I'm going to go out on a limb here. I bet J.D.'s tone (the substance of what he said is more or less unimpeachable) was something he picked up in traddy Catholic circles. Those of you who don't know don't know the smug superiority of that crowd (which, while it overlaps TLM world, does not engulf it) especially regarding their children and especially the number of them. J.D.'s remarks didn't sound to me like the J.D. of the book, that completely unliterary and authentic piece of work that again and again told the truth. Pharisaism is ugly wherever you find it and it's especially ugly there.
So here's the situation. You've got self-satisfied holier-than-thou types who couldn't tell you whether Rerum Novarum was a man or a horse, and Father Martin down in Georgetown getting rah rah letters from a Pope who continues to shelter the worst kind of clerical sexual abusers. Take your pick.
'And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it' is not qualified with asterisks and small print giving additional options if Attila is sacking Rome, if Constantinople decides to leave, if the Pope is suspicious or even deplorable (x10 over however many centuries), or yes, if the faithful are smug and unpleasant and flawed in AD 2024. There is no third option.
Two Bishops back (I forgot his name, I only met him once. He retired and then our next Bishop passed away) we had a Bishop who basically advised us to avoid the online communities. I think he was right. They can be really toxic.
My priest has expressed to me, and I assume to other older guys, a wish that we should befriend and offer fellowship to the young men who are showing up at our parish and are taking an interest in conversion as he is leery of the guys forming a clique of their own. (I've mentioned that we had some trouble with one young man in particular who had to be asked to leave). I'm trying to do that, motivated as well by gratitude to the memory of an elderly couple, now departed, who extended a welcoming friendship to me when I first started attending St, Andrews of Baltimore sixteen years ago. I was already Orthodox by some years then, but their friendship integrated me into the parish much more quickly than if I had been left to my own devices.
I'm actually a member of the Oriental Orthodox Church.
However, all churches are glasshouses. The Eastern Orthodox is drifting into fullblown schism between the Greeks and Russians. It's divided into national churches, many of which are given to hardcore nationalism. The Russian Church is totally in Putin's pocket, and that's coming from someone who is basically pro-Russian. The Ecumenical Patriarch is trying to set himself up as the Pope. Outside the traditionally Orthodox nations, it seems completely incapable of establishing single jurisdictions. It has its own scandals too, although they seem to be about money and power more than sex.
Pascha Press keeps popping up on my FB feed, and it reads like the nastiest kind of US Evangelicalism, which is exactly the version of Christianity that put me off the faith for so long. There's also the unforgiving obsession that the Greeks in particular have with the wrong inflicted on them by Catholics, yet they never mention the wrongs they inflicted on the Copts.
Unless a man is wealthy or has some other high status not having children being single is not revered. They go from being called "incel" and get to age into "creepy old man". (Sorry Jerry, I like Matt, but....) but if you look at the way The Daily Wire commenters talk about single men it's not flattering AT ALL.
The grass isn't greener in the other gender's yard.
No problem. I've heard one Men's channel commenter who actually spent some time with them express frustration that Shapiro, Matt Walsh (sorry Jerry) and Andrew Klaven have the advantage of being in what appear to be happy marriages and don't really get the problems a lot of MGTOW men have. (I'm not MGTOW, but I get it)
My last girlfriend unceremoniously dumped my ass after one of her very close friends trooned out and it led to an insoluble dispute regarding my 'transphobic intolerance'. Five years down the drain because I wouldn't admit men in drag can be women, tossed away by a girl who not half a year before told me she wanted us to have children.
Another story. A week ago, I got a notification from Discord (a chat application) that a close high school friend had logged in and was active - I'd lost contact with her for several years, she'd just disappeared off her socials. I rush to click on her profile and see that after a stint in Canada in the 4 years after COVID, she'd become convinced she was a man, chopped off her breasts, and discarded her name to become 'Wulfie (he/him)', a furry artist. When I last saw her before this, she was just an awkward tomboy. Man. Just writing it down makes me feel like somebody dumped a bucket of ice on my head. I still have trouble processing it.
Anyways, I'm 32. These are just two anecdotes among many, many (many) sad ones I've gathered over the past 8 years or so, regarding other young people in general and women in specific. And the younger you go the more unfathomably bad it gets. It feels most days like people even just a generation older than me are unaware or cannot quite comprehend the incalculable damage - the real, physical damage to health and prosperity, not just psychological or emotional damage - the social media age has inflicted on Millennials and Gen Z.
You’re young. Find a way to meet women. Date them casually and concurrently, and vet and discard rigorously. The problem for a long time now is people get serious and exclusive too quickly, and for no good reason—and then “date” for years. Been there, done that. It’s a big mistake.
Be on the lookout for someone serious about settling down, and don’t kid yourself. And then take the plunge.
My take on why Vance's comments fell flat is that before becoming a mother, every woman is de facto childless, regardless of whether she wants to or can have kids. I mean before I was a mother, I was a childless cat lady too, in the literal sense. While parenthood absolutely changes you, we are the same person, just in different life phases. Many of today's "childless cat ladies" will be mothers a few years down the road. Reading between the lines, his problem appears to be with women (and women really notice that kind of thing). Had he also focused on incel men (fewer of whom will likely become fathers) I might be convinced that he holds men to the same scrutiny.
He plainly has a problem with childless Democrat women. But it appears deeper than that.
Is everyone aware that JDV said parents should have more votes than non-parents? He explained it was because a parent should get an additional vote in behalf of their child, because they will be the ones who will vote wisely, for the future.
I don't even totally disagree with giving parents a vote in behalf of their child. But in context, together with other things JDV has said, and the way he said them, it is clear to me he has a problem with empathy, and he believes good parents are automatically better than non-parents in terms of voting unselfishly and wisely. Not "sometimes better" (true) but automatically better (false). Sorry, that is what I've come to believe. I'm still voting Trump/Vance of course.
I agree, he makes some false assumptions about parents/non-parents. But I think saying the more kids you have the more votes you should have sounds undemocratic. Considering that immigrants tend to be having more kids overall, this rhetoric also seems contradictory to other Trump/Vance messaging.
Right - I was saying I don't "totally" disagree because with more votes for parents because in a perfect world, a good parent (immigrant or not) would vote for the future wisely, and they ought to be able to cancel any "selfish" votes that are out there, e.g., "print more money now, cancel my student loans, and I don't care how much debt it saddles my grandchildren with". - Not saying all childless vote that way, of course, but it does happen sometimes.
Good point regarding student loans, loan forgiveness is one Biden policy I really hate. Unfortunately there is no solution put forth by the left or right to make college more affordable in the future. I would like to hear some solutions from Trump/Vance and a focus on issues, not alienating voters.
My first thought was that if parents got to vote for their kids then vote harvesting shenanigans would go through the roof. I'm with you; the idea has some merits but probably outweighed by the negatives. Then again, the system we have now seems to have major flaws. What to do . . .
It's unwise for people, especially politicians, to talk sweepingly about categories of people. For example, I think the two-parent family is preferable, but it would be stupid for a politician to go on a rant against single motherhood, because (1) lots of single mothers do a great job, although I think they're making the best of a bad situation; (2) many single mothers are in that state through no fault of their own, such as desertion or widowhood; (3) single motherhood is a lesser evil than abortion.
Similarly, childlessness is not necessarily a choice. There's medical infertility, of course. Some women are not attractive enough to get men for anything other than casual sex. There are people like Linda here who never found the right man; that's less clearcut, because they probably could have found someone if they were determined to have children, but I feel uncomfortable telling people that they should just "settle" when it comes to marriage.
I also think a lot of conservative commentators don't much like women, or at least give that appearance. I've never felt that about Vance, but I do about Matt Walsh. In fighting the Mengele-level evil of the transgender cult he is an absolute hero, but in other areas he just comes over as a cad. Think of how hurtful he was about Simone Biles at the last Olympics. She has now won three golds this time; there ought to be a sermon or something in that.
Thanks, Rombald. You bring up marriage to a man I did not love. - - When I was younger more than one man said he wanted to marry me, but I was not in love with those men. I thought it right, not just for me but for him and for any future children to refrain from marrying a man I knew but was not in love with. A bad marriage was too likely under those circumstance, I felt. I sought desperately to meet a meet a man I loved who loved me. I was good looking but smart. Also, until age 35 or so I insisted on a Christian man, limiting the field.
The second reason was that I thought something could happen at last. Mom to step-children with a husband I loved, for example, and I did not want to miss it. So the magic day when I woke up and realized marriage to man I loved was so unlikely that, really, it just was not going to happen came quite late. Only then then did I give up hope. (Btw, it was a happier life when I did.)
Interesting to me - Maria Von Trapp's biography shows life is not always like the movies. She did not love the Captain. She liked him OK and felt a call to be a mother to those seven children.
JD's comment has certainly become a lightning rod and over analyzed. It struck a nerve because prima facie it resonates as something that has some validity in the world. "Yeah, I see what he means." I've pointed out in another post that cat ladies have their male counterparts as well. Suffice to say that single, childless people, especially as they age, have a disproportionate likelihood of becoming weird (weird in the classical sense).
Pursuing that to its endpoint - something you do not do - would see divorced, non-remarried people not with their children forbidden to vote because they too can be disproportionately weird.
(But I thought your choice to use of the word disproportionate was a sign of both intelligence and consideration for others.)
Thank you for writing this, Veronika. Being childless when one desires children is a pain that those with children cannot know. It is a kind of "dark night of the soul," just absolutely agonizing. From personal experience, I can tell you that the present discourse has made that pain much worse. I think many of the triumphalist and snide comments from those with children about those without children, with the obligatory "But I don't mean the involuntarily childless" tacked on at the end, might be a defensive response to how nasty some people are about children and parenthood. The whole discourse has gotten so out of control. There is absolutely no nuance in it anymore.
It seems to me that having children does not automatically change one for the better, making one selfless and wiser, because no experience in and of itself makes us better and wiser, but, rather, it is our response to an experience that changes us, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. There are those who become transformed by suffering, like the people Rod wrote about in Live Not by Lies. But there are also plenty of people who become bitter and angry as a result of their suffering. The same seems to be the case with parenthood. I know a lot of people with kids who are, frankly, terrible people. And their kids suffer for it.
I grew up in a big family and my parents had siblings and friends who never married and never had children. They were always welcome and, I'd even say, treated with a certain amount of deference in our home. I think it was because my parents, who married when they were a bit older, understood their suffering and wanted to do what they could to lessen it. But my parents were special people. Rare then and rarer now. And I remember all of those people fondly. They were so generous to us. I remember one of their friends in particular, just a really special man, brilliant and kind, who treated us kids so well - especially with his time and attention, talking to us and listening to us. He was a really good friend to my parents, extremely selfless and very wise. A true gift.
But, society has also changed so much (I'm around Rod's age) and we really just don't, overall, seem to know how to live together. It's sad really. Broken families equal broken people equal broken societies. And when I say broken families I don't just mean from divorce. How many people don't know their cousins? How many siblings barely speak to each? How many people even have cousins? How many people lives 1000s of miles away from family members? Every day, I am reminded of how fortunate I am to have the family and friends that I have. We aren't perfect, but we are normal (which, of course, is weird today or whatever the latest slur is).
I do agree that spiritual belief really helps. I saw that as a nurse. I also think having a community, being from somewhere, helps. I'm so glad that you have been able to get past the issues you faced. It is a good reminder that none of us are simply what has happened to us. God bless you! And I do think that there are many young people who are longing for the normal. Maybe it'll make a comeback!
You wrote: Hungary is a great place to have a big family, in terms of tax breaks and other things. And yet, there has been no real turnaround... Children are a lifetime investment while government policies can change in a month, on an election cycle etc.. Who is going to make the bet on long term government support considering that the rest of the EU will eventually win in Hungry. It could go the other way...
As I read about this issue I keep coming back to a quote in "Religion of the Apostles" by Stephen de Young
"Genesis as a whole serves as the prologue to the remainder of the Torah, which goes on to codify these resolutions to the three problems of Genesis. The Torah regulates human reproduction and sexual morality, as well as inheritance, to ensure the continuation and flourishing of humanity on the earth. The Torah establishes the sacrificial system, centering around the Day of Atonement, to manage sin and uncleanness within God’s people, to prevent their destruction. The Torah strictly forbids the idolatry of the nations and other actions and relationships that might render Israel or her people subject to the principalities and powers that govern the nations and seek Israel’s destruction." De Young, Stephen . Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century (p. 106).
It seems to me that as we abandon the covenant, we abandon the plan put in place to mitigate the three falls. It is not a government policy that needs to be put in place but an understanding of our state of existence
At any rate, I doubt that many couples spend the evening studying government subsidies, marginal tax rates, etc, before deciding to use or stop using contraception, much less whether to sleep in separate rooms.
Writes Rod: "In time, after much suffering, we will once again learn the fundamental truth that all civilizations must know: that order is built on the family, and the family is built on children who are raised to be responsible adults, who in turn will bear children that will carry on."
Or, put shorter, the family is the essential building block of society.
Family, parenthood, is inherently about sacrifice. You sacrifice on behalf of your kids - sacrifice your time, your freedom - no, you can't just drop it all and head off to the Bahamas for the weekend. You sacrifice money - oh yes you do (says the Dad who is about to drop $400 on high school band fees).
You sacrifice a bit of yourself, your identity even. You become - and may become known as - a dad or a mom, rather than a writer or an artist or whatever it might be.
And you do it all because you love your kids, a degree of love the childless can never know.
That, in the end, is what the childless can never comprehend, the depth and scope of love that comes with children. They can load up on as many dogs and cats and "chosen family" as they like, they'll never watch a toddler take those early steps and run into your arms for a hug.
At one point for a period of six months I worked out of town, away from my family. On a visit home, my then 14-year-old son hugged me tightly and sobbed, because he'd missed me so much. And as I hugged him back I kept saying "I'm sorry my son, I'm sorry."
Being part of a family means you sacrifice on behalf of that family, and ultimately that means every member. That's what the "building blocks of society" line means anyway; the family takes care of itself and in making that commitment, necessarily commits to the community at large. What percentage of local charitable board members are parents vs. nonparents? What percentage of those who serve on local planning boards or chamber of commerce committees are parents? Who has a greater stake in the future of a community than those who seek to raise their children there?
We can pussyfoot around it all we like but the simple matter is more and more people choose childlessness because they don't want to have to make the sacrifices. They don't want to make the financial sacrifice or career sacrifices necessary. They don't want to sacrifice their ability to drop it all and run off to Nassau or Paris for a few days. They don't want to tie themselves down. And they tell themselves that fewer kids is better for the environment, which makes their selfish decision virtuous (in their eyes).
The childless by choice are selfish. Plan and simple. But, as we live in an increasingly selfish society, it is they who are becoming the norm, and we parents who are "weird."
Indeed thinking the theme park for most calls to mind Disney World and it's Central Florida ilk. Imagine the environmental impact to just Orange County, Florida (Orlando) that went from less than a quarter million citizens before Walt Disney and his Mouse in 1965 to one and a half million today.
I am not a snob, but Orlando is the definition of tacky. I remember shopping there with my wife, and I joked I would get her an "Incredible Hulk" charm as a remembrance, but that charm sums up the vibe there now. Maybe they should put in a prostitute/drag queen park and a concentration camp theme park and finish the job.
We started taking our children to Disney World in 1989 and stopped in 2009. The difference in those 20 years was astounding just in terms of traffic. There was literally nothing along the roads from our condo in Vistana to the parks. We were often able to park within the first couple rows if we got there early and seldom stood in line for long. (we went in October, one of the benefits of homeschooling)
Our last trip was hellish, even staying in the park, the lines, the disorganization, the number of attractions that were down. Having creepy guys help our children on Dumbo was the least of it but the queering of Disney was well underway. We had started to combine Disney with Universal as the kids got older and have just stuck with Universal as they are blessedly agenda free. Reports I get from hardcore Disney fans aren’t good.
Funny how so much of their posturing is about the environment and making kids feel guilty for existing while they have destroyed so much of it.
We never took our girls to Disney, I was a "curmudgeon" and refused. It was just too fake for me. The girls resented not having had the experience. So in college, they went with friends. They came back and told me I was right not to have gone, they saw that it really was mostly just hype and low end fantasy at high cost. Having them tell me that was a good day for me as a parent.
My husband was a Disney lover. He liked the predictability and preferred going to the same place every year over planning new places. Our boys enjoyed it, our daughter did not. When we finally started going other places, National Parks, we realized how much we had missed!
The best part of Disney World for young boys is (was?) Tom Sawyer Island......just a fort, with some affixed rifles (they used to actually go bang!) and escape tunnels in case the injuns have you surrounded. I hope it's still there.
I live just down the highway (about two hours) from Disney World, and I did so twenty years ago too. I have zero desire to see Disney or any of the Orlando theme parks. And from what I understand the cost of tickets is exorbitant.
"That, in the end, is what the childless can never comprehend, the depth and scope of love that comes with children."
Of course, it is obvious what you mean, but this is not absolutely true that the childless cannot grasp the depth and scope of love itself. Mother Teresa? Maxmillian Kobe?
Loving one's own children is a beautiful and good natural love, but Jesus said in various ways that loving one's own family is something all men and women have the capacity to do. But Christians can love with more than the natural love that comes from being in a family - they can love with the supernatural love that is the love of Christ himself (who had no children yet sacrificed all for others).
Why are you. making this a competition? I'm talking about a *kind* of love. Not "love itself" but "love that comes with children". I will never know the love it takes for a man or a woman to give up the chance to have a spouse or family for the sake of living a life as a consecrated virgin (monks, nuns, bishops, and in Catholicism, priests). I would actually like to read a good essay from someone who is living that life. That only superficially looks like the selfish person who doesn't want to marry or have kids because they don't want to limit their individual freedom; in fact, it's the opposite.
But it's still not the same thing as the experience of parental love. If you are positing one kind of sacrificial love as superior to the other, you're misreading me. I think ANY form of sacrificial love is superior to what Whitney Houston sang was "The Greatest Love Of All" -- namely, "learning to love yourself."
I sincerely did not mean to make this a competition! I actually thought I was drawing out a commonality between different types of love (clearly, not very well!! ;).
Of course, the love of a parent for a child is a specific kind of love that the childless cannot experience. But, in Christ, natural parenthood does share something in common with the sacrifice and love of childless vocations, precisely as parental.
As John Paul II and others have noted, all men and women are called to mature into spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers. While most people do this through natural parenthood, one can mature into spiritual parenthood in other ways.
In Christ, therefore, natural parenthood is really a participation in "spiritual parenthood." Thus, all the baptized who mature into spiritual parenthood can experience something of the sacrifice and unconditional love of the other that forms the core of true natural parenthood. That is why we call priests "father," abbesses "mother" and the Pope "Papa". It would be odd to call them that if there was absolutely no experiential linkage between their vocation and the love of natural parents. I just wanted to show that when we root human loves in Christ's supernatural love, there is mutually illuminating participation -- not competition!
I think you might enjoy reading some of Edith Stein’s Essays on Woman. I haven’t read most of them, but the part I read I really appreciated because it didn’t restrict a woman’s proper vocation to either physical wife and mother or consecrated religious. She notes that spiritual motherhood can be fulfilled in other ways. The following was in the introduction.
“ Both spiritual companionship and spiritual motherliness are not limited to the physical wife and mother relationship, but they extend to all people with whom woman comes into contact.”13
According to her supernatural calling, woman is chosen “to embody in her highest and purest development the essence of the Church—to be its symbol.”
In three different ways, woman can fulfill the mission accorded to her by nature and grace and suitable to her individual disposition: in marriage; in the practice of a profession which values human development as the noblest professional activity of woman; and under the veil as the Spouse of Christ.”
She explicitly sees many ways that middle vocation can be satisfied—including in professions that aren’t stereotypically female.
Edith Stein is likely to someday be a Doctor of the Church, and I think that what she said is valuable—especially when talking to people who only see two legitimate possibilities. (I’m not saying Rod is one of those people either.). Also note that she refers to it as a mission accorded to a woman by nature and grace—it is not a failing on a woman’s part if she has one vs another. I know that you understand this to a large extent already, but I thought it might be helpful for other people, too.
The love for one's child is raw and pure and almost painful in intensity. The childless can love well and fully- but there is nothing quite like the sacrifice of trying to prepare another person with faith and wisdom and love of life, only to leave you one day. It is a love that necessitates being able to let go for the good of another.
I got a little misty eyed reading this comment to my wife as we sipped our coffee. My second of four boys heads off to university in less than two weeks and it is bittersweet. We raised them to be independent but we will miss them as they move out of the house.
They have a much tighter relationship than I ever did with siblings which I am grateful for.
Interestingly my oldest is making a special trip home to help his "little" bro move into his college dorm. The oldest is finishing up school in Cleveland and his brother is starting in Cincinnati.
"Yet never have I been happier than the days when that same boy who is about to start grad school turned his little feverish body over on that couch and upchucked onto my head."
We parents know exactly what you're talking about. I've been married 20 years to a wonderful man, my hero. Our only daughter is 12. I've often reflected over the past few years that I'll probably look back on these years as the best of my life. I'm really happy. God's blessings are overflowing. I hope my daughter has many children, and if she wants help raising them I'l be all in.
My daughter has 6, be careful what you ask for! Seriously they are a great blessing but I fear for their future, 5 fair haired white boys in a world gone mad.
My young son says he wants 10 kids. I tell him I’m all for it and we will help him with his kids as much as possible. I’d settle for half that! I think it would be wonderful.
As Rod knows, I have three children, two daughters and my son is the middle child. I offer this comment as a personal sharing, not intending it to be argumentative in any way.
Our eldest, Rachel, turned 41 years old a few days ago. The story of her birth is my occasional "birthday gift" to her and my wife. The setup, as it were, was the labor was about 40 hours long, with two "false alarms" along the way. Except for falling asleep once, I was with my wife the whole time.
3:16pm, 41 years ago today (freely remembered):
Obstetrician: "Okay, she's exhausted." He looks at us, and continues. "We don't use forceps any more. It's a suction cap placed over the baby's head. It avoids distending her skull." The OB begins to pull out various plastic hoses and such, hooks it all up in a few seconds, then carefully places the cap over the baby's head.
He looks at us, then takes a last piece -- the "T" shaped handle -- and attaches it to the cap.
He looks at us again, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He carefully places both of his hands over the handle, flips the on-switch to the suction pump, puts one foot up on the edge of the delivery table, screws up his face as if he was ready to expend his last ounce of physical stamina... and pulls the baby the rest of the way out in half a second.
If my knees hadn't been locked, being so tired at that point, they'd be trying in vain to pick me up off the delivery room floor. I doubt my laughter would have been audible.
Personal note: the OB was the on-call attending at the hospital. My wife's OB was, at the time, in the middle of the Cheasapeake Bay celebrating her birthday.
You are 1,000% correct. Having a child or children & being a parent is the most true & beautiful thing in the world even with & also partial because of all of the heart straining & enlarging hardships, worry & uncertainty. As a working person, I tell this to all of the 20 & 30 something's I know, but so far only one person has listened to me over the past 20 years, I'm sad to say. It is also very, very tough financially to have kids, especially for artists & writers, which is the world I'm in, so there's that, which is very real & very terrible. And now people have to think, too, about whether public education is viable or home schooling is necessary. What a time it is.
You have perfectly caught the je ne sais quois about parenting, and the reason so many people today get older without ever growing up. There were so many days when I had three sick children under 4, mastitis, and my husband was away trying to launch an IT consulting business that I wished I could just stop time. It seemed impossible. But I was 25 years old and felt (not looked!) like Wonder Woman. My husband lost his job for leaving his resume in the copier when our third child was 3 months old. We were blessed then to know that those were the best years of our lives, and we thoroughly enjoyed them, adding two more children through adoption to our family to extend the joy of parenthood through a few more years. The consulting gig paid off enough that he was able to stay home an extra day or two a week through the next 15 years. We both came from dysfunctional families with alcoholism and adultery and decided at 19 that we wanted something very different.
The flip side of all this wonder and joy is the fear of the future I now have, which I never had in those paycheck to paycheck days, fear for my adult children and grandchildren. We are handing them one hell of a mess. My husband is afraid to retire because we supplement so many needs. I don’t understand how anyone can care about protecting transgender rights when food has gone up 40% in a couple years. It is mass mental illness.
Strangely "Our Masters" don't seem concerned about the increase in food prices. That combined with soaring rental prices ($1500 per month for one room in my formerly affordable area) is going to lead to mass social unrest soon.
A consumer price index that doesn't tally food and fuel costs is just absolutely meaningless.
The consumer price index does include food and fuel costs. The Federal Reserve doesn't use it for interest rate targeting, because they're too volatile and based on too many factors outside anyone's control. Instead they use the personal consumption expenditures index, minus food and fuel.
But the full consumer price index is still reported and used for policymaking.
So wonderful that you both overcame such terrible backgrounds (and mastitis! I feel you) to be able to give your children safety and love—and financial support. Stand tall!
I guess after four kids I could be described as "pro-natalist". And I understand the "existential" cultural reasons for more and more kids that Rod refers to. Yet, I'm not. In this regard I'm more like Mao as he looked around and said, "There are too many people in China." Indeed, there are too many people in the world. I grew up in Florida. At the time Florida had fewer citizens than Rod's home state of Louisiana has today. The semi-tropical paradise I grew up in has been drained, paved over, subdivided, and forced to become Everywhere, USA. Personally, I blame the interstate highway system and Walt Disney. Back in the day it would be a two hour drive from West Palm Beach to Miami down US 1. Today, sans rush hour traffic, you can make down and back in the same amount of time. And that doesn't even begin to describe what's happened in the "I-4 Corridor". Orange County (Orlando) had orange trees everywhere. Today people outnumber oranges. Sad.
I don't know what the answer might be. Perhaps in a hundred years or so, historians might look back at China and Mao's One Child Policy and weigh the results. But today, in this fallen world, a nation, a continent, a civilization that finds its population shrinking, or even stagnant, feels the threat of being overwhelmed by neighbors seeking to have what it has, or which wish to impose their civilizational customs and norms on its people. I was blessed and thankful for it that I was allowed to grow up where and when I did. That it can't be passed on to my kids and grandkids makes me doubly sad.
The original concept of the Interstate Highway System may have been wise but it has been perverted. The Interstate Highway System is a slave to the corporate commercial world and destructive to millions of small businesses.
I had the glitch of not getting the daily post for a period of time. When I checked my Rod Dreher substack page, it said I had turned off email delivery. I had done no such thing. It was easy to turn back on email delivery. But then it happened again a couple of weeks later. This is not happening with my other paid substack subscriptions. I am not sure just telling subscribers to fix it themselves is helpful. Somebody (I assume Mr Dreher) needs to inform substack administrator of the problem and keep after it.
I only told you to "fix it yourself" because I think that's what Substack said last time I brought this problem to their attention. I might be wrong here, but I remember concluding that, "oh, so there's nothing I can do; my subscribers have to do this themselves." But I've just sent your complaint to Substack's representative for Substackers, and we'll see what happens. It's troubling to me that this is happening with my Substack newsletter, but not with others in your feed. Thanks for your patience.
Mr. Dreher if you'd allow me to put my schizo conspiracy tinfoil hat on for a split second and take it off just as quick - this is my ONLY regular subscription that causes my bank cards to reject automatic payment. As in, every month I have to log onto Substack, type in my card again, then verify my purchase with my bank over SMS. If I forget, the sub lapses. Netflix, Youtube, a million different blogs on stationery and illustration - all those subs go through smoothly month after month. It's just this one that has issues.
Then again, this is also the only subscription I have on Substack specifically, so my best guess is that it's the platform itself being finnicky as opposed to this newsletter being deliberately messed with by some outside force.
Ditto all that. Plus one thing that struck me like a thunderbolt when my first and second child were born was that they were both came into this world with a distinctive personality and character. Up until that point I believed what I'd been taught in college about nature and nurture wherein most people become who they are because of nurture (the environment) rather than innate nature. Of course the professors and Marxists wanted everybody to believe that all human problems were the result of a bad environment, conditioning, wrong-think if you will. And the answers to improving "man" lay in constructing the right environment--an environment that the professors and Marxists would control.
My youngest two, age 17, are identical twins and have very different personalities.
One is type A and has spreadsheets on which college coaches he has contacted and has a shot at making making either the track or Crosscountry team. The other has a vague notion that maybe he would like to swim in collage. One has takem his ACT, the other has not. One is organized and driven with a firey temper while the other is happy go lucky. They are very different even though they were raised in the same environment and he the same DNA.
Both bring their share of joy's and frustrations to their parents but we are proud of both of them and love them dearly.
I was close to two twins through high school to college. Very different personalities. One socially gifted and super popular; the other a "thinker", quiet and reserved.
Yes, exactly. My wife says the same thing and frequently. We were both surprised by how complete our two daughters were as people, as personalities, from the birth because our education had led us not to expect nature to be so strong and imprinted. We are still surprised and that is why we talk about it so much. I have no doubt that the effects of environment are real, but I am quite skeptical that the effect of environment (nurture) is as profound as we were and are led to believe by social psychologists. It was as I know now a "theory" that was mostly meant to support the narrative and ensuing socio-economic policy. But now the whole field of social psychology has fallen into disrepute because of all the irreproducible papers that have been retracted. It was and is a pseudo science masquerading as a science. Retraction Watch is worth reading.
I have one who is 17 and is still a complete mystery. Could be really thoughtful inside that head, or might be totally blank in there—nobody knows. I have another who came out with a definite personality and style that has not changed at all. Completely Type A.
I wonder how/why BF Skinner, with his baby tender and Walden Two, could’ve thought everyone was a blank slate. Maybe he was tied into the economic structure somehow; it’s the only way his whole shtick makes sense.
Parenthood, in these post-Christian times more than ever, is a profoundly sacrificial vocation. It's no accident or surprise that those embracing it, especially those choosing to have large families, are mostly of strong religious faith. Honestly, why else would you even have kids in this cultural environment?
The Atlantic, of all places, recently published a pretty insightful article on the subject -- linked below --arguing that there is no political or policy fix for the West's imploding fertility rate. The phenomenon has catastrophic implications for our future, but naturally the Powers That Be don't want to talk about it because: A) the very existence of the problem is a ferocious rebuke to the ruling ideology; and B) the Regime's disciples, as devotees of the prevailing Culture of Death, are inwardly pleased at the prospect of the extinction by choice of Western Civilization...and ultimately the human race.
I just came here to recommend the same article! I’m in my mid-30s and have one kiddo so far, and I can count on one hand the number of friends I have who also have a kid. That piece rang so true to me, that the lack of meaning in life is a main and direct contributor to childlessness. I used to be the same until I realized that a life of travel and dining and just general pleasure was fun for a bit, but I couldn’t imagine doing it for another year upon year upon year until death found me.
I am a better person as a mother, and I look at others who are how I used to be with a sense of urgency — their time is running out if they want even one. No, not everyone is fit for parenthood, but most are or at least can become so through the trials of parenthood themselves. When I hear about their latest travel plans and such, my jealousy is way, way less than I would have ever imagined because now I know what it’s like to hold my daughter’s hand as we walk through the parking lot together. My heart melts just writing of it.
And yes, we absolutely should make it financially easier to have kids in this country, even if it doesn’t do much to improve birth rates. If we tell individuals that children are a good for society, then we have to act so collectively or they are hollow words indeed.
Yup, it's a very good article, all the more so for devoting a sympathetic paragraph or two to a book I'd never heard of but will now probably order, namely Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying The Birth Dearth.
Also, I totally agree that the government should do what it reasonably can policy-wise to ease the economic burdens on parents. It's just that, as the article shows, this will not solve the larger problem which is rooted not in economics but rather culture and ideology.
By the way, as Rod points out, neither JD Vance nor any other reasonable and compassionate person is pointing any fingers at those who are childless due to unchosen or unforeseen circumstances of life. Vance's enemies well realize that but since they deal in lies, they don't care.
Jerry - about pointing the finger, which you are not doing - it has been said by Rod in today's Substack that there should be compassion for the involuntarily childless. But I have questions. I hesitate to possibly misinterpret Rod. I've asked him to respond in general regarding the involuntarily childless who are not full-time in the Church. That includes several who comment here. Perhaps he will respond soon. Certainly he does not need me to misinterpret him. But here is the thing: I feel a wall between me and most Christian parents, those who were indeed good parents. But yes, I feel they are correct to say parenthood made them, on their path, more unselfish and more wise.
Compassion is appreciated, but is fellowship possible, or must the childless be kept at arm's length? Can there be respect, not necessarily for me - maybe I am selfish and lack wisdom and parents are better than me - but what of the many involuntarily childless people I know who I perceive as just as unselfish and wise and good parents?
Yes, not the "exact same" wisdom, but (a) not always an inferior wisdom (b) Overlapping wisdom - not entirely different kinds of wisdom in every way (c) Not a wisdom that is so "different" that there is an unbreachable wall for fellowship.
How will we ever have BenOp if some Christians are automatically inferior, due to their childless state? Maybe wise in different ways, but they could never have the superior sort of wisdom and unselfishness that parents have. Just - not enough in common with parents. They are to be "othered".
Some quotes - It is parents who discovered in themselves the capacity to love in ways they never understood, who know the secret to a happy life is to learn how to bear that kind (parents' kind) of suffering with grace, and to keep your eyes on the higher good that you serve, who developed the right sort of politics, who learned the wisdom to tell the difference between what they can and cannot control. Oh, and also monks, nuns, bishops and Catholic priests.
I feel most good Christian parents are saying to the involuntarily childless - you may have some other kinds of wisdom, but it could be as high as mine. You may have some degree of unselfishness, but not like me, no matter what else you have suffered and given. - Would you or anyone like to set me straight?
Please don't say "as good but different". That did not appear to be the point here and it is not, apparently, what JDV believes. I don't want these walls anymore. Today's column was all about how the only way to get this unselfish wisdom was through parenthood, or, it was later acknowledged, through a religious vocation. Maybe I'm not as good as wise unselfish parents, but surely some I know - outside vocations and parents - are.
Linda, in no way do I consider those who are involuntarily childless "inferior" or less wise than parents. That would be a pretty arrogant attitude to have. Nor for that matter do I consider the voluntarily childless inferior either. I can't get inside people's heads and hearts to know what may be driving them...stressing them...breaking them.
As I see it, Vance was targeting a mentality...an ethos...an anti-child, anti-human, anti-life ideology of self that is prevalent in our culture...that holds in contempt the age-old Christian moral code on marriage, family, and children. You know the kind of people he's talking about. They value cats as much or more than human beings. They make no secret of who they are and what they believe.
You know, my wife and I belong to a vibrant Legion of Mary group at our parish. These are wonderful Christians and Catholics. Two of the women are childless. Three others have experienced broken marriages. Of their children (those who do have children), the majority have left the faith. There is brokenness all around. That's the way life is. Yet we're on the same team...holding to the same faith...believing the same Truth...fighting the same battle against the same enemy.
Thank you, Jerry .Yes, that was very helpful. I can see you are someone to remind me there are Christians who do not want to separate themselves from lay Christians who are involuntarily childless because there are somehow "other".
Re: The phenomenon has catastrophic implications for our future
I would change "catastrophic" to "problematic". A gradual fall in population levels (f that even happens-- it is not set in stone) is not a catastrophe-- it is something to be managed by judicious policy. Unlike say the deaths of billions in a nuclear war or some truly lethal and highly contagious pandemic. That would be "catastrophe". Let's not define the word down, any more than a nasty migraine is an inoperable brain tumor.
If the downward plunge continues at its current rate in a number of developed countries, the implications for those nations are a lot more serious than "problematic." In fact, I don't think "catastrophic" is an exaggeration but OK, I'll qualify that adjective with the modifier "potentially."
An excellent book on this subject is Brian Kaplan's "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids." He concludes -- for reasons he spells out in the book -- that everyone should have one more kid than they think they want. If you think you want two, have three. Think you want none, have one. Etc.
We have two kids and I now wish we had had a third. However, my wife and I agree that the fundamental division -- in wisdom terms -- is between none and one. A five-child household obviously sees a measure of chaos and joy that our household has never known. Five is different than two. But the voluntarily childless are different in kind. They just are.
There are some people who would make horrible parents, I think we have to be honest about that. First off, almost anyone who thinks they want a child but not a spouse, whether rich or poor.
Beautiful post, Rod. My first grandchild is on the way, expected in January. To say I’m giddy, after the eight years of complicated infertility my daughter and son-in-law endured, is an understatement. When my children were young, I recognized the magic about which you wrote here, and would often say that I wished Peter Pan would arrive and keep them at the age they were. That wish was far more about me than ever them. Now I pray that, at 70, I have the stamina to provide a meaningful assist in the coming rearing.
Rod, it was Easter weekend 1996. My twin children were just 4 months old, and I was the only person in the house not affected by a stomach virus that was causing explosions both north and south. For provisions, neighbors pitched in. I did not sleep for well more than 36 hours and I was constantly on my feet changing, feeding, cleaning. I never experienced military service, but in my memory those two days were my Point du Hoc.
It's counterintuitive, but a well-documented fact, that the wealthier a populace becomes, the lower the birthrate goes. So we often observe that "People in the past were poorer than us, but still had big families!" And we're surprised by it. But evidence suggests we shouldn't be. This "wealth effect" is true across cultures. GDP goes up, birthrate goes down.
In the West we have the "wealth effect" plus attendant other drivers knocking our fertility down. It's a perfect storm. I live in Taiwan, and have watched the culture shift from the mid-1990s. Right now Taiwan's total fertility rate is near the world's lowest. I could bullet point the reasons, but won't. Some are western cultural influence, most are not. Such as the wealth effect. The government here is scrambling to address the problem, and Orban-style subsidies are being proposed at the top. I think the subsidies will be implemented.
Rod writes that people don't want to face what this low fertility really means--that, for instance, it will mean their disappearance “as a people”. I think one of the deep problems is right there in that formulation. Namely, many young westerners don't understand themselves as "a people". They've drunk the Kool-Aid. Many of them, to hear them talk, see themselves as a liability *to the planet*.
"There are already too many humans," I've heard more than one say.
The future of animals and plants is what they live for.
They thus manage to be self-centered ("My life belongs to ME to enjoy") and pseudo-ethical at the same time ("I'm doing the RIGHT thing by ending the line with me"). This latter often comes down to "Yeah, I consume a lot and have a big carbon footprint, but that's UNAVOIDABLE. At least I'm not going to make MORE of me."
I haven't yet read it, but Catherine Pakaluk's book "Hannah's Children" looks to be a fascinating study of women in America who opt to have many children. It's gotten a lot of attention. (And also, btw, her husband, Catholic philosopher Michael Pakaluk, is someone worth looking up. An Aristotle scholar and also a brilliant translator of the gospels. So far his translations of Mark and John have appeared, Matthew forthcoming. Really extraordinary work. I’m a long-disgruntled student of Bible translations, and in terms of care and precision with the text, there's nothing like what Pakaluk has done. Cf. https://claytestament.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-gospel-truth-michael-pakaluks.html )
"The future of animals and plants is what they live for."
Much of this seems to me to be based in a sort of nostalgia for a lost sense of wonder, which in and of itself is healthy. But the zeitgeist prompts unhealthy manifestations of it. Because of this I believe that talk of disenchantment/alienation/re-enchantment should involve discussion of the sense of wonder as it relates to the natural world. Secular disenchantment doesn't just cause separation from the natural world; the reverse is also true. And the younger generations' fixation on (addiction to) all things digital only exacerbates the problem.
There is a lot of talk among GenZ about nostalgia. But in some ways it's empty because they can only identify the feeling as opposed to the substance. One might ask two questions about this: Why are 20-somethings feeling so much nostalgia, and what, specifically, are they feeling nostalgic about, given the large place of the digital in their formation?
Fully agree that alienation from the natural world and secular disenchantment mutually reinforce. It’s a vicious circle.
As to what GenZ feels nostalgia for, my guess would be this: the world. They are aware of their lack, that the digital devices attached to them at the start, like viruses, infecting them and lifting them out of what could have been the world. They know previous people lived in that world, but that the digital net has somehow de-worlded it.
I think all of us feel this, that there’s an imposed unreality, one which was hinted at by radio and TV but finally arrived for real with the digital. GenZ’s feeling of this unreality is different, however, because they got the virus simultaneous with learning to speak.
What world, then, could they feel nostalgia for? They feel this “nostalgia” for something they know they should have had, but couldn’t. Because their parents weren’t wise enough to forbid them cell phones.
I also suspect part of the ethos of the anti-human stance many of them take up is grounded in the suspicion that they’re somehow unreal, or dead, themselves. “Let other species be alive at least. We aren’t.”
It seems here like they’re saying we don’t *deserve* to be alive. But I think this nihilism is secondary to the fact of alienation, it’s an after-effect.
At what point would you say you felt actual, real nostalgia, and not just a missing of people who for one reason or another were no longer part of your life? For me it would be sometime in my 30s when I started to realize I was no longer the same person I had been in my early twenties and found myself regretting that I had lost a sense of life being brand new still and wide open with possibility.
It's also true that urbanized people (and suburbs pattern with cities in this matter) have always had fewer kids than do rural people. I suspect both economic and cultural factors are behind that.
The question is not whether parenting isn't a life-changing experience, but whether it is necessary for that type of spiritual maturity that would allow one to contribute meaningfully to society. And the answer from a Christian perspective has to be a qualified no. From its earliest days, Christianity has held that to give up the goods of marriage and children for a single-hearted devotion to God was a valid and even higher pathway to holiness. So, children aren't strictly necessary for the type of spiritual maturity that would allow one to have the wisdom and virtues necessary to guide society towards its true flourishing.
Perhaps the Catholic nuance of "spiritual parenthood" is helpful here. Every human being (according to John Paul II and others) are called to be a "spiritual father" and "spiritual mother." This is the mark of human maturity. The vast majority of people realize this through the vocation of natural marriage and parenthood. But some might be called by other routes, such vocation to religious life, consecrated life in the world, or through submitting to God's will through suffering or unwanted singleness. The possession of wisdom, the ability to love, and the prudence to comprehend the good of society do not arise from experience alone but from the holiness and virtue attained by death to self and devotion to God, which can take many forms.
You don't have to be cloistered to be religious or consecrated. There are orders of both religious and consecrated laymen and women who live and operate in the world.
Your comment is actually not very clear to me. The Catholic Church holds that the consecrated laity (who take vows of virginity and belong, for instance, to secular institutes) can indeed contribute to society in that "Their witness of a Christian life" aims "to order temporal things according to God and inform the world with the power of the gospel" from within their secular life and profession. CCC929
This.
I'm going to go out on a limb here. I bet J.D.'s tone (the substance of what he said is more or less unimpeachable) was something he picked up in traddy Catholic circles. Those of you who don't know don't know the smug superiority of that crowd (which, while it overlaps TLM world, does not engulf it) especially regarding their children and especially the number of them. J.D.'s remarks didn't sound to me like the J.D. of the book, that completely unliterary and authentic piece of work that again and again told the truth. Pharisaism is ugly wherever you find it and it's especially ugly there.
So here's the situation. You've got self-satisfied holier-than-thou types who couldn't tell you whether Rerum Novarum was a man or a horse, and Father Martin down in Georgetown getting rah rah letters from a Pope who continues to shelter the worst kind of clerical sexual abusers. Take your pick.
Not my experience in the Orthodox Church. Pretty tolerant, loving, traditional people there.
I wasn’t talking about the Orthodox Church.
I was well aware of that. I was subtly offering a third option, in response to the two options you gave, and the "take your pick."
'And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it' is not qualified with asterisks and small print giving additional options if Attila is sacking Rome, if Constantinople decides to leave, if the Pope is suspicious or even deplorable (x10 over however many centuries), or yes, if the faithful are smug and unpleasant and flawed in AD 2024. There is no third option.
Excepting the (mostly) online OrthoBros, who thankfully are a small minority.
Two Bishops back (I forgot his name, I only met him once. He retired and then our next Bishop passed away) we had a Bishop who basically advised us to avoid the online communities. I think he was right. They can be really toxic.
My priest has expressed to me, and I assume to other older guys, a wish that we should befriend and offer fellowship to the young men who are showing up at our parish and are taking an interest in conversion as he is leery of the guys forming a clique of their own. (I've mentioned that we had some trouble with one young man in particular who had to be asked to leave). I'm trying to do that, motivated as well by gratitude to the memory of an elderly couple, now departed, who extended a welcoming friendship to me when I first started attending St, Andrews of Baltimore sixteen years ago. I was already Orthodox by some years then, but their friendship integrated me into the parish much more quickly than if I had been left to my own devices.
I'm actually a member of the Oriental Orthodox Church.
However, all churches are glasshouses. The Eastern Orthodox is drifting into fullblown schism between the Greeks and Russians. It's divided into national churches, many of which are given to hardcore nationalism. The Russian Church is totally in Putin's pocket, and that's coming from someone who is basically pro-Russian. The Ecumenical Patriarch is trying to set himself up as the Pope. Outside the traditionally Orthodox nations, it seems completely incapable of establishing single jurisdictions. It has its own scandals too, although they seem to be about money and power more than sex.
Pascha Press keeps popping up on my FB feed, and it reads like the nastiest kind of US Evangelicalism, which is exactly the version of Christianity that put me off the faith for so long. There's also the unforgiving obsession that the Greeks in particular have with the wrong inflicted on them by Catholics, yet they never mention the wrongs they inflicted on the Copts.
I knew he was a convert to Catholicism but is he a trad?
I don't know the details, but I'm sure he at least has brushed up against them.
Unless a man is wealthy or has some other high status not having children being single is not revered. They go from being called "incel" and get to age into "creepy old man". (Sorry Jerry, I like Matt, but....) but if you look at the way The Daily Wire commenters talk about single men it's not flattering AT ALL.
The grass isn't greener in the other gender's yard.
No problem. I've heard one Men's channel commenter who actually spent some time with them express frustration that Shapiro, Matt Walsh (sorry Jerry) and Andrew Klaven have the advantage of being in what appear to be happy marriages and don't really get the problems a lot of MGTOW men have. (I'm not MGTOW, but I get it)
My last girlfriend unceremoniously dumped my ass after one of her very close friends trooned out and it led to an insoluble dispute regarding my 'transphobic intolerance'. Five years down the drain because I wouldn't admit men in drag can be women, tossed away by a girl who not half a year before told me she wanted us to have children.
Another story. A week ago, I got a notification from Discord (a chat application) that a close high school friend had logged in and was active - I'd lost contact with her for several years, she'd just disappeared off her socials. I rush to click on her profile and see that after a stint in Canada in the 4 years after COVID, she'd become convinced she was a man, chopped off her breasts, and discarded her name to become 'Wulfie (he/him)', a furry artist. When I last saw her before this, she was just an awkward tomboy. Man. Just writing it down makes me feel like somebody dumped a bucket of ice on my head. I still have trouble processing it.
Anyways, I'm 32. These are just two anecdotes among many, many (many) sad ones I've gathered over the past 8 years or so, regarding other young people in general and women in specific. And the younger you go the more unfathomably bad it gets. It feels most days like people even just a generation older than me are unaware or cannot quite comprehend the incalculable damage - the real, physical damage to health and prosperity, not just psychological or emotional damage - the social media age has inflicted on Millennials and Gen Z.
The best I can offer is my sympathy. I wish I found all that surprising.
My god kid, it sounds like hell out there. Thank you so much for this informative perspective. (I’m a lil over 50.)
You’re young. Find a way to meet women. Date them casually and concurrently, and vet and discard rigorously. The problem for a long time now is people get serious and exclusive too quickly, and for no good reason—and then “date” for years. Been there, done that. It’s a big mistake.
Be on the lookout for someone serious about settling down, and don’t kid yourself. And then take the plunge.
As opposed to calling men "incels," which is polite and respectful.
My take on why Vance's comments fell flat is that before becoming a mother, every woman is de facto childless, regardless of whether she wants to or can have kids. I mean before I was a mother, I was a childless cat lady too, in the literal sense. While parenthood absolutely changes you, we are the same person, just in different life phases. Many of today's "childless cat ladies" will be mothers a few years down the road. Reading between the lines, his problem appears to be with women (and women really notice that kind of thing). Had he also focused on incel men (fewer of whom will likely become fathers) I might be convinced that he holds men to the same scrutiny.
He plainly has a problem with childless Democrat women. But it appears deeper than that.
Is everyone aware that JDV said parents should have more votes than non-parents? He explained it was because a parent should get an additional vote in behalf of their child, because they will be the ones who will vote wisely, for the future.
I don't even totally disagree with giving parents a vote in behalf of their child. But in context, together with other things JDV has said, and the way he said them, it is clear to me he has a problem with empathy, and he believes good parents are automatically better than non-parents in terms of voting unselfishly and wisely. Not "sometimes better" (true) but automatically better (false). Sorry, that is what I've come to believe. I'm still voting Trump/Vance of course.
I agree, he makes some false assumptions about parents/non-parents. But I think saying the more kids you have the more votes you should have sounds undemocratic. Considering that immigrants tend to be having more kids overall, this rhetoric also seems contradictory to other Trump/Vance messaging.
Right - I was saying I don't "totally" disagree because with more votes for parents because in a perfect world, a good parent (immigrant or not) would vote for the future wisely, and they ought to be able to cancel any "selfish" votes that are out there, e.g., "print more money now, cancel my student loans, and I don't care how much debt it saddles my grandchildren with". - Not saying all childless vote that way, of course, but it does happen sometimes.
Good point regarding student loans, loan forgiveness is one Biden policy I really hate. Unfortunately there is no solution put forth by the left or right to make college more affordable in the future. I would like to hear some solutions from Trump/Vance and a focus on issues, not alienating voters.
My first thought was that if parents got to vote for their kids then vote harvesting shenanigans would go through the roof. I'm with you; the idea has some merits but probably outweighed by the negatives. Then again, the system we have now seems to have major flaws. What to do . . .
It's unwise for people, especially politicians, to talk sweepingly about categories of people. For example, I think the two-parent family is preferable, but it would be stupid for a politician to go on a rant against single motherhood, because (1) lots of single mothers do a great job, although I think they're making the best of a bad situation; (2) many single mothers are in that state through no fault of their own, such as desertion or widowhood; (3) single motherhood is a lesser evil than abortion.
Similarly, childlessness is not necessarily a choice. There's medical infertility, of course. Some women are not attractive enough to get men for anything other than casual sex. There are people like Linda here who never found the right man; that's less clearcut, because they probably could have found someone if they were determined to have children, but I feel uncomfortable telling people that they should just "settle" when it comes to marriage.
I also think a lot of conservative commentators don't much like women, or at least give that appearance. I've never felt that about Vance, but I do about Matt Walsh. In fighting the Mengele-level evil of the transgender cult he is an absolute hero, but in other areas he just comes over as a cad. Think of how hurtful he was about Simone Biles at the last Olympics. She has now won three golds this time; there ought to be a sermon or something in that.
Thanks, Rombald. You bring up marriage to a man I did not love. - - When I was younger more than one man said he wanted to marry me, but I was not in love with those men. I thought it right, not just for me but for him and for any future children to refrain from marrying a man I knew but was not in love with. A bad marriage was too likely under those circumstance, I felt. I sought desperately to meet a meet a man I loved who loved me. I was good looking but smart. Also, until age 35 or so I insisted on a Christian man, limiting the field.
The second reason was that I thought something could happen at last. Mom to step-children with a husband I loved, for example, and I did not want to miss it. So the magic day when I woke up and realized marriage to man I loved was so unlikely that, really, it just was not going to happen came quite late. Only then then did I give up hope. (Btw, it was a happier life when I did.)
Interesting to me - Maria Von Trapp's biography shows life is not always like the movies. She did not love the Captain. She liked him OK and felt a call to be a mother to those seven children.
JD's comment has certainly become a lightning rod and over analyzed. It struck a nerve because prima facie it resonates as something that has some validity in the world. "Yeah, I see what he means." I've pointed out in another post that cat ladies have their male counterparts as well. Suffice to say that single, childless people, especially as they age, have a disproportionate likelihood of becoming weird (weird in the classical sense).
Pursuing that to its endpoint - something you do not do - would see divorced, non-remarried people not with their children forbidden to vote because they too can be disproportionately weird.
(But I thought your choice to use of the word disproportionate was a sign of both intelligence and consideration for others.)
Thank you for writing this, Veronika. Being childless when one desires children is a pain that those with children cannot know. It is a kind of "dark night of the soul," just absolutely agonizing. From personal experience, I can tell you that the present discourse has made that pain much worse. I think many of the triumphalist and snide comments from those with children about those without children, with the obligatory "But I don't mean the involuntarily childless" tacked on at the end, might be a defensive response to how nasty some people are about children and parenthood. The whole discourse has gotten so out of control. There is absolutely no nuance in it anymore.
It seems to me that having children does not automatically change one for the better, making one selfless and wiser, because no experience in and of itself makes us better and wiser, but, rather, it is our response to an experience that changes us, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. There are those who become transformed by suffering, like the people Rod wrote about in Live Not by Lies. But there are also plenty of people who become bitter and angry as a result of their suffering. The same seems to be the case with parenthood. I know a lot of people with kids who are, frankly, terrible people. And their kids suffer for it.
I grew up in a big family and my parents had siblings and friends who never married and never had children. They were always welcome and, I'd even say, treated with a certain amount of deference in our home. I think it was because my parents, who married when they were a bit older, understood their suffering and wanted to do what they could to lessen it. But my parents were special people. Rare then and rarer now. And I remember all of those people fondly. They were so generous to us. I remember one of their friends in particular, just a really special man, brilliant and kind, who treated us kids so well - especially with his time and attention, talking to us and listening to us. He was a really good friend to my parents, extremely selfless and very wise. A true gift.
But, society has also changed so much (I'm around Rod's age) and we really just don't, overall, seem to know how to live together. It's sad really. Broken families equal broken people equal broken societies. And when I say broken families I don't just mean from divorce. How many people don't know their cousins? How many siblings barely speak to each? How many people even have cousins? How many people lives 1000s of miles away from family members? Every day, I am reminded of how fortunate I am to have the family and friends that I have. We aren't perfect, but we are normal (which, of course, is weird today or whatever the latest slur is).
I do agree that spiritual belief really helps. I saw that as a nurse. I also think having a community, being from somewhere, helps. I'm so glad that you have been able to get past the issues you faced. It is a good reminder that none of us are simply what has happened to us. God bless you! And I do think that there are many young people who are longing for the normal. Maybe it'll make a comeback!
JD Vance will quickly learn to speak as a politician, and we all will be worse offworse off
You wrote: Hungary is a great place to have a big family, in terms of tax breaks and other things. And yet, there has been no real turnaround... Children are a lifetime investment while government policies can change in a month, on an election cycle etc.. Who is going to make the bet on long term government support considering that the rest of the EU will eventually win in Hungry. It could go the other way...
As I read about this issue I keep coming back to a quote in "Religion of the Apostles" by Stephen de Young
"Genesis as a whole serves as the prologue to the remainder of the Torah, which goes on to codify these resolutions to the three problems of Genesis. The Torah regulates human reproduction and sexual morality, as well as inheritance, to ensure the continuation and flourishing of humanity on the earth. The Torah establishes the sacrificial system, centering around the Day of Atonement, to manage sin and uncleanness within God’s people, to prevent their destruction. The Torah strictly forbids the idolatry of the nations and other actions and relationships that might render Israel or her people subject to the principalities and powers that govern the nations and seek Israel’s destruction." De Young, Stephen . Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century (p. 106).
It seems to me that as we abandon the covenant, we abandon the plan put in place to mitigate the three falls. It is not a government policy that needs to be put in place but an understanding of our state of existence
At any rate, I doubt that many couples spend the evening studying government subsidies, marginal tax rates, etc, before deciding to use or stop using contraception, much less whether to sleep in separate rooms.
Great post.
Writes Rod: "In time, after much suffering, we will once again learn the fundamental truth that all civilizations must know: that order is built on the family, and the family is built on children who are raised to be responsible adults, who in turn will bear children that will carry on."
Or, put shorter, the family is the essential building block of society.
Family, parenthood, is inherently about sacrifice. You sacrifice on behalf of your kids - sacrifice your time, your freedom - no, you can't just drop it all and head off to the Bahamas for the weekend. You sacrifice money - oh yes you do (says the Dad who is about to drop $400 on high school band fees).
You sacrifice a bit of yourself, your identity even. You become - and may become known as - a dad or a mom, rather than a writer or an artist or whatever it might be.
And you do it all because you love your kids, a degree of love the childless can never know.
That, in the end, is what the childless can never comprehend, the depth and scope of love that comes with children. They can load up on as many dogs and cats and "chosen family" as they like, they'll never watch a toddler take those early steps and run into your arms for a hug.
At one point for a period of six months I worked out of town, away from my family. On a visit home, my then 14-year-old son hugged me tightly and sobbed, because he'd missed me so much. And as I hugged him back I kept saying "I'm sorry my son, I'm sorry."
Being part of a family means you sacrifice on behalf of that family, and ultimately that means every member. That's what the "building blocks of society" line means anyway; the family takes care of itself and in making that commitment, necessarily commits to the community at large. What percentage of local charitable board members are parents vs. nonparents? What percentage of those who serve on local planning boards or chamber of commerce committees are parents? Who has a greater stake in the future of a community than those who seek to raise their children there?
We can pussyfoot around it all we like but the simple matter is more and more people choose childlessness because they don't want to have to make the sacrifices. They don't want to make the financial sacrifice or career sacrifices necessary. They don't want to sacrifice their ability to drop it all and run off to Nassau or Paris for a few days. They don't want to tie themselves down. And they tell themselves that fewer kids is better for the environment, which makes their selfish decision virtuous (in their eyes).
The childless by choice are selfish. Plan and simple. But, as we live in an increasingly selfish society, it is they who are becoming the norm, and we parents who are "weird."
Yes, the almighty environment. Does anyone feel like population is being nudged lower to turn the planet into a theme park for the elites?
Indeed thinking the theme park for most calls to mind Disney World and it's Central Florida ilk. Imagine the environmental impact to just Orange County, Florida (Orlando) that went from less than a quarter million citizens before Walt Disney and his Mouse in 1965 to one and a half million today.
I don't have to imagine it. I was born in Kissimmee, Florida in 1964. I miss what was there before Disney.
I am not a snob, but Orlando is the definition of tacky. I remember shopping there with my wife, and I joked I would get her an "Incredible Hulk" charm as a remembrance, but that charm sums up the vibe there now. Maybe they should put in a prostitute/drag queen park and a concentration camp theme park and finish the job.
We started taking our children to Disney World in 1989 and stopped in 2009. The difference in those 20 years was astounding just in terms of traffic. There was literally nothing along the roads from our condo in Vistana to the parks. We were often able to park within the first couple rows if we got there early and seldom stood in line for long. (we went in October, one of the benefits of homeschooling)
Our last trip was hellish, even staying in the park, the lines, the disorganization, the number of attractions that were down. Having creepy guys help our children on Dumbo was the least of it but the queering of Disney was well underway. We had started to combine Disney with Universal as the kids got older and have just stuck with Universal as they are blessedly agenda free. Reports I get from hardcore Disney fans aren’t good.
Funny how so much of their posturing is about the environment and making kids feel guilty for existing while they have destroyed so much of it.
We never took our girls to Disney, I was a "curmudgeon" and refused. It was just too fake for me. The girls resented not having had the experience. So in college, they went with friends. They came back and told me I was right not to have gone, they saw that it really was mostly just hype and low end fantasy at high cost. Having them tell me that was a good day for me as a parent.
My husband was a Disney lover. He liked the predictability and preferred going to the same place every year over planning new places. Our boys enjoyed it, our daughter did not. When we finally started going other places, National Parks, we realized how much we had missed!
The best part of Disney World for young boys is (was?) Tom Sawyer Island......just a fort, with some affixed rifles (they used to actually go bang!) and escape tunnels in case the injuns have you surrounded. I hope it's still there.
I live just down the highway (about two hours) from Disney World, and I did so twenty years ago too. I have zero desire to see Disney or any of the Orlando theme parks. And from what I understand the cost of tickets is exorbitant.
Jon, I was hoping that you are feeling much better? I hadn't seen an update but might have missed it.
Y’ain’t missing anything
The goal of some of the Green movement seems to be "to turn the planet into a theme park for the elites".
A theme park for elites. That is about the best concise description of what is being planned I have read.
https://fatherofzoomers.substack.com/p/trinity?r=jejuu
"That, in the end, is what the childless can never comprehend, the depth and scope of love that comes with children."
Of course, it is obvious what you mean, but this is not absolutely true that the childless cannot grasp the depth and scope of love itself. Mother Teresa? Maxmillian Kobe?
Loving one's own children is a beautiful and good natural love, but Jesus said in various ways that loving one's own family is something all men and women have the capacity to do. But Christians can love with more than the natural love that comes from being in a family - they can love with the supernatural love that is the love of Christ himself (who had no children yet sacrificed all for others).
If we are children of God and if Jesus is God, then, yes, He had children. He is our Maker.
Of course, that is correct! But, Jesus did not have natural children in the sense of human procreation.
Why are you. making this a competition? I'm talking about a *kind* of love. Not "love itself" but "love that comes with children". I will never know the love it takes for a man or a woman to give up the chance to have a spouse or family for the sake of living a life as a consecrated virgin (monks, nuns, bishops, and in Catholicism, priests). I would actually like to read a good essay from someone who is living that life. That only superficially looks like the selfish person who doesn't want to marry or have kids because they don't want to limit their individual freedom; in fact, it's the opposite.
But it's still not the same thing as the experience of parental love. If you are positing one kind of sacrificial love as superior to the other, you're misreading me. I think ANY form of sacrificial love is superior to what Whitney Houston sang was "The Greatest Love Of All" -- namely, "learning to love yourself."
I sincerely did not mean to make this a competition! I actually thought I was drawing out a commonality between different types of love (clearly, not very well!! ;).
Of course, the love of a parent for a child is a specific kind of love that the childless cannot experience. But, in Christ, natural parenthood does share something in common with the sacrifice and love of childless vocations, precisely as parental.
As John Paul II and others have noted, all men and women are called to mature into spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers. While most people do this through natural parenthood, one can mature into spiritual parenthood in other ways.
In Christ, therefore, natural parenthood is really a participation in "spiritual parenthood." Thus, all the baptized who mature into spiritual parenthood can experience something of the sacrifice and unconditional love of the other that forms the core of true natural parenthood. That is why we call priests "father," abbesses "mother" and the Pope "Papa". It would be odd to call them that if there was absolutely no experiential linkage between their vocation and the love of natural parents. I just wanted to show that when we root human loves in Christ's supernatural love, there is mutually illuminating participation -- not competition!
And the compassion-worthy (you said) involuntarily childless who read your column who are not monks, nuns, bishops or Catholic priests?
Linda,
I think you might enjoy reading some of Edith Stein’s Essays on Woman. I haven’t read most of them, but the part I read I really appreciated because it didn’t restrict a woman’s proper vocation to either physical wife and mother or consecrated religious. She notes that spiritual motherhood can be fulfilled in other ways. The following was in the introduction.
“ Both spiritual companionship and spiritual motherliness are not limited to the physical wife and mother relationship, but they extend to all people with whom woman comes into contact.”13
According to her supernatural calling, woman is chosen “to embody in her highest and purest development the essence of the Church—to be its symbol.”
In three different ways, woman can fulfill the mission accorded to her by nature and grace and suitable to her individual disposition: in marriage; in the practice of a profession which values human development as the noblest professional activity of woman; and under the veil as the Spouse of Christ.”
She explicitly sees many ways that middle vocation can be satisfied—including in professions that aren’t stereotypically female.
Edith Stein is likely to someday be a Doctor of the Church, and I think that what she said is valuable—especially when talking to people who only see two legitimate possibilities. (I’m not saying Rod is one of those people either.). Also note that she refers to it as a mission accorded to a woman by nature and grace—it is not a failing on a woman’s part if she has one vs another. I know that you understand this to a large extent already, but I thought it might be helpful for other people, too.
That was beautiful, Jenny. Thank you so much.
Actually Eastern Rite Catholic priests and priests who converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism can also be married.
The love for one's child is raw and pure and almost painful in intensity. The childless can love well and fully- but there is nothing quite like the sacrifice of trying to prepare another person with faith and wisdom and love of life, only to leave you one day. It is a love that necessitates being able to let go for the good of another.
I got a little misty eyed reading this comment to my wife as we sipped our coffee. My second of four boys heads off to university in less than two weeks and it is bittersweet. We raised them to be independent but we will miss them as they move out of the house.
They have a much tighter relationship than I ever did with siblings which I am grateful for.
Interestingly my oldest is making a special trip home to help his "little" bro move into his college dorm. The oldest is finishing up school in Cleveland and his brother is starting in Cincinnati.
I cried my eyes out when we left all three of them at school.
"Yet never have I been happier than the days when that same boy who is about to start grad school turned his little feverish body over on that couch and upchucked onto my head."
We parents know exactly what you're talking about. I've been married 20 years to a wonderful man, my hero. Our only daughter is 12. I've often reflected over the past few years that I'll probably look back on these years as the best of my life. I'm really happy. God's blessings are overflowing. I hope my daughter has many children, and if she wants help raising them I'l be all in.
My daughter has 6, be careful what you ask for! Seriously they are a great blessing but I fear for their future, 5 fair haired white boys in a world gone mad.
My young son says he wants 10 kids. I tell him I’m all for it and we will help him with his kids as much as possible. I’d settle for half that! I think it would be wonderful.
As Rod knows, I have three children, two daughters and my son is the middle child. I offer this comment as a personal sharing, not intending it to be argumentative in any way.
Our eldest, Rachel, turned 41 years old a few days ago. The story of her birth is my occasional "birthday gift" to her and my wife. The setup, as it were, was the labor was about 40 hours long, with two "false alarms" along the way. Except for falling asleep once, I was with my wife the whole time.
3:16pm, 41 years ago today (freely remembered):
Obstetrician: "Okay, she's exhausted." He looks at us, and continues. "We don't use forceps any more. It's a suction cap placed over the baby's head. It avoids distending her skull." The OB begins to pull out various plastic hoses and such, hooks it all up in a few seconds, then carefully places the cap over the baby's head.
He looks at us, then takes a last piece -- the "T" shaped handle -- and attaches it to the cap.
He looks at us again, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He carefully places both of his hands over the handle, flips the on-switch to the suction pump, puts one foot up on the edge of the delivery table, screws up his face as if he was ready to expend his last ounce of physical stamina... and pulls the baby the rest of the way out in half a second.
If my knees hadn't been locked, being so tired at that point, they'd be trying in vain to pick me up off the delivery room floor. I doubt my laughter would have been audible.
Personal note: the OB was the on-call attending at the hospital. My wife's OB was, at the time, in the middle of the Cheasapeake Bay celebrating her birthday.
You are 1,000% correct. Having a child or children & being a parent is the most true & beautiful thing in the world even with & also partial because of all of the heart straining & enlarging hardships, worry & uncertainty. As a working person, I tell this to all of the 20 & 30 something's I know, but so far only one person has listened to me over the past 20 years, I'm sad to say. It is also very, very tough financially to have kids, especially for artists & writers, which is the world I'm in, so there's that, which is very real & very terrible. And now people have to think, too, about whether public education is viable or home schooling is necessary. What a time it is.
You have perfectly caught the je ne sais quois about parenting, and the reason so many people today get older without ever growing up. There were so many days when I had three sick children under 4, mastitis, and my husband was away trying to launch an IT consulting business that I wished I could just stop time. It seemed impossible. But I was 25 years old and felt (not looked!) like Wonder Woman. My husband lost his job for leaving his resume in the copier when our third child was 3 months old. We were blessed then to know that those were the best years of our lives, and we thoroughly enjoyed them, adding two more children through adoption to our family to extend the joy of parenthood through a few more years. The consulting gig paid off enough that he was able to stay home an extra day or two a week through the next 15 years. We both came from dysfunctional families with alcoholism and adultery and decided at 19 that we wanted something very different.
The flip side of all this wonder and joy is the fear of the future I now have, which I never had in those paycheck to paycheck days, fear for my adult children and grandchildren. We are handing them one hell of a mess. My husband is afraid to retire because we supplement so many needs. I don’t understand how anyone can care about protecting transgender rights when food has gone up 40% in a couple years. It is mass mental illness.
Strangely "Our Masters" don't seem concerned about the increase in food prices. That combined with soaring rental prices ($1500 per month for one room in my formerly affordable area) is going to lead to mass social unrest soon.
A consumer price index that doesn't tally food and fuel costs is just absolutely meaningless.
The consumer price index does include food and fuel costs. The Federal Reserve doesn't use it for interest rate targeting, because they're too volatile and based on too many factors outside anyone's control. Instead they use the personal consumption expenditures index, minus food and fuel.
But the full consumer price index is still reported and used for policymaking.
So wonderful that you both overcame such terrible backgrounds (and mastitis! I feel you) to be able to give your children safety and love—and financial support. Stand tall!
Well done. I was a single mom for most my kids’ upbringing. It was very hard but they’re fine now and I have four grandchildren.
I guess after four kids I could be described as "pro-natalist". And I understand the "existential" cultural reasons for more and more kids that Rod refers to. Yet, I'm not. In this regard I'm more like Mao as he looked around and said, "There are too many people in China." Indeed, there are too many people in the world. I grew up in Florida. At the time Florida had fewer citizens than Rod's home state of Louisiana has today. The semi-tropical paradise I grew up in has been drained, paved over, subdivided, and forced to become Everywhere, USA. Personally, I blame the interstate highway system and Walt Disney. Back in the day it would be a two hour drive from West Palm Beach to Miami down US 1. Today, sans rush hour traffic, you can make down and back in the same amount of time. And that doesn't even begin to describe what's happened in the "I-4 Corridor". Orange County (Orlando) had orange trees everywhere. Today people outnumber oranges. Sad.
I don't know what the answer might be. Perhaps in a hundred years or so, historians might look back at China and Mao's One Child Policy and weigh the results. But today, in this fallen world, a nation, a continent, a civilization that finds its population shrinking, or even stagnant, feels the threat of being overwhelmed by neighbors seeking to have what it has, or which wish to impose their civilizational customs and norms on its people. I was blessed and thankful for it that I was allowed to grow up where and when I did. That it can't be passed on to my kids and grandkids makes me doubly sad.
The original concept of the Interstate Highway System may have been wise but it has been perverted. The Interstate Highway System is a slave to the corporate commercial world and destructive to millions of small businesses.
I had the glitch of not getting the daily post for a period of time. When I checked my Rod Dreher substack page, it said I had turned off email delivery. I had done no such thing. It was easy to turn back on email delivery. But then it happened again a couple of weeks later. This is not happening with my other paid substack subscriptions. I am not sure just telling subscribers to fix it themselves is helpful. Somebody (I assume Mr Dreher) needs to inform substack administrator of the problem and keep after it.
Dang it! I’m so sorry. I’ll let them know.
I only told you to "fix it yourself" because I think that's what Substack said last time I brought this problem to their attention. I might be wrong here, but I remember concluding that, "oh, so there's nothing I can do; my subscribers have to do this themselves." But I've just sent your complaint to Substack's representative for Substackers, and we'll see what happens. It's troubling to me that this is happening with my Substack newsletter, but not with others in your feed. Thanks for your patience.
Mr. Dreher if you'd allow me to put my schizo conspiracy tinfoil hat on for a split second and take it off just as quick - this is my ONLY regular subscription that causes my bank cards to reject automatic payment. As in, every month I have to log onto Substack, type in my card again, then verify my purchase with my bank over SMS. If I forget, the sub lapses. Netflix, Youtube, a million different blogs on stationery and illustration - all those subs go through smoothly month after month. It's just this one that has issues.
Then again, this is also the only subscription I have on Substack specifically, so my best guess is that it's the platform itself being finnicky as opposed to this newsletter being deliberately messed with by some outside force.
Ditto all that. Plus one thing that struck me like a thunderbolt when my first and second child were born was that they were both came into this world with a distinctive personality and character. Up until that point I believed what I'd been taught in college about nature and nurture wherein most people become who they are because of nurture (the environment) rather than innate nature. Of course the professors and Marxists wanted everybody to believe that all human problems were the result of a bad environment, conditioning, wrong-think if you will. And the answers to improving "man" lay in constructing the right environment--an environment that the professors and Marxists would control.
Same with both of our kids. Very different from each other, but they were who they were right from the start.
My youngest two, age 17, are identical twins and have very different personalities.
One is type A and has spreadsheets on which college coaches he has contacted and has a shot at making making either the track or Crosscountry team. The other has a vague notion that maybe he would like to swim in collage. One has takem his ACT, the other has not. One is organized and driven with a firey temper while the other is happy go lucky. They are very different even though they were raised in the same environment and he the same DNA.
Both bring their share of joy's and frustrations to their parents but we are proud of both of them and love them dearly.
I was close to two twins through high school to college. Very different personalities. One socially gifted and super popular; the other a "thinker", quiet and reserved.
Yes, exactly. My wife says the same thing and frequently. We were both surprised by how complete our two daughters were as people, as personalities, from the birth because our education had led us not to expect nature to be so strong and imprinted. We are still surprised and that is why we talk about it so much. I have no doubt that the effects of environment are real, but I am quite skeptical that the effect of environment (nurture) is as profound as we were and are led to believe by social psychologists. It was as I know now a "theory" that was mostly meant to support the narrative and ensuing socio-economic policy. But now the whole field of social psychology has fallen into disrepute because of all the irreproducible papers that have been retracted. It was and is a pseudo science masquerading as a science. Retraction Watch is worth reading.
I have one who is 17 and is still a complete mystery. Could be really thoughtful inside that head, or might be totally blank in there—nobody knows. I have another who came out with a definite personality and style that has not changed at all. Completely Type A.
I wonder how/why BF Skinner, with his baby tender and Walden Two, could’ve thought everyone was a blank slate. Maybe he was tied into the economic structure somehow; it’s the only way his whole shtick makes sense.
Everybody knows that but the ones that should know better.
Parenthood, in these post-Christian times more than ever, is a profoundly sacrificial vocation. It's no accident or surprise that those embracing it, especially those choosing to have large families, are mostly of strong religious faith. Honestly, why else would you even have kids in this cultural environment?
The Atlantic, of all places, recently published a pretty insightful article on the subject -- linked below --arguing that there is no political or policy fix for the West's imploding fertility rate. The phenomenon has catastrophic implications for our future, but naturally the Powers That Be don't want to talk about it because: A) the very existence of the problem is a ferocious rebuke to the ruling ideology; and B) the Regime's disciples, as devotees of the prevailing Culture of Death, are inwardly pleased at the prospect of the extinction by choice of Western Civilization...and ultimately the human race.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/the-real-reason-people-aren-t-having-kids/ar-BB1r1bvT
I just came here to recommend the same article! I’m in my mid-30s and have one kiddo so far, and I can count on one hand the number of friends I have who also have a kid. That piece rang so true to me, that the lack of meaning in life is a main and direct contributor to childlessness. I used to be the same until I realized that a life of travel and dining and just general pleasure was fun for a bit, but I couldn’t imagine doing it for another year upon year upon year until death found me.
I am a better person as a mother, and I look at others who are how I used to be with a sense of urgency — their time is running out if they want even one. No, not everyone is fit for parenthood, but most are or at least can become so through the trials of parenthood themselves. When I hear about their latest travel plans and such, my jealousy is way, way less than I would have ever imagined because now I know what it’s like to hold my daughter’s hand as we walk through the parking lot together. My heart melts just writing of it.
And yes, we absolutely should make it financially easier to have kids in this country, even if it doesn’t do much to improve birth rates. If we tell individuals that children are a good for society, then we have to act so collectively or they are hollow words indeed.
Yup, it's a very good article, all the more so for devoting a sympathetic paragraph or two to a book I'd never heard of but will now probably order, namely Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying The Birth Dearth.
Also, I totally agree that the government should do what it reasonably can policy-wise to ease the economic burdens on parents. It's just that, as the article shows, this will not solve the larger problem which is rooted not in economics but rather culture and ideology.
By the way, as Rod points out, neither JD Vance nor any other reasonable and compassionate person is pointing any fingers at those who are childless due to unchosen or unforeseen circumstances of life. Vance's enemies well realize that but since they deal in lies, they don't care.
Jerry - about pointing the finger, which you are not doing - it has been said by Rod in today's Substack that there should be compassion for the involuntarily childless. But I have questions. I hesitate to possibly misinterpret Rod. I've asked him to respond in general regarding the involuntarily childless who are not full-time in the Church. That includes several who comment here. Perhaps he will respond soon. Certainly he does not need me to misinterpret him. But here is the thing: I feel a wall between me and most Christian parents, those who were indeed good parents. But yes, I feel they are correct to say parenthood made them, on their path, more unselfish and more wise.
Compassion is appreciated, but is fellowship possible, or must the childless be kept at arm's length? Can there be respect, not necessarily for me - maybe I am selfish and lack wisdom and parents are better than me - but what of the many involuntarily childless people I know who I perceive as just as unselfish and wise and good parents?
Yes, not the "exact same" wisdom, but (a) not always an inferior wisdom (b) Overlapping wisdom - not entirely different kinds of wisdom in every way (c) Not a wisdom that is so "different" that there is an unbreachable wall for fellowship.
How will we ever have BenOp if some Christians are automatically inferior, due to their childless state? Maybe wise in different ways, but they could never have the superior sort of wisdom and unselfishness that parents have. Just - not enough in common with parents. They are to be "othered".
Some quotes - It is parents who discovered in themselves the capacity to love in ways they never understood, who know the secret to a happy life is to learn how to bear that kind (parents' kind) of suffering with grace, and to keep your eyes on the higher good that you serve, who developed the right sort of politics, who learned the wisdom to tell the difference between what they can and cannot control. Oh, and also monks, nuns, bishops and Catholic priests.
I feel most good Christian parents are saying to the involuntarily childless - you may have some other kinds of wisdom, but it could be as high as mine. You may have some degree of unselfishness, but not like me, no matter what else you have suffered and given. - Would you or anyone like to set me straight?
Please don't say "as good but different". That did not appear to be the point here and it is not, apparently, what JDV believes. I don't want these walls anymore. Today's column was all about how the only way to get this unselfish wisdom was through parenthood, or, it was later acknowledged, through a religious vocation. Maybe I'm not as good as wise unselfish parents, but surely some I know - outside vocations and parents - are.
Linda, in no way do I consider those who are involuntarily childless "inferior" or less wise than parents. That would be a pretty arrogant attitude to have. Nor for that matter do I consider the voluntarily childless inferior either. I can't get inside people's heads and hearts to know what may be driving them...stressing them...breaking them.
As I see it, Vance was targeting a mentality...an ethos...an anti-child, anti-human, anti-life ideology of self that is prevalent in our culture...that holds in contempt the age-old Christian moral code on marriage, family, and children. You know the kind of people he's talking about. They value cats as much or more than human beings. They make no secret of who they are and what they believe.
You know, my wife and I belong to a vibrant Legion of Mary group at our parish. These are wonderful Christians and Catholics. Two of the women are childless. Three others have experienced broken marriages. Of their children (those who do have children), the majority have left the faith. There is brokenness all around. That's the way life is. Yet we're on the same team...holding to the same faith...believing the same Truth...fighting the same battle against the same enemy.
I hope this answers your question.
Thank you, Jerry .Yes, that was very helpful. I can see you are someone to remind me there are Christians who do not want to separate themselves from lay Christians who are involuntarily childless because there are somehow "other".
Thank you for putting this into words. I am a lil over 50 and would like to know more about the issues younger people face with family formation.
Re: The phenomenon has catastrophic implications for our future
I would change "catastrophic" to "problematic". A gradual fall in population levels (f that even happens-- it is not set in stone) is not a catastrophe-- it is something to be managed by judicious policy. Unlike say the deaths of billions in a nuclear war or some truly lethal and highly contagious pandemic. That would be "catastrophe". Let's not define the word down, any more than a nasty migraine is an inoperable brain tumor.
If the downward plunge continues at its current rate in a number of developed countries, the implications for those nations are a lot more serious than "problematic." In fact, I don't think "catastrophic" is an exaggeration but OK, I'll qualify that adjective with the modifier "potentially."
An excellent book on this subject is Brian Kaplan's "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids." He concludes -- for reasons he spells out in the book -- that everyone should have one more kid than they think they want. If you think you want two, have three. Think you want none, have one. Etc.
We have two kids and I now wish we had had a third. However, my wife and I agree that the fundamental division -- in wisdom terms -- is between none and one. A five-child household obviously sees a measure of chaos and joy that our household has never known. Five is different than two. But the voluntarily childless are different in kind. They just are.
There are some people who would make horrible parents, I think we have to be honest about that. First off, almost anyone who thinks they want a child but not a spouse, whether rich or poor.
Ah! I always tell people to have one more kid than they think they want! Didn’t know about that book. I have four.
Beautiful post, Rod. My first grandchild is on the way, expected in January. To say I’m giddy, after the eight years of complicated infertility my daughter and son-in-law endured, is an understatement. When my children were young, I recognized the magic about which you wrote here, and would often say that I wished Peter Pan would arrive and keep them at the age they were. That wish was far more about me than ever them. Now I pray that, at 70, I have the stamina to provide a meaningful assist in the coming rearing.
Rod, it was Easter weekend 1996. My twin children were just 4 months old, and I was the only person in the house not affected by a stomach virus that was causing explosions both north and south. For provisions, neighbors pitched in. I did not sleep for well more than 36 hours and I was constantly on my feet changing, feeding, cleaning. I never experienced military service, but in my memory those two days were my Point du Hoc.
It's counterintuitive, but a well-documented fact, that the wealthier a populace becomes, the lower the birthrate goes. So we often observe that "People in the past were poorer than us, but still had big families!" And we're surprised by it. But evidence suggests we shouldn't be. This "wealth effect" is true across cultures. GDP goes up, birthrate goes down.
In the West we have the "wealth effect" plus attendant other drivers knocking our fertility down. It's a perfect storm. I live in Taiwan, and have watched the culture shift from the mid-1990s. Right now Taiwan's total fertility rate is near the world's lowest. I could bullet point the reasons, but won't. Some are western cultural influence, most are not. Such as the wealth effect. The government here is scrambling to address the problem, and Orban-style subsidies are being proposed at the top. I think the subsidies will be implemented.
Rod writes that people don't want to face what this low fertility really means--that, for instance, it will mean their disappearance “as a people”. I think one of the deep problems is right there in that formulation. Namely, many young westerners don't understand themselves as "a people". They've drunk the Kool-Aid. Many of them, to hear them talk, see themselves as a liability *to the planet*.
"There are already too many humans," I've heard more than one say.
The future of animals and plants is what they live for.
They thus manage to be self-centered ("My life belongs to ME to enjoy") and pseudo-ethical at the same time ("I'm doing the RIGHT thing by ending the line with me"). This latter often comes down to "Yeah, I consume a lot and have a big carbon footprint, but that's UNAVOIDABLE. At least I'm not going to make MORE of me."
I haven't yet read it, but Catherine Pakaluk's book "Hannah's Children" looks to be a fascinating study of women in America who opt to have many children. It's gotten a lot of attention. (And also, btw, her husband, Catholic philosopher Michael Pakaluk, is someone worth looking up. An Aristotle scholar and also a brilliant translator of the gospels. So far his translations of Mark and John have appeared, Matthew forthcoming. Really extraordinary work. I’m a long-disgruntled student of Bible translations, and in terms of care and precision with the text, there's nothing like what Pakaluk has done. Cf. https://claytestament.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-gospel-truth-michael-pakaluks.html )
Or, as Oliver Goldsmith wrote,
Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
It’s an old theme of course. But for us moderns, the decay is oddly a matter of literal biology. National self-erasure via willful barrenness.
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
"The future of animals and plants is what they live for."
Much of this seems to me to be based in a sort of nostalgia for a lost sense of wonder, which in and of itself is healthy. But the zeitgeist prompts unhealthy manifestations of it. Because of this I believe that talk of disenchantment/alienation/re-enchantment should involve discussion of the sense of wonder as it relates to the natural world. Secular disenchantment doesn't just cause separation from the natural world; the reverse is also true. And the younger generations' fixation on (addiction to) all things digital only exacerbates the problem.
There is a lot of talk among GenZ about nostalgia. But in some ways it's empty because they can only identify the feeling as opposed to the substance. One might ask two questions about this: Why are 20-somethings feeling so much nostalgia, and what, specifically, are they feeling nostalgic about, given the large place of the digital in their formation?
Fully agree that alienation from the natural world and secular disenchantment mutually reinforce. It’s a vicious circle.
As to what GenZ feels nostalgia for, my guess would be this: the world. They are aware of their lack, that the digital devices attached to them at the start, like viruses, infecting them and lifting them out of what could have been the world. They know previous people lived in that world, but that the digital net has somehow de-worlded it.
I think all of us feel this, that there’s an imposed unreality, one which was hinted at by radio and TV but finally arrived for real with the digital. GenZ’s feeling of this unreality is different, however, because they got the virus simultaneous with learning to speak.
What world, then, could they feel nostalgia for? They feel this “nostalgia” for something they know they should have had, but couldn’t. Because their parents weren’t wise enough to forbid them cell phones.
I also suspect part of the ethos of the anti-human stance many of them take up is grounded in the suspicion that they’re somehow unreal, or dead, themselves. “Let other species be alive at least. We aren’t.”
It seems here like they’re saying we don’t *deserve* to be alive. But I think this nihilism is secondary to the fact of alienation, it’s an after-effect.
At what point would you say you felt actual, real nostalgia, and not just a missing of people who for one reason or another were no longer part of your life? For me it would be sometime in my 30s when I started to realize I was no longer the same person I had been in my early twenties and found myself regretting that I had lost a sense of life being brand new still and wide open with possibility.
It's also true that urbanized people (and suburbs pattern with cities in this matter) have always had fewer kids than do rural people. I suspect both economic and cultural factors are behind that.
It's on Hoopla. Gonna check it out. Thanks.
The question is not whether parenting isn't a life-changing experience, but whether it is necessary for that type of spiritual maturity that would allow one to contribute meaningfully to society. And the answer from a Christian perspective has to be a qualified no. From its earliest days, Christianity has held that to give up the goods of marriage and children for a single-hearted devotion to God was a valid and even higher pathway to holiness. So, children aren't strictly necessary for the type of spiritual maturity that would allow one to have the wisdom and virtues necessary to guide society towards its true flourishing.
Perhaps the Catholic nuance of "spiritual parenthood" is helpful here. Every human being (according to John Paul II and others) are called to be a "spiritual father" and "spiritual mother." This is the mark of human maturity. The vast majority of people realize this through the vocation of natural marriage and parenthood. But some might be called by other routes, such vocation to religious life, consecrated life in the world, or through submitting to God's will through suffering or unwanted singleness. The possession of wisdom, the ability to love, and the prudence to comprehend the good of society do not arise from experience alone but from the holiness and virtue attained by death to self and devotion to God, which can take many forms.
"...to contribute meaningfully to society..."
Sorry. That's a protestant criterion. Monks and cloistered nuns may "contribute meaningfully to society" but that's not why they're in the cloister.
You don't have to be cloistered to be religious or consecrated. There are orders of both religious and consecrated laymen and women who live and operate in the world.
Who said any such thing? Read what I wrote, friend. I think what you're looking for is the excellence of virginity, you know?
Your comment is actually not very clear to me. The Catholic Church holds that the consecrated laity (who take vows of virginity and belong, for instance, to secular institutes) can indeed contribute to society in that "Their witness of a Christian life" aims "to order temporal things according to God and inform the world with the power of the gospel" from within their secular life and profession. CCC929
That is a very materialist take. It assumes "productive" doesnot include spiritual work.