and what they face in terms of the cost of housing, the distance of commutes, and the socialization with others similarly situated.

The intrinsic values noted in the posts on this thread indeed matter, but in the uncertain economic times in which we live, there are a lot of external factors that may be influencing these choices as well.

PS: I don't buy Sailer's argument at the end of his piece that the place to start to address the concerns he raises is with immigration policy. I found that to be a non-sequitur. I would start by raising the personal exemption to the 2008 dollar equivalent of what it was in 1950, and by ending the special deduction treatment of home mortgage interest that favors owners over renters. Simply have an "interest" deduction -- that applies to student loans, medical expenses, consumer debt or whatever, and cap it at some six figure sum beyond which, it can reasonably be anticipated that the taxpayer in question is doing well enough not to require further deduction assistance from government. Then step back, and watch the babies start appearing.

Richard

Isn't education and health care paid by the government in a lot of western European nations? They are in a demographic death spiral.

Sig:

Using the galaxy of minds profiled at length in George Nash's standard survey The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America: Since 1945, the generative prowess of whose Buckley, Chambers, Kendall and Weaver contingent you sketch, allow me to add, from my own collegiate (1980-4) tooth-cutting lineage, the libertarian luminaries, with a certain hyperindustrialist/pagan foe of Buckley and Chambers thrown in for salt and gender equity:

Albert Jay Nock: 2; his "hungry heart" did on them and Mrs. AJN, c. 1900, a "Baltimore, Jack": he went out for a ride and he never went back)
H.L. Mencken: 0
Ludwig von Mises: 0 (step-papa to wife Margit's daughter, famed journo Gitta Sereny: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gitta_Sereny
Henry Hazlitt: 0
Ayn Rand: 0
Murray Rothbard: 0
Harry Browne: 1

As the old-school Viennese shrink says in "THE PUNCH LINE" to Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth, after enduring the title character's book-length monologue chronicling a lifetime's uproarious psychosexual turmoil:

"So. Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?"

Insane Kitten, fingers crossed and hands folded! :)

Jim, you're being an absolute font of wisdom on this topic. I'm very thankful that I grew up in a large family and thus bought nary a parenting book before the arrival of the first Miss Manning; the nurses in the hospital where she was born were puzzled by my calm confidence in handling my first baby, until I told them that I was the second of nine children and that my youngest brother was then only four years old, so it wasn't that hard to remember how to hold/diaper/dress a tiny baby; I'd been helping out with such tasks for much of my life.

Granted, being at home alone with that first baby when she developed colic was quite the challenge; no one, and no amount of experience, can really prepare you to be a parent. You just take things a day at a time, keep Mom on speed dial, and be grateful that there are two of you for that one baby and that it will be at least a few years before you're outnumbered by the children--by which point you'll have enough of the basics figured out to be able to handle the unique situations.

But what you said, Jim, about "Parenting" is exactly right. We're all so sure that we're doing everything wrong and that there really is a "right" way to do all of this. It's the difference, I think, between learning to be a parent (noun) and thinking that one's job is to "Parent" (verb, in the infinitive). Raising a child is much more a state of being than a series of tasks, and maybe it would be less daunting if people realized that.

Rod, I don't think I much care for your idea that humans should revert to a state of nature, where we have as many children as possible and then let nature kill off those we can't feed or watch from sticking their tongues into the electrical socket.

I must have missed the post where he advocated that! Can you post a link?

Richard

Jeanie, you don't know what you're talking about. You should see my family's medical bills if you think my wine, book and CD budgets are safe from the cost of raising kids. Besides which, we'd love to have more kids. Anyway, you don't have to like the idea, but as I keep saying to Larry, the actuarial tables don't much care what we humans think of their remorseless logic. Somebody's got to keep things going in this or any society.

Sig, your little list of childless or near-childless conservatives is cute, but utterly beside the point. For one thing, it's often a mistake and a violation of charity to assume one knows why any particular couple didn't have children, or have more children. One very conservative couple I know comes to mind straightaway; they couldn't have kids because of her illness. If he or she were to make these same observations about family, fertility and civilization, would they be any less valid because she couldn't have children? If a gay social scientist had made the observations, would they be less valid because he couldn't marry and have children? Do you really think that the entire Republican Party leadership and punditocracy has to have more than 2.1 children for these observations to have any weight?

You're politicizing an analysis that stands or falls regardless of which political party embraces it. Again, you don't like a conservative saying these things? Then read Philip Longman, who is neither conservative nor religious, but who foresees a serious threat to our way of life from depopulation. You may be entirely right to point to pro-family conservatives who haven't had any or many kids and fault them for that, but like I keep saying, the actuarial tables don't much care which political camp wins or loses from this process. It is what it is. Like I said earlier, some things are true even if they make fundamentalists happy.

Rod,

Perhaps it would help then if there were a way for concerned people like yourself to discuss this issue WITHOUT playing the blame game. A much more useful discussion would be how to encourage demographic growth in a pluralistic, modern democratic, capitalist society in a way that moves us forward (retaining all the good things that have come with increased tolerance for individual freedom).

Perhaps it would help then if there were a way for concerned people like yourself to discuss this issue WITHOUT playing the blame game.

Jim:

It's about choices and ends--if one end is as good as another, then no persuasion is possible. If one end is better than another, then what you call 'blame' will inevitably creep in. Mr. Dreher is simply making some moral evaluations.

Rod, my point was not to pick on those specific conservative leaders. As you say, one can't tell what has motivated any specific individual. However, that doesn't seem to stop you and various other commenters from editorializing in blithe generalities about the materialism and selfishness of liberals in general. You have said, over and over again, "people who don't have lots of kids are contributing to the downfall of society." If you're going to make those judgements, then I think they must be applied to people on your side of the fence as well. I don't think it's fair to excuse all conservatives who don't have lots of children on the grounds that they may have issues we know not of (sob, sob) while scorning all liberals who don't have lots of children, since their only reason must surely be a selfish one (fie, fie). To me it seems much more likely that the very same social trends are affecting people of all persuasions, conservatives no less (or not much less) than liberals.

Really, it's not looking good.

Rich Brookhiser: none
James Buckley: none listed on wikipedia (thought I'm certainly willing to be corrected, as this seems quite odd on the face of it)
James Burnham: none listed (though again, this seems odd, so maybe he does have some)
Jeffrey Hart: none found by me
Joseph Bottum: none found, but my impression was that he had at least one
George Weigel: 3 children
Glenn Loury: 2 children
L. Brent Bozell, Jr.: 2 children (though, to be fair, one of his sons has 5. The other is a monk, hence has taken himself out of the game. So, the average for the offspring of this Catholic triumphalist stands at 2.5)
Michael Novak: 3 children
William Rehnquist: 3 children
John Roberts: 2 children
Clarence Thomas: 1 child (and one divorce). 1 adopted nephew.
William Kristol: 3 children
David Frum/Danielle Crittenden: 3 children
The Midge Decter/Norman Podhoretz axis is rather difficult to decipher. She is listed with 4; he only has 2, however. Confusing. Could it be more of those dreadful, liberal-style blended families??
Timothy George: 2 children
Chuck Colson: 3 children (and one divorce)
Sean Hannity: 2 children
Laura Ingraham: unmarried, no children
Dinesh D'Souza: 1 child
Dawn Eden: unmarried, no children
Ann Coulter: unmarried, no children (she did date Bob Guccione, Jr., though)

Okay, fun as this is, I can't spend all night on it--but good golly, my pro-natalist conservative friends, it's not looking good for your people. It certainly looks as if high-ranking, well-to-do conservative mouthpieces are not investing all that much in our sociological future, either. Maybe y'all need to do some evangelizing within your own ranks!

Rod: Do you really think that the entire Republican Party leadership and punditocracy has to have more than 2.1 children for these observations to have any weight? Perhaps not the entire punditocracy . . . but if they expect me to take them seriously, you're darn right I expect a little more of the money being placed where the mouth is! Otherwise, it looks suspiciously as if they expect the rest of us to provide them with cannon fodder, but can't be bothered to do it themselves. Granted, Antonin Scalia has nine children--but the poor man can't do the heavy lifting all by himself.

Well, Sig, may I point out that people with three children (ahem!) are already ahead of the replacement rate. Still, I'm not sure why this is such a big deal with you. You read my book, didn't you? The book is aimed chiefly at conservatives who value material well-being over other considerations. Surely you haven't been with me so long here on this blog that you think my criticism in this regard is limited to the cultural left. Natalists are a minority, period. Anyway, natalism hasn't been a theme that most on the right have taken up, more's the pity. You say that natalists should have more kids if they expect you to take them seriously, but as far as I know, none of the conservatives you've brought up have made an issue of natalism. I don't know why, but it's not fair for you to hold them out as hypocrites when to the best of my knowledge they haven't made these arguments.

Pat Buchanan has done so, but he and his wife are childless. I don't know why that is, but given Buchanan's traditionalist Catholicism, I would bet that there's a sad story there.

Well, I'm still waiting for an answer as to how many children you have to have to merit thanks for helping to save Western Civilization! Are Rod and Erin there yet, with three apiece? What about me? I've had four! Where's my gold star??

btw, I'll be heading off on Wednesday to visit my gay friend N. After he picks me up at the station, we'll be taking his son to see "Spiderwick." He has two charming, bright, well-behaved children whose two mothers, who are married to each other legally according to Massachusetts law, are bringing them up very nicely to be a benefit to society. N.'s best friend, D., also gay, has two children as well. And their two mothers, who are also married, are likewise bringing them up to be outstanding young people. They've been homeschooled for several years, in fact. There has never been any divorce in either family, nor has anyone abused drugs, gone on welfare, etc. So I'd like a gold star for them, too. : D (Not holding my breath, though.)

Rod, I think you're making too nice a distinction among different classes of pundit. Surely you're not arguing that the people I listed are ANTI-natalists? They're all social conservatives and all subscribe to the same programs, including anti-feminism, anti-gay marriage, anti-immigration, anti-abortion, anti-birth control, etc. etc. All the supposed pro-family stuff.

I decline to be known as a "natalist," though. That's just too icky. One should have children out of love for children and one's spouse. Not because it's part of somebody's long-term strategic plan for world domination.

Not sure if Sig isnt just having fun but her list surely could help demonstrate that it is economics that are driving the reduction in fertility rather than a loss of transcendental belief. While there is no shortage of hypocrisy on the left, I think you gottta admit that if you are going to try to make such an argument it would be best to practice what you preach.

since there are so many history buffs on this blog, given the huge numbers killed in WW1 and WW2 it seems as though it didnt take very long to recover in Europe or the U.S. After those wars there was economic expansion and need for people so it seems we had baby booms. Am I wrong?

Steve

"Antonin Scalia has nine children" - Sig

No wonder intimates call him [El] "Nino", where getting the Missus with child is known as the 'Nino Shuffle'...

I hear at family productions of A Christmas Carol, all nine hide under his robes as those Children of Want the Christmas ghosts use as Ebenezerian tear-jerkers...

"Why is the desire not to have kids distressing?"

I think those who find this distressing make the mistake of thinking that not wanting to be a parent is the same as hating kids, and that is obviously false. Also obvious, those who hate kids probably don't want to be parents, but that doesn't make the reverse proposition true.

There are many proper reasons to not have children, and some reasons maybe not so proper.

But it is true that many find not wanting to have kids to be distressing.

I don't buy Sailer's argument at the end of his piece that the place to start to address the concerns he raises is with immigration policy. I found that to be a non-sequitur. I would start by raising the personal exemption to the 2008 dollar equivalent of what it was in 1950, and by ending the special deduction treatment of home mortgage interest that favors owners over renters. Simply have an "interest" deduction -- that applies to student loans, medical expenses, consumer debt or whatever, and cap it at some six figure sum beyond which, it can reasonably be anticipated that the taxpayer in question is doing well enough not to require further deduction assistance from government. Then step back, and watch the babies start appearing.

Richard

Richard for President!

Larry, yes, I think I see your point.

I think hating children is an improper reason to not have children, BUT, to the degree that the reason is true, it is proper not to have them.

Or put another way, it is improper to hate children, but in that case one shouldn't be a parent.

The object of the impropriety is the reason, not the action.