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Polar bear with carrot

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Baby Bumblers


Read an article the other day bemoaning America's declining birthrate. America has lost it because we're not keeping up with our reproductive quota. Family Research Center says its the gays' fault.
Found this in my research today.
Pew released a birth rate study in late november.
"The U.S. birth rate dipped in 2011 to the lowest ever recorded, led by a plunge in births to immigrant women since the onset of the Great Recession.
The overall U.S. birth rate, which is the annual number of births per 1,000 women in the prime childbearing ages of 15 to 44, declined 8% from 2007 to 2010. The birth rate for U.S.-born women decreased 6% during these years, but the birth rate for foreign-born women plunged 14%—more than it had declined over the entire 1990-2007 period.1 The birth rate for Mexican immigrant women fell even more, by 23%.
Final 2011 data are not available, but according to preliminary data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the overall birth rate in 2011 was 63.2 per 1,000 women of childbearing age. That rate is the lowest since at least 1920, the earliest year for which there are reliable numbers."
Am I weird? Why doesn't declining birth rate bother me? Aren't there 7 billion people already fighting for the crumbs of a limited resource pool on this tragic planet anyway? Haven't we managed to ruin and poison much of our air, water and earth already? Do we need to finish the job and pulverize the rest of our wild and open space before we call it a day?

Or are we supposed to worry because their won't be enough youngsters left to take care of us in our old age? Aren't they making up for us in China, India and Mexico, places like that?

Austin Ruse writes an article in Crisis Magazine which says that the problem lies in the human heart. Blame it on selfish secularists.
"...Eberstadt points to another Pew study that might shed light on fertility declines. Last October they released a study that shows a dramatic decline in religious belief. One-third of Americans between the ages of 18-24 say they have no religion. Those in the study were called “Nones.” There are more and more of them.
What does religious belief have to do with embracing children? Eberstadt says there is a strong correlation. Nones in the U.S. and Europe have matching low fertility rates while religious people in the U.S. have the same relatively high fertility rate as their counterparts in Europe. The problem for Europe is they have so many Nones. Our problem could be that we are catching up.
Why such a correlation? It could be that Nones look at this world and see nothing beyond it. This is it. There is no more. In Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, Alvy Singer is scolded for not doing his homework. “The universe is everything,” he says, “and if it’s expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything! So what’s the point?” Such nihilism must do something to the psyche and to the desire to multiply. Woody Allen had only one biological child.
For religious people the universe is not everything, far from it. And even if the universe ended, it’s still not everything. And we would still live on. That must do something to the psyche, too, and it results in many good things including children.
And then there is greed. We live in an awful greedy age. Religious folk may have a slight edge on the Nones in the greed department but not by much. This greedy age seeps into our very pores. It infects everything and everyone to a greater or lesser extent. Face it, children are inconvenient. When my wife and I married we went to Europe a lot. When our first daughter came, we still went to Europe but less. Our second daughter has never been to Europe.
For many people such things really matter. They want to be able to go to Europe or Bermuda or Patagonia. They want a new car every two years. They want a vacation house. Those inconvenient children can stand in the way of all of this. Even one child can stand in the way. Now think about two or three or four children and then ponder a future of vacations not in Paris but at the small lake down the road.
So, sure, if the Hispanic decline is real, economics may have played a part. The Great Recession might have played a part, but consider this; people far poorer than they have continued to get married, found families and produce children. This is true throughout history.
The problem to ponder is not about fertility rates and the Great Recession, but about how to chase greed from the human heart once it’s found a home there."
Those nonbelievers again, mucking things up. Won't even breed properly. Man, clearly the most dangerous animal to ever live on this planet, may she survive our horrendous stewardship.

3 comments:

Randy Walters said...

"Ponder a future of vacations... at the small lake down the road."

The idea of any vacation at all sounds pretty good to me and my vasectomy.

Anonymous said...

I am no expert in economics but one flaw in most economic thinking that I see is the idea that continuous and infinite growth is apparently viewed as a precondition of a healthy economy. This idea has an obvious logical shortcoming but it is always looked at with a blind eye by economists who hail immigration for making up for the failure of the natives to breed. A new paradigm is urgently required but doesn't seem to be forthcoming from anywhere. Refusing to deal with the growth issue seems like an effective way to destroy the society to me, but I am just a plebe.

Ken Seals said...

If the Hispanic birth rate decline if for real, the Vatican is in REAL trouble :-))