Red Diaper Babies

What did the nation's press do when during his presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan spoke of the "welfare queen," a fictitious Chicago housing project resident who had babies to collect more money from the relief system? Some publications, such as The Nation, America's oldest mainstream leftist magazine, denounced Reagan as heartless, condescending, bigoted, and elitist.

As the poet laureate of the American left might put it, the times they are a'changin'.

The Nation magazine has located the latest outpost of the vast right-wing conspirarcy in a nursery near you. In a breathlessly outraged article in the November 27th issue, Kathryn Joyce looks at "red diaper babies" (red as in "red state," not as in Marxism-Leninism). Along the way, The Nation examines the pro-natalism of Touchstone contributing editor (and my favorite author on issues of home economics) Allan Carlson.

Interviewing conservative evangelical families who reject contraception, The Nation suggests that the large families of these Christians are not just about raising up a new generation in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but about providing troops for the American military. After all, most of these people are in "the generally low-income households of believers who feel bound to supply their children, their arrows for God," and who are also most likely to see their children in the military.

Bless their hearts, the poor rubes and rednecks out there in flyover country, the magazine implies, they just keep having babies for the war machine and there too dense to know it. As Loretta Lynn would put it, one is a farmin' and one is a fightin', one is a preacher and one is a miner and...one's on the way.

When the Washington Post described evangelical Christians as "poor, uneducated, and easy to command," the editors issued an apology. When U.S. John Kerry "botched" a joke in which he seemed to suggest that academic slackers would be "stuck in Iraq," he apologized. What are we to think when The Nation sniffs that Christians who have lots of babies are easily manipulated, hopelessly naive, "low income" Americans?

I suppose we should just remind ourselves that this is a magazine devoted to defending the poor against the wealth, privilege, and elitism of the leisure class.

Comments

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>After all, most of these people are in "the generally low-income households of believers who feel bound to supply their children, their arrows for God," and who are also most likely to see their children in the military.<<<

Except that, when one looks at the demographics of the military, one finds that recruits are drawn predominantly from solidly middle class families. Granted, the South is disproportionally represented, but that appears to be a cultural and not an economic factor--the South has a more overtly military heritage than other parts of the country.

Also note that "the times they are a-changin'" in more ways than one--military service is increasingly "cool" on Ivy League campuses, despite the attempts of some schools to keep ROTC away and pretend that the military does not exist.

[Juli]

It is ironic when veterans (eg, Kerry) are characterized as being arrogantly anti-military by some who never served (eg, Cheney). McGovern, considered the epitome of Democratic antiwar wimpiness, was a decorated WWII veteran (who didn't choose to play up his impressive service record). Of the veterans now in Congress, what's the red-blue breakdown?

[James A. Altena]

Dear Juli,

There is a difference between being anti-military and anti-war (or anti- a particular war). Kerry, McGovern, Clinton, et al. are indeed properly characterized as anti-military because of their own statements -- e.g. Clinton's "I despise the military." Kerry's supposed gaffe in fact expressed a common attitude on the left that "grunts" in the trenches are there because they are too stupid to have learned from the supposedly enlightened experience of Kerry, McGovern, etc.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>It is ironic when veterans (eg, Kerry) are characterized as being arrogantly anti-military by some who never served (eg, Cheney). McGovern, considered the epitome of Democratic antiwar wimpiness, was a decorated WWII veteran (who didn't choose to play up his impressive service record). Of the veterans now in Congress, what's the red-blue breakdown?<<<

What's so ironic? Kerry IS arrogantly anti-military. He was anti-military when he signed up, he was anti-military when he got out, he was anti-military every day of his political career up to the point when he decided he wanted to be president. That didn't pan out, so back to the old song and dance.

Regarding McGovern, I gave up on him years ago. Unlike a lot of people who apparently carry a bad case of the guilts for treating their veteran daddies badly during the 60s and 70s, I don't have to shovel any of that "Greatest Generation" manure, and I sure don't have to drink Steven Ambrose's bathwater and give McGovern the hagiographic treatment. Fact is, serving doesn't make you a hero, and it doesn't even qualify you to make sensible judgments about military service, let alone more arcane issues of military strategy.

John Murtha, for instance, was and is a total ass, and a corrupt SOB to boot. But, hey, he served, so--in the immutable logic of the left--he is immune to criticism when it comes to military matters.

I'll just point out that some of our greatest wartime presidents never served in the military (Polk, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt), while some who did were real duds as war leaders (Can you say JFK? How about HST?). Go figure. Lyndon Johnson liked to point to his service as a LCDR in the USNR, and boasted about his "combat mission" while on a fact-finding tour in New Guinea in 1942, for which he was aswarded the Silver Star. Someone even wrote a worshipful book about it ("The Mission"). In fact, however, the plane in which Johnson was an observer/passenger aborted the mission before reaching the target, and Johnson was never in combat. He got the medal because he pestered FDR about it, and FDR needed Johnson's votes. When it comes to exaggerated combat records, John Kerry seems to be firmly in the tradition of the Democratic party.

[James A. Altena]

Harry S Truman was no dud. He did to MacArthur exactly what needed to be done for rank insubordination.

[Ethan Cordray]

Sometimes, I wish those like the editors in question could, just for a little while, be transported into some Twilight Zone where all of us "flyovers" decided to stop having kids, to see how it works out for them. They can choose to stay if they want.

[Gintas]

"Great Wartime Presidents" Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt: the favorites of court historians everywhere and the Holy Trinity of Leviathan. Anyone who has seen the Lincoln memorial in DC knows what it's all about: worship this demigod in his temple.

[Russell D. Moore]

George McGovern's presidential candidacy in 1972 was the only presidential election in which my grandfather, a pro-labor populist Democrat, voted for the Republican nominee. When I asked him about it years later, he very defensively said, "Of course I voted for Nixon. He was a crook, and I knew it. But a patriot couldn't vote for McGovern. He was dangerous."

I would put George McGovern in a different category than the John Kerry/Michael Moore crowd, and not simply because McGovern was genuinely heroic as a fighter pilot in WWII.

McGovern is hopelessly utopian on many points, and war-and-peace is one of these points (for example, his statement in 1972 that he would crawl on hands and knees to Hanoi if it would mean peace in Vietnam). His statements on the Soviet Union were similarly naive, culpably so. This is, after all, a man who was present at the creation of Henry Wallace's 1948 Progressive Party, itself a dupe for the Kremlin.

Even so, McGovern is naive but convictional. That doesn't mean he is any more qualified to be President. But it does mean, I think, that he is a man of personal integrity. He is a near-pacifist (not a real pacifist) first of all, it seems, because he believes his convictions to be true and because he loves his country. The current crop of professional anti-war talking heads, it seems to me, are just that: professionals seeking a niche in the media spotlight. I don't think this was, or is, true of McGovern. Plus, "Come Home America" was, and is, a catchy motto for a presidential campaign.

I think my grandfather was right in 1972, as was the AFL-CIO, which refused to back the McGovern/Eagleton/Shriver ticket. McGovern's welfare proposals would have bankrupted the country, and his defense cuts probably would have resulted in a still-standing USSR to this day. But I think his danger was, and is, rooted less in evil than in ignorance.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Harry S Truman was no dud. He did to MacArthur exactly what needed to be done for rank insubordination.<<<

On MacArthur, he did the right thing--no other choice, really. But he badly mismanaged the war in Korea, and his handling of the energing Cold War left an awful lot to be desired. Basically, the stateman in Truman always took a back seat to the Kansas City pol.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I would put George McGovern in a different category than the John Kerry/Michael Moore crowd, and not simply because McGovern was genuinely heroic as a fighter pilot in WWII.<<<

McGovern was a B-24 bomber pilot flying with the XV Air Force in Italy. To the extent that you had to be either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to get inside one of those flying fuel tanks and trundle 4000 pounds of bombs through flak and fighters to drop them on the Third Reich, McGovern was a "hero"--but he was doing no more than thousands of other guys who flew in B-24s and B-17s were doing. And every night he got to come home to a nice warm bed, decent food, and a movie. And after thirty missions, he got to go home.

On the other hand, some poor bloody infantryman, sitting in a hole full of mud, being shelled without any ability to shoot back, sleeping in filth, eating cold C-rations, and knowing that the only way he's going to go home is if he's killed, wounded or the war ends. That's real heroism.

I've always wondered what the hell McGovern was thinking, assuming that the man was truly sincere. It seems obvious that either he never bothered to ponder why it was he was flying bombs over the Alps at 25,000 feet, or that his oxygen mask came undone a few times too often.

[GL]

And now, I will make an effort to return this thread to the topic of the post, the article in The Nation. Ms. Joyce has an obvious animus toward women who choose to have many children. So much for choice. This article represents yet another example (as if we needed yet another example) of how the "right to choose" is really just a right to choose to kill one's children, not to have as many as one wants. Women who choose to have six or more children are obviously too stupid to exercise such a right.

I couldn't help but think as I read the article over my lunch that in 100 years these "poor, simple rubes" will possibly have hundreds of descendants living life and worshiping God. Ms. Joyce, on the other hand, will have a life's body of work in magazine articles gathering dust on shelves or, more likely, sitting unaccessed in digital format on servers in some dark closet somewhere in the bowels of a warehouse (or however our descendants store and retrieve information in the 22nd century).

This article practically drips with her mocking of these people, including most especially in their faith in God:

"Lean not on your own understanding," Quiverfull mom Tracie Moore tells me, describing the scriptural foundations she's discovered for the movement: Children are a blessing, a reward, an inheritance. Don't worry about money--the Moores have never had much of it--because God will provide for his flock.

Thus, she turns what was formerly considered a virtue into yet another source of mocking. I doubt that these families are simply trusting God and doing nothing more. My guess, having been reared among such people, that the dads are working their tails off to demonstrate the extent of their faith and that the moms are working their tails off to save a penny here and a dollar there as good stewards of what their husbands can earn.

The article does raise some valid concerns. Having children should not be a contest in which the woman with the most gets bragging rights nor to create cultural warriors. I hope that God does use the fertile to reverse, over a few generations, the secularism of our age, but that should be a result of having and rearing children to fear the Lord, not its goal. We should have children because we love children and want to live with them here and in eternity, where we can together glorify our Lord and enjoy Him forever. However, a woman who mocks motherhood and children is hardly the one to deliver that message.

[dilys]

Fr. Stephen Freeman (Eastern Orthodox), in his new blog Glory to God for All Things, cites this from Stanley Hauerwas' A Community of Character:

The Christian community’s openness to new life and our conviction of the sovereignty of God over that life are but two sides of the same conviction. Christians believe that we have the time in this existence to care for new life, especially as such life is dependent and vulnerable, because it is not our task to rule this world or to “make our mark on history.” We can thus take the time to live in history as God’s people who have nothing more important to do than to have and care for children. For it is the Christian claim that knowledge and love of God is fostered by service to the neighbor, especially the most helpless, as in fact that is where we find the kind of Kingdom our God would have us serve.

[GL]

As I read this article, another point that came to my mind is why it is evangelical Christians who seem to be leading in this movement. From other data I have read, it appears that several conservative evangelical denominations have fertility rates which are higher than Catholics, whose Church teaches now and has consistently taught against contraception. Perhaps there is some self-selectivity (i.e., pro-natalist evangelicals gravitate to pro-natalist denominations) in this regard, but do any of the Catholics out there have a theory as to why some conservative evangelicals would be more fertile than are Catholics?

This is a sincere question and is not meant to start a dog fight.

[Gene Godbold]

Stuart,
Just for grins--I know these sorts of caluculations have been done--what was the chance of the average guy in a B-24 lasting for 30 missions vs that of a grunt on the ground? At certain parts of the war, flying in a bomber was not exceptionally survivable...

[Gene Godbold]

Given the (assumed leftist) orientation of the author, I didn't think the article to be especially snarky. Yes, there are points at which she is obviously making points at which the average reader of The Nation will probably below "That's nuts!" but she wasn't that bad. I suppose I'm saying that I still recognize my fellow Christians in the article.

[Joe Long]

It's worth noting that not only the "War Machine", but any longterm propagation of American academic leftist ideas, is going to depend on SOMEONE in this country having babies. Academic leftists must reproduce their "memes" within the skulls of the young, to survive as a species - and there certainly aren't enough "blue diaper babies" to keep them going! Nor do I predict a surge of first- or second-generation Central American immigrants who develop an interest in Transgender Theory or Postmodern Literary Criticism, although they might well take an interest in military careers.

Yes, what ought to really frost leftists is that I've got two boys at home playing with wooden muskets, a little girl raising a family of plastic dolls who do not show their plastic belly-buttons, and "one on the way" who is, like the others, considerably more likely to be a patriot than a leftist. Contemplating that, as a statistically significant nationwide pattern, is surely more than enough provocation for a "Nation" writer to get a little bit shrill...

[Kamilla]

There are two visions of the future Ms. Joyce might want to pay attention to. One is the very real vision coming to fruition in Europe. The other is the fictional but not so fantastical one of P.D. James.

Neither one presents much hope for the enlightened ones like Ms. Joyce.

Kamilla

[Marissa]

Thought I'd throw a ladies voice in here...

Although I got a little red in the face reading the very biased article, I think the "movement Quiverfulls" -- the ones caught up in an "us" mentality -- are off, maybe even way off. They claim to believe that their children are a gift from the Lord and an inheritance, yet they speak of them as disposable arrows, as a mere means to an end. And their statement that apart from the Bible's command to be fruitful and multiply, there's no reason to have kids? What about... each child is a fragile treasure, on loan to us from God for a short while, and we should love them fiercely and gently and nurture them on to what God has gifted them for--the military, the Church or politics for the war waging, yes, but what about to medicine? Medical missions? The arts? I doubt that these Quiverfull mothers are the type that would be okay with one of their sons impoverished and hungry as a young, uncompromising artist or poet, even if he were happy and desired to do no other thing in the world.

I'm pretty orthodox in my beliefs about contraception as well, but I fear cookie-cutting. We are not poured out of a mold, we are created by God's hand, who knits us lovingly in the womb. I would never want to compromise truth but I read in the Scriptures how we are one body, united in Christ's death and resurrection, and how we are all gifted differently. There has GOT to be a biblical medium between "This obscure doctrine that the Bible doesn't address directly so we'll take Scripture and MAKE it fit our point, and if you don't believe it you're not a Christian," and "Yeah, we believe this but it doesn't really matter. You can believe whatever you want and you will still go to heaven." I'm reminded here of sectarian Southern Baptists (which I used to be) and overly chaplain Episcopalians (which I am now). So we come down to Jerry Falwell v. Katharine Jefferts Schori. How sad that the Christian Church is in such a state.

What makes me inclined to dislike these ladies is their condemnation of women who cannot have children. There is absolutely not one thing more heartbreaking for a mother who desires to have children than to be unable to bear them. It is so hard to cling to God's goodness in the face of that blow--and for someone to condemn a fellow sister in Christ for being unable to bear a child (God opens and closes the womb!) is like looking mercilessly on as the cardboard box and flannel shirt of a homeless man, the only things he possesses, are destroyed.

Lord have mercy.

[GL]

Joe,

Congratulations on the expected one!

As to the one's you already have, you appear to be messing up parenting just like I am. I don't know what I am doing wrong, but my oldest daughter likes to play with dolls and my son likes to play with toy cars and swords. Maybe when Ms. Joyce gets through straightening out the poor misguided women she writes about in the article noted by Russell, she can instruct us on how to make our girls more like boys and our boys more like girls. Even if it's too late for my older two, perhaps my baby daughter and any future children can still be saved. ;-)

[luthien]

I didn't think the article was quite as bad as I'd expected it to be, although it was certainly snarky enough. It really does bother me when liberals assume that the right to choose for which thy fight means choosing to not have babies, or to have very few, and that women who choose to have large families are clearly dumb. As a woman (albeit a very young one) who does hope to have a large family someday, I found some of the article's assumptions a bit insulting, and the idea that red-staters (disclaimer: I do live in a blue state) have babies for the army is just silly-what do they think we are? Nazis??

The Quiverfull movement can get a bit odd at times-well, actually very odd. I second what GL said about some of the problems with the movement, and I think the idea that your material success will increase as you have more children is pretty obviously unrealistic.(applied to [politics, it would also suggest that Mr. Santorum, who has 6 children, should have beaten Mr. Casey, who "only" has 4. This did not happen.) It also seems to be very unpitying towards infertile women.

>>>Roosevelt, according to Carlson, associated birth control with "race suicide" and selfish white women who "import our babies from abroad" rather than honor their duty to bear children for the nation.<<< Reasoning like that is probably a big part of why the bc movement took off so well in this country; Hitleresque statements like that from opponents of bc can only have distanced people who had no strong convictions either way from the anti-bc position. Of course, the eugenicism and racism were prevalent on the other side of the of the issue too, but the term "race suicide" cannot have helped opponents of bc. (quoth a selfish white woman who in addition to hoping to have a large family of her own biological children wants to adopt several children as well)

[luthien]

Sorry for the double post, but...
Congratulations, Joe!!!

Marissa, I agree with what you said about the "movement" Quiverfulls; it's what I tried to say, but couldn't put so eloquently. Condemning infertile women is the straw that broke the camel's back.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>ust for grins--I know these sorts of caluculations have been done--what was the chance of the average guy in a B-24 lasting for 30 missions vs that of a grunt on the ground? At certain parts of the war, flying in a bomber was not exceptionally survivable...<<<

The answer for the first part depends on when in the war he flew. Between October 1942 and January 1944, a bomber crewman had only something like a 25% chance of getting through a tour without being killed, wounded or captured. After that date, when P-51 Mustangs began excorting the bombers all the way to Germany, losses dropped off substantially. By the end of 1944, most bombers crews were making it all the way through a tour. Weather became a greater threat than the Germans.

For a combat infantryman, the odds were much lower. Between June 1944 and May 1945, most infantry divisions in Northwest Europe suffered casualties amounting to 55-120% of initial strength. Since riflemen constituted only a third of the troops in an infantry division, this meant that some divisions went through their entire complement of riflemen two or three times over. Statistically, a combat infantryman had something like a 100% chance of being killed, wounded or going nuts between D-Day and VE Day. That not all did has to do with the personnel system, which filled losses with raw replacements. Not being as savvy, the replacements died like flies, whereas the old saws usually only fell victim to random fire. Gradually, though, the older hands suffered an emotional breakdown so that by the end of the war, most of them were pretty well used up.

[Steve]

"Red diaper babies" is a rip off, and malappropriation, of the old phrase "red doper diaper babies" for the children of the old hippie drug-supporting socialist left.

[Kamilla]

Marissa,

I've hung out with a number of "quiverfull" folks for a number of years and have never heard one speak of their children as expendable arrows. Nor have I EVER heard them condemn women who CANNOT have children themselves.

Where are you finding these folks?

Kamilla

[Marissa]

All except one of my fellow stay-at-home-moms who are Quiverfulls are of this stripe, and the article pinpointed them to a T.

I'm sorry if I offended you but the philosophy lends itself well to being judgmental, and I have met (like I said) only one who is not.

[Kamilla]

I wasn't offended, just curious. I'm not "one of them", being a never-married female in my mid-40s so I can concurr on the judgmentalism! I've just never seen these things expressed - especially the judgment on women who cannot have children. the folks I know sorry with these women. Me, on the otherhand, I am condemned for my rebellion in not submitted to the highest calling of ALL women, that of wife!

Kamilla

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>All except one of my fellow stay-at-home-moms who are Quiverfulls are of this stripe, and the article pinpointed them to a T.

I'm sorry if I offended you but the philosophy lends itself well to being judgmental, and I have met (like I said) only one who is not.<<<

No doubt that there are some people who take their fecundity as an opportunity to generate a "smug cloud" (equivalent to that generated by people who drive hybrid cars or only buy organic, locally-grown produce), but on the other hand, most of the people I know who have large families are just very matter of fact about it.

I admire them, I love their kids, and number them among my dear friends. There are at least half a dozen families in my parish who have more than four kids (remember, there are only about 400 people in my parish), and there are more than that who have between 3-4 kids. Most people who are married have at least two, and I know of very few who are childless or have but one child.

[Lance Roberts]

Marissa, God is the one who called them arrows in a Quiver, not man. I hope you can get over your bitterness someday.

[Little Gidding]

All us smug breeders, too stupid not to have young'uns--seems like it would just be a kindness to sterilize all us homophobic Red Staters. We're kind of just asking for it, I reckon. And it would be a kindness to the Blue State "Nation" readers too--make the Dem takeover permanent. Three generations of idiots (Republican Congresses) are enough, eh? to paraphrase a noted eugenics-friendly jurist.

[Little Gidding]

Sorry, the comments robot appears to have stripped off the "sarcasm on" and "sarcasm off" indicators above.

[Marissa]

Hmmm... I'm trying to find out where I said I don't like large families, don't think they're biblical, and I haven't yet pinpointed my bitterness. I'll try to straighten some things out.

I'm on my way to being married and my fiance and I, as pretty orthodox members of the Anglican Communion, will probably let God plan our family. I intend to homeschool, although my philosophy is slightly different than most moms'. I embrace a biblical understanding of family planning and like Stuart, count innumerable large families among my closest and dear friends.

I was also not attacking all Quiverfull mothers, nor really the philosophy itself. But my personal experience with large families of the Quiverfull movement--and not all large families are members thereof--has been negative. I more than you am sorry that it is this way. I did say that the philosophy lends itself well to judgmentalism. Not that it is inherently judgmental but that if you have an already-judgmental adherent to the philosophy, the result is... heartbreak for the women who can't bear children or who for whatever reason are choosing not to. This is what I am opposing. God did not make us from a mold, we are uniquely fashioned and gifted differently. God in his sovereign wisdom has chosen to close the womb of some women, and for a fellow sister in Christ to take issue with God's decision and proclaim that woman "rebellious," "sinful," or "not in the will of God," ALL of which I have personally witnessed in various conversations over the years, is just wrong. I'm sorry if I was unclear previously. I certainly do not harbor bitterness toward the movement, and I try my best to love the Quiverfull ladies I know even if we disagree ardently.

[John P]

I find it interesting that the greatest of the old Testament figures were sole children. Abraham only began Isaac. As the story goes, Anna was old and childless and ridiculed by the women of the Temple before she had Mary with Joachim. And of course the greatest of all women, Mary, only had one son. Jacob came from a large family, but all the rest were wicked.

Of course having many children is not the thing always toward which to aim. The Arrow-Children culture seems related to the culture of death, in a strange way. Children are products, jewels in the crown of the parent, a sign of prosperity like cars and money. Isn't it possible that some of these children will embrace the culture against which they were reared to be weapons? That they will not want to endure the poverty of their parents? God does still respect the autonomy of the human will, right?

John (the seventh of nine)

[luthien]

Marissa, I definitely can't see where the bitterness in your comment was-it made sense to me. Congratulations on your engagement! What is your homeschooling philosophy? This is getting hijackish, though; if you'd like to e-mail me I'd be delighted:) (I miss homeschooling and talking about it!)

[Judy Warner]

"Red diaper babies" is a rip off, and malappropriation, of the old phrase "red doper diaper babies" for the children of the old hippie drug-supporting socialist left.

No, "red diaper babies" is the older expression. It refers to children of communists, mostly born in the late 1930s to early 1950s. The "red doper diaper babies" is a ripoff of that. I am a red diaper baby, unusual in that I discarded my parents' communist-atheist ideas. Most of my ilk, including my siblings, are still pretty red.

[Little Gidding]

Unfortunately, blog comments appear to read sequentially, even though some may refer to the "root" text, rather than the immediately preceeding comments. Such was the case with mine, Marissa. I was not responding to your comment, but merely adding another reaction to the original article in the Nation. Sorry that wasn't clear.

[Gene Godbold]

I thought Marissa's comments on the article were insightful and it crystallized for me why I found the attitudes manifested among certain of the full quiver families unattractive: They did seem inclined toward a disposable view of their children.

I think John P warns of a real danger amongst these kids if they perceive that they're "just" numbers or ways of evening some ideological score that their parents have. As always, the recipe to avoid this is abundant love--both toward the Father and with one another. This can involve a proper pride in one's children as wonderfully strange little gifts from God. If children know that there parents accept them and love them for themselves and not for anything extrinsic to them, then I don't believe that not having an abundance of material blessings will matter.

My wife and I have seven children--and we use no artificial means of fertility control--but we struggle with the issue of giving the children we have proper attention vs having more children.

[GL]

Gene,

Amen and Amen. And may God bless you and your family.

My wife and I did use artificial birth control for the first few years of our marriage and then suffered fertility problems for a few more years. As a result, we did not have our first child until I was 38 and she was 33. We now have three.

We sometimes mourn together the children with which God might have blessed us had we not sought to control our fertility. Our mourning is about lost opportunities to love and to be loved both as to us and the children who might have been and between the children with which God has blessed us and the siblings they might have had but for our actions, not about head counts and culture wars. I am particularly sad for my son, who has no brother and would really like to have one. We both pray that God will bless us one more time, but as with all things, that His will be done.

As to the number counts, this puts me to mind of Tony's radio broadcast on his translation of Dante's Paradise and a related article which quoted from his translation in last month's Touchstone by Louis Markos titled Vessels of Honor on "All the Glory We Can Hold." What is true in heaven is also true here. God may give one couple ten children, another six, another two, and another none, but if we are His children, we must believe that He knows best and that He has filled each of us with many blessings here while we prepare for the Great Blessing to come. Jealousy, envy and pride related to a comparison of what he has given one family as opposed to others is a sin and just as much a contemning of the gifts He has given to us as is the use of contraception to refuse such gifts.

[Gintas]

I've never run into a Quiver type. Sounds something like one of the subsets of homeschoolers: You wear Birkenstocks and a jumper, and your homeschooling magazines feature only families with X children, where X >> (current replacement rate).

[Steve Nicoloso]

GL asks:

Perhaps there is some self-selectivity (i.e., pro-natalist evangelicals gravitate to pro-natalist denominations) in this regard, but do any of the Catholics out there have a theory as to why some conservative evangelicals would be more fertile than are Catholics?

The trouble is that "Catholics" is just too broad a term... something akin to "Protestants". And Catholics are probably even more likely to retain the name (and even get kids baptized and confirmed) long after they've stopped going to mass. The mass attendance rate is about 30%, or so I'm told. If you look at regular mass attenders, I suspect fertility is way higher than 2.1. Now among mass attenders, there're traditionalist regular mass attenders, and wish-we-were-Episcopalian mass attenders. If you filter out the wanna-be 'Piscopalians, i.e., those who don't take the Church's teaching on family life seriously (a group that makes up between 0% and 90% depending upon parish/diocese), you get a group very much like the pro-natalist 'Gelicals, in fertility and in rates of homeschooling, except who also drink.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The trouble is that "Catholics" is just too broad a term...<<<

All too true. When someone says they're Catholic, it often means that they had an Irish or Italian grandmother.

>>>The mass attendance rate is about 30%, or so I'm told. If you look at regular mass attenders, I suspect fertility is way higher than 2.1<<<

Speaking from my little Ruthenian shtetle, I'd say this is correct. Among the 100 or so families that regularly attend, most have three or more children, and a quarter have four or more. There are 150 kids ages 4-18 in our School of Religion, from a total parish membership of about 450. Once you subtract the single adults, you're left with some pretty big families. Our two biggest have eight and six, respectively. Within a year, I'm expecting them to add two more.

[Another Janet]

There's another, more favorable article about this topic in Newseek here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15701301/site/newsweek/

With regards to GL's question about Evangelicals having more children than Catholics, the article above suggests that part of the Evangelical move against contraception comes from the influence of Catholics who increasing work with Evangelicals in common causes.

If you look at homeschooling Catholics, you'll see the same trend towards large families. Most of these Evangelicals homeschool also. I don't know which trend precedes the other, but there's certainly a connection.

AMDG,
Janet

[Gene Godbold]

I suspect that the connection might have something to do with fidelity to a common Leader.

[GL]

Another Janet,

Thanks for the link to the Newsweek article. It was a much more positive take on the issue. One quote from one of the quiverfull proponents concerned me: "'You shouldn’t be unnatural in going to a fertility clinic or in trying to avoid having children by regulating when to have sex with your husband,' says Pride."

My wife and I did receive fertility treatment, but not IVF. My wife had a same day surgical procedure to repair a problem that the doctor thought might be preventing conception. We conceived not long afterwards. I don't see such treatment as unnatural, but an appropriate use of medical science. From the quote, I am not sure if her concern was IVF and other reproductive technologies only or if she would include any type of treatment. If the latter is the case, I believe that goes too far. If the former, then I concur with her concerns.

As an aside, unfortunately, while reading the article to which Another Janet provided the URL, I noted that South Africa has approved gay marriage.

[luthien]

>>>She “will stay under my covering until I turn her over in marriage to a God-honoring young man,” he says.<<<
Now that quote did really bug me-is my dad a bad father for letting me study abroad and for not wanting to keep me at home until I'm married?

GL, that quote about infertility treatments was definitely too extreme-and pretty unloving, too! I also find her condemnation of NFP to be a bit much.

[Ethan Cordray]

I would hope to find my daughters trustworthy enough to leave my house before their marriages. Seems like the sort of thing that ought to separate us from the Islamists.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>She “will stay under my covering until I turn her over in marriage to a God-honoring young man,” he says.<<<

Sounds like someone thinks he's a Roman paterfamilias who has manus over all the women in his household, and who believes a woman always must be under the manus of some adult male. Does his manus extend to all the other members of his family, including his adult sons? Does he believe he can exercise the power of life and death over all those under his manus?

[GL]

Sounds like someone thinks he's a Roman paterfamilias who has manus over all the women in his household, and who believes a woman always must be under the manus of some adult male. Does his manus extend to all the other members of his family, including his adult sons? Does he believe he can exercise the power of life and death over all those under his manus?

And, of course, the media selects folks like this to paint a distorted image of what people who forego contraception are like. God forbid that they select someone like Gene, who is very well educated, has a career, is rational and is the loving father of seven. That wouldn't allow their readers to come to believe that only Kentucky and Arkansas rednecks, with domineering husbands and fathers and weak-willed, psychologically abused wives and mothers could possibly believe that a house full of children is a blessing.

I would hold up Russell Moore, but he was reared in Mississippi (strike one), lives in Kentucky (strike two) and is Southern Baptist (strike three). Thus he would be painted as an educated redneck, with emphasis on redneck. And the fact that he likes country music (the real stuff, not the majority of the sound coming out of Nashville today) would certainly be highlighted as well.

[James A. Altena]

Does country music really qualify as music, or would it make Beethoven thankful for deafness? :-)

[Gene Godbold]

Dear GL,
I'm afraid I caught a grievous mis-spelling in your above post. There's no "v", "i", or "g" in "loony".

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Does country music really qualify as music, or would it make Beethoven thankful for deafness? :-)<<<

Come, now, James. No need to be snobby. You should know that country music (real country music, not that crossover drivel) has deep roots in the Anglo-Celtic folk tradition (indeed, musicologists have found that more authentic forms of many old English, Scottish and Irish ballads survived in the American backwoods than in the home country, because they remained "folk" and "uncorrected" by trained musicians). There's a direct line between bards like Turloch O'Carolan and today's country music.

Beethoven, for his part, looked to the German folk music tradition for much of his inspiration (Six German Contradances, Creatures of Prometheus, Pastoral Symphony) and even Russian folk music (Razamovsky Quartet). But in that he was only following the example of Mozart, Haydn and even Bach and Handel. Back in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, composers based Masses on popular folk tunes. Heck, half the hymnody of the Carpatho-Rusyn Church is essentially "folk" music dating to the 15th century or even earlier.

Classical music goes astray when it becomes too "academic", divorced from the music of the people. It looses its relevance and becomes incestuous and self-referential, which may win the plaudits of other "serious" composers, but doesn't attract an audience of paying customers.

[GL]

So that no one will think I am putting down Russell Moore, let me state that I was reared in the Mississippi Delta region of Southeast Missouri, now live in Tennessee (the cultural capital of redneck -- though in Memphis we bill ourselves as the "Home of the Blues and the Birthplace of Rock n' Roll"), and was a Southern Baptist most of my adult life. And I also like country music (the real stuff, not what passes as country today).

James,

You really ought to listen to some genuine country and bluegrass. Those genres have there own merits.

Gene,

You may be looney, but I bet you are also loving.

[Bill R]

When I was a radio disk jockey (alas, more than a few years ago), we referred to it as "country AND WESTERN" music. So when did the states west of the Mississippi lose the right to assert that theirs is the true folk music of America?

[Judy Warner]

Turloch O'Carolan was farther from the folk tradition than any other bard. He visited Italy, heard Vivaldi, and his music was greatly influenced by Vivaldi and other baroque composers. Of course, it was influenced by his Irish heritage too, but he's not "pure" in the way that American backwoods music was pure.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Turloch O'Carolan was farther from the folk tradition than any other bard. He visited Italy, heard Vivaldi, and his music was greatly influenced by Vivaldi and other baroque composers. Of course, it was influenced by his Irish heritage too, but he's not "pure" in the way that American backwoods music was pure.<<<

I'll have to tell Younger Daughter the harpist about this. Of course, there was always cross-fertilization not only across national borders, but also between the "folk" tradition and "composed" music. The traffic runs in all directions.

[Judy Warner]

Stuart,
Tell her too, if she doesn't know, that much of O'Carolan's work was burned by a jealous brother after his death. I mourn that almost as much as I mourn all the lost works of Bach.

[luthien]

Turlough O'Carolan went to Italy? I'd never heard that before-although I am well aware that he was strongly influenced by baroque music. His Concerto especially reveals the Italian influence. I'm a celtic harper...it's one of my favotire pieces to play-the musical equivalent of pink sparkling wine, if there is such a thing:)

Mr. Koehl, what kind of harp does your daughter play?

[Ethan Cordray]

I think I've figured out why exactly I don't like contemporary "country" music, especially given my delight in such true artists as Gillian Welch, Ralph Stanley, and all things traditionally Celtic [shameless plug for the Tannahill Weavers, my favorite Scottish band].

It's that it isn't really country music. Nashville is a city. "Country" artists today use studio production and amplification equipment that just isn't from the country.

Now, this by itself isn't enough to make me dislike a musical style. I'm just as big a fan of such studio wizards as Radiohead, Pink Floyd and the Beatles as I am of purely trad stuff.

It's the juxtaposition of citified style into what purports to be authentic, traditional, or "people's" music that bothers me. Contemporary "country" music is just rock and roll gone slumming. It's retained the superficial elements of traditional music (schmaltzy lyrics, simple song structure, guitars and fiddles) while cutting off the roots of those elements (close contact with true suffering, instrumentation designed to sound good live and unamplified).

Well, when the next cataclysm comes, fiddlers and banjo pickers will still be employable, while studio producers will have to learn to farm.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Mr. Koehl, what kind of harp does your daughter play?<<<

Started with a Lyon & Healey Folk Harp, now using a Camac Clio--a really sweet harp, by a French company. About half of the instrument is carbon-graphite composite, and the pedals are linked to the wheels by cables, not pushrods. Very easy to register, holds its tune a lot better than all-wood harps, good tone.

[Judy Warner]

Stuart,
The harp sounds beautiful. I play hammered dulcimer. I like O'Carolan and other celtic stuff very much and play that at home, but otherwise I mainly play in church (quite amateurishly). Does your daughter perform?

[Ethan Cordray]

Judy, I wish we had a hammered dulcimer player in my church. I'm a mountain dulcimer player myself. It's fun, but it's hard to play a modal instrument like that in an ensemble (only, like, 2 keys available without retuning).

[Judy Warner]

A hammered dulcimer is pretty hard to play in most keys; outside of C, G, D, and A the accidentals you need are off in the corners of the instrument. I often play along with the organist for the hymns. If the hymn is in a key that's difficult for me, she can adjust it so she's playing in a better key. (That's because it's a Clavinova -- I thought it was a curse but it's good for things like that.) We also have a recorder/flute trio; we play at special times.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>> Does your daughter perform?<<<

She began playing with her school's Middle School Orchestra when she was in 4th grade, and has played with them every year since (she's not in the orchestra, she's in chorus, but the orchestra director drafts her to play). This year, they're giving her a solo piece at the spring concert. She has also played at several harp fests in the past few years. This summer, she got her first paying gig, at an art gallery opening. The realization that she could get paid--and paid well--to play has worked wonders for her practice habits and yielded a quantum leap in proficiency. We figure if she can do about three or four paid appearances per year, plus recitals, concerts, etc., she'll be quite used to performing by the time she gets into high school.

[Lawrence]

Mr. Moore - you're "spot on." The severe population decline in Russia has been immeasurably worsened by virtue of the fact that women there have used state financed abortions as a means of birth control. By 1980 Russian women of the age 39 years had experienced 6 abortions apiece and no live births. With the loss of life in WWII Russia now loses a city of 750,000 population each year. No wonder Mr. Putin is offering cash incentives for women to give birth. The population of Russia is now 140 million - down 90 million from the close of WWII. Lawrence B-Bend OR

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The severe population decline in Russia has been immeasurably worsened by virtue of the fact that women there have used state financed abortions as a means of birth control.<<<

Don't overlook the rampant alcoholism that has reduced male life expectancy below 59 years--about what it was in 1930. No kids plus high death rate = population implosion.

However, there is some hope that the younger generation is becoming spiritually revitalized, which may lead to a recovery in the next 5-10 years.

[Scott Walker]

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of Russian fertility stats according to religion. My guess, FWIW, is that the devout among the Orthodox are making many more babies than the general population. Anybody have evidence to either support or demolish my intuition?

[harrumph]

What's wrong with a young woman staying at home until she marries? I continue to fail to understand how the conservative religious mind expects young men and young women to follow essentially the same life path until parenthood - college prepartory study, dorm life, job, residence in independent household, dating/courtship under no authority - but then expects the young woman, who has been treated exactly the same as her husband up to this point, to magically morph into someone who is happy to subordinate herself totally to the care of her children, while the young man continues in the path of the entire education and early career of both. It didn't work the last time it was tried (see Friedan) and Higher Education of Women 2.0 - This Time, It's Universal! - isn't going to work either. If you want happy homeschooling mommies, you have to nurture the domestic inclinations of young girls. Only girls who show a strong desire to move away from their father's home and pursue an independent life should be encouraged to do so; it should not be the norm and their should be no shame or ridicule attached to the idea that a young girl's main study is preparation for marriage. To head off my critics, I will add that part of that preparation ought to be the establishment of a home-based business.

Moreover, I expect that I am the only woman in this discussion who has the experience of living outside of masculine protection recently. It's not pleasant.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>It would be interesting to see a breakdown of Russian fertility stats according to religion. My guess, FWIW, is that the devout among the Orthodox are making many more babies than the general population. Anybody have evidence to either support or demolish my intuition?<<<

Other than my own personal observations, no. I don't know if anyone has done a systematic survey.

[Judy Warner]

What's wrong with a young woman staying at home until she marries?

Thank you for this post, Harrumph. This is something I have thought about, since my daughter will graduate from college next year and has no prospects of marriage yet. She is homesick all the time, not in a way that interferes with her studies, but she wants to be at home. In fact, she may spend the next semester at a local college because she couldn't get the courses she wanted at the one she attends, and she is thrilled at the idea of being at home. I have had some trouble with this because in my generation, and particularly in my radical family, the whole purpose of growing up was to become independent and leave your family. My daughter's homesickness is considered a bit peculiar by them. As in so many areas, it took this particular child and her unique temperament to show me that this is wrong. In my family it would have been considered a sign of defectiveness to live at home after college. (Not that I had the choice, since my parents split up in my freshman year and my mother moved away in my senior year -- a trauma that took many years to recover from.) But I can see that there is nothing wrong with my daughter -- this is just how she is, and I like the closeness we have which is very different from the relationships in my childhood family.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>What's wrong with a young woman staying at home until she marries?<<<

There was nothing wrong with it when a woman's options in life were limited to wife and mother on the one hand, or monastic on the other. Nor was there any problem when marriages were arranged and girls wedded at sixteen. Nor when the economic focus of the family was a household business (usually a farm), where an additional set of hands was a valuable asset.

Now, of course, the situation has changed significantly, and pretending that one can simply will the clock backwards two hundred years won't change anything.

Furthermore, the Christian ideal rejects the idea that women must be under manus, since men and women are ontologically equal before God, and thus both are equally free agents. Once a woman reaches the age of majority, we cannot compel her to stay at home. Christianity also rejects the concept of compulsion in marriage, a sacrament entered into freely by both parties, so we can't simply marry her off at first opportunity.

So, if a woman reaches the age of 18 and wants to leave home, you cannot stop her. If she wants to stay, in keeping with the old custom, then she must needs make a valuable contribtion to the household. Spinning and weaving have limited utility; few people have cows, goats and chickens that need tending. Making an economic contribution (and remember, the word "economy" originally meant "household management", then she needs a marketable skill. Which she can only get by going outside of the home.

Instead of worrying about how to keep girls at home, worry more about teaching them to make the right choices when they are out of the home.

[Judy Warner]

Stuart, there is a lot of ground between the Quiverful ladies and the totally independent modern women who leave their families physically, economically, and emotionally. I don't like either extreme, but there are many acceptable places on the spectrum. I think it's important to let young women know that they don't have to live up to -- or down to -- the current fashion of total independence. A woman can develop a marketable skill while living at home -- she can go out and work and come home every day as her parents do, thus remaining part of the family household. I have read about young people who do this but in an infantile position, expecting their mothers to do their laundry, clean up for them, and so forth. Such a person should be kicked out forthwith. But a young person who takes part in the household economy (the chores, etc.) while also working and contributing financially is learning valuable skills for the future.

[James A. Altena]

"Come, now, James. No need to be snobby."

Stuart, of all people, accuses moi of being snobby??? (Miss Piggy bats her eyelashes) :-)

I am well aware of all that you say, Stuart. Of course, folk music is the original root of classical music -- though the latter takes the raw material of the former and refines it into high art. And I agree that much 20th c. classical music is neurotically diseased by its abandonment of this connection for purely abstract theoretical systems -- though my favorie living composer is Krystoph Penderecki. (Cf. Hindemith's blunt criticisms of the 12-tone composers in his Norton Lectures.)

To your list of composers who were inspired by and utilizied folk music let's add a pantheon of Slavic composers (Dvorak, Smetana, Tchaikovsky, "the Mighty Five", etc.), Enescu, Bartok, Kodaly, Grieg, Britten, Vaughan Williams (a composer I particularly adore), Albeniz, Brahms, Mahler, Hindemith, etc., etc.

(The AOC Priest who put together the "Western Rite" hymnal proudly informed me that he intentionally excluded all hymn tunes drawn from folk music because those tunes were of "secular" origin. Flipping thourgh the hymnal, I soon saw that what it really meant was that he only excluded anything by Vaughan Williams. Sigh....)

Ethan's post is dead on target. I love authentic folk music, particularly from the British Isles and Germany, when performed either with uncorrupted simplicity, or else with the fine polish of a trained classical artist such as counter-tenor Andreas Scholl. I am also very fond of Negro spirituals -- again, when performed in 4-part a capella harmony, or by artists such as Marian Anderson or Leontyne Price, not the souped-up ruined versions with orchestral or jazz accompaniments that one so often encounters.

GL, I have a priest friend who is an ardent collector of authentic country and blues music. He lent me a collection of such pieces to listen to (some of the recordings dating back to the 1930s -- the sound quality being no obstacle to someone whose favorite recording of Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette" is an acoustic set dating from 1912.) Sorry, but I can only say -- Ugghhh.... (It calls to mind Charles Baudelaire's comment on Richard Wagner: "I love Wagner -- but the music I prefer is that of a cat hanging upside down by its tail outside my window, trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws.")

And now to really put my foot in it --

Despite a residual fondness for Louis Armstrong as a personality, I treasure the following quote from an unidentified 1920s music critic: "Jazz is music invented by idiots for the torture of imbeciles." (Less pugnaciously, my musical hero Bruno Walter, in a filmed interview at his Beverly Hills home c. 1960, makes the apt and perceptive analogy that jazz is to classical music what comic book illustration is to great painting. It does involves a certain skill and imagination, but is crude, garish, and in no way comparable to true art in form or content.)

As for rock, pop, rap, disco, etc., I refuse even to term it music -- it is spiritually evil, soul-corrupting, Satanic noise from the very bowels of Hell, and I mean that in all seriousness.

Too few people take seriously the fact that music per se, apart from any words, is an autonomous language, with its own grammar, spelling, syntax, punctuation, etc., in the form of rhythm, melody, harmony, instrumentation, etc. As such, it has an intrinsic moral and spiritual content for good or ill; as the fathers recognized, it has the power to shape souls for or against God at a level far more subtle than speech. It is a spiritually dangerous error to regard music as mere entertainment. We should no more listen to frivilous or debased music than we should spend our time reading trashy pulp novels or scanning "skin" magazines, feeding what C. S. Lewis termed "the natural man's instinctive hatred of excellence."

If this be snobbery, then make the most of it!

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, there is a lot of ground between the Quiverful ladies and the totally independent modern women who leave their families physically, economically, and emotionally. <<<

Of course there is. But let us remember that a certain percentage of women have always gone off on their own, and a good many severed (or had severed for them) ties to their families. We build in our minds a stereotypical image of the past, but comforting as that image might be, we must always remember that it really isn't the historical truth. Women began leaving their homes as early as the late 18th century, to work in factories and mills, simply because there was no future in remaining at home. Before then, women with limited prospects left home for more dubious means of making a livelihood. Try looking at cities like London or Paris in the 17th and 18th centuries. Or try looking at places like Thailand today.

>>>I don't like either extreme, but there are many acceptable places on the spectrum. I think it's important to let young women know that they don't have to live up to -- or down to -- the current fashion of total independence.<<<

Well, the real meaning of choice or freedom is being able to do what YOU want to do, not what anyone else wants you to do. I remember back in the '60s, when I was a mere 'tween, hearing all the slightly older kids saying, "Do your own thing, man!" I had to point out that I WAS doing MY thing, but that they were doing the SAME thing as everybody else. Recently, the daughter of an early feminist told her mother that she was quitting her job to have and raise children. Her mother blew a gasket. "Mom, I thought feminism was all about women having a choice", she said. "It is!", her mother shrieked, "But not THAT choice!"

>>>A woman can develop a marketable skill while living at home -- she can go out and work and come home every day as her parents do, thus remaining part of the family household.<<<

Many can. It's a matter of aptitude. Other women are definitely going to have to leave the home to acquire the education and skills needed to do what they want to do. The days when one could be a successful autodidact are pretty much over. And then, there is the question of where the work is. In Europe, most people live and die within 50 km of the place where they were born. They do not move. One reason why unemployment in Europe is 2.5 times higher than it is here. Americans are mobile, and always have been. Households have been uprooting themselves to find greener pastures since the first settlers stepped ashore at Jamestown. It's what defines us as a people.

>>>I have read about young people who do this but in an infantile position, expecting their mothers to do their laundry, clean up for them, and so forth. Such a person should be kicked out forthwith. <<<

My kids have been warned. They scrupulously do their chores. Nonetheless, when they're eighteen, they're off to school and we're redecorating their rooms. They can come back to visit, but part of being adult is being able to live on your own. We're working to equip them for that responsibility.

>>>But a young person who takes part in the household economy (the chores, etc.) while also working and contributing financially is learning valuable skills for the future.<<<

If they want. But I am not going to insist on it, and in fact will actively discourage them from returning to the nest, precisely because the household is no longer a self-contained economic unit.

[Joe Long]

"Now, of course, the situation has changed significantly, and pretending that one can simply will the clock backwards two hundred years won't change anything."

Come now, one hundred would do!

I am watching change in higher education with great interest, and I do wonder whether, as you say, leaving the home IS the most efficient way to gain skills that can make an economic contribution - nevermind the "only way", is traditional residential four-year college even a very GOOD way to do so?

I don't propose to keep my daughter home against her will - but if she takes up spinning or weaving, I do know where she can make pretty good money providing handmade goods to reenactors (turn the clock back 150 years, splitting the difference there). But some of the most demanded skills in our information economy are largely aquired at the computer keyboard, and there's one at home. Local colleges provide miseducation and credentials indistinguishable from ones further away, and I suspect the value of those credentials will continue to erode in any case. Her staying home until marriage - and spending every bit of that time becoming more educated and more capable - looks like a perfectly legitimate option to me, and I hope that by that time she identifies more with our assorted nonconformist homeschool peers than with whatever the standard template is for the other young women of her generation.

[David Gray]

>Now, of course, the situation has changed significantly, and pretending that one can simply will the clock backwards two hundred years won't change anything.

Boy that straw man sure had the living daylights kicked out of it...

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I am watching change in higher education with great interest, and I do wonder whether, as you say, leaving the home IS the most efficient way to gain skills that can make an economic contribution - nevermind the "only way", is traditional residential four-year college even a very GOOD way to do so?<<<

Depends on which college, on which student, and what you want to learn there. I submit that those wishing to pursue the hard sciences will be hard pressed to buy all that lab equipment and install it in their basements, that those wishing to study foreign languages will have difficulties finding enough dialogue partners to master oral skills, that those who wish to learn music from a master must go to the master, and so forth.

Moreover, at all times and places, from the Athenian Academy of the 5th century BC to Harvard University today, what you get out of a university education is proportional to what you put into it.

>>>But some of the most demanded skills in our information economy are largely aquired at the computer keyboard, and there's one at home.<<<

You'd like to think that, but we're nowhere near there, yet. I'm not sure when we will be there. As a pedagogical tool, the computer is vastly overrated.

>>>Her staying home until marriage - and spending every bit of that time becoming more educated and more capable - looks like a perfectly legitimate option to me, and I hope that by that time she identifies more with our assorted nonconformist homeschool peers than with whatever the standard template is for the other young women of her generation.<<<

i know and like a lot of home-schooled kids. Most of them are great. But it is a great error to treat home schoolers as an homogeneous group, especially since parents who home school do so for range of motives. Based on what I've seen just at one local youth theater group run exclusively by homeschoolers, you've got Evangelicals (some of a distinctly fundamentalist kind) and traditionalist Catholics at one end, hippies manque, "artsie" types, and bobos at the other (with "Crunchy Cons" somewhere in there, too). I think you would find that, aside from not liking he public or private school systems, that there is little on which these people can agree, and that some of their attitudes are entirely antithetical. A Baptist homeschooler whose parents value chastity, obedience, and faith are not going to be going to the same functions as a homeschooler whose parents are into free love, altered consciousness, and civil disobedience.

As to who is the non-conformist in that bunch, I leave that up to you.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Boy that straw man sure had the living daylights kicked out of it...<<<

I prefer to burn my straw men, but it's been raining all day, and the poor guy's all soggy and hard to light.

[Joe Long]

"But it is a great error to treat home schoolers as an homogeneous group, especially since parents who home school do so for range of motives."

Why, certainly; that was more my point, really, that she's not going to take any template for granted, rather than that she should "do the same as" other homeschoolers. I think it's quite fair to say that homeschooling for ANY reason is a pretty independent move, for as you say, "there is little on which these people can agree, and... some of their attitudes are entirely antithetical".

She may well have goals which can only be satisfied in a university environment, such as those you mention. If so, great. Sending all kids to college, though, will no longer be the "default setting" as distance education options improve and - as seems likely to me - universities continue to decline.

[GL]

She may well have goals which can only be satisfied in a university environment, such as those you mention. If so, great. Sending all kids to college, though, will no longer be the "default setting" as distance education options improve and - as seems likely to me - universities continue to decline.

And as the cost of a college education becomes more and more out of the reach of the middle class. It will become more and more obvious to Americans that from a strictly financial standpoint there are better alternatives for some than going the traditional on-campus, in-a-classroom college route. Distant learning is certainly one of those options. It will not be best for everybody, but it will be for many. The accrediting bodies whose primary purpose appears to be to protect the status quo will not be able to stop this train. If they stand in the way, they will get run over.

[Bill R]

I take a moderate position on children living at home after college (a circumstance I'm actually living through now). Our daughter graduated last year and came home to live for a year to get her feet on the ground. She helped with chores and seemed generally happy, but moved out into her own apartment after a year. My son graduated this year and also moved home, but hopes to move out even sooner (after Christmas, he says). In each case, home allows a brief period of transition without undue stress and strain while adapting to the "real world" of work and adult responsibilities.

[Ethan Cordray]

Speaking for myself, and as a man, I've found living with my parents after college to be an overall good experience. Doing chores, cooking, and cleaning are good preparation for independent householding, though I'm finding my lack of steady out-of-home employment rather enervating (a situation I'm trying to rectify).

I do consider my current arrangement "temporary," though for me that means likely several years, until I either finish grad school or find a wife. That said, I hope that once I do have a household of my own, when my parents are old enough to need care, they'll be willing to live with me and mine.

Stuart, "uprooting...to find greener pastures" may define us as a people, but that doesn't make it a good thing (even if it may be "good for the economy," which I suspect will be a temporary state of affairs). I've had too much uprooting in my life already. I don't have much of the pioneer spirit in my soul. I'd like nothing better than to live in the same place for the rest of my life, and to truly care for and cultivate that place.

Also, maybe "the household is no longer a self-contained economic unit" because no one tries to make it one any more. I suspect that those who do try to focus more on household independence will better weather the shocks of the coming decades.

[Bill R]

"That said, I hope that once I do have a household of my own, when my parents are old enough to need care, they'll be willing to live with me and mine."

Well, God bless you, Ethan. It's rare these days to hear this.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, "uprooting...to find greener pastures" may define us as a people, but that doesn't make it a good thing (even if it may be "good for the economy," which I suspect will be a temporary state of affairs).<<<

It's not only a good thing, it is a great thing, since it means we are not bound to any one place, nor are we defined by blood or geography, but by belief in a common ideal.

>>>Also, maybe "the household is no longer a self-contained economic unit" because no one tries to make it one any more. I suspect that those who do try to focus more on household independence will better weather the shocks of the coming decades.<<<

I suggest you give it a try. Next time they have auditions for "Frontier House", perhaps.

[James A. Altena]

Dear Stuart,

My observation, which I suspect many others here share, is that those who do not put down roots in some place are also not rooted in or to any belief either (except in themselves). Ever hear of "church-hoppers"?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Dear Stuart,

My observation, which I suspect many others here share, is that those who do not put down roots in some place are also not rooted in or to any belief either (except in themselves). Ever hear of "church-hoppers"?<<<

Indeed I have. But there is a difference between leaving where you are to put down roots elsewhere, and being the proverbial "Wandering Jew". A child leaves his home to find a new place, a place that is not that of his father, but a place which he will make his own. Americans have been doing that from the beginning. Had they not, we would be called "Englishmen".

[Harrumph]

Whatever, Stuart. You're not a woman, and therefore you've never had a threatening stalker. Nubile women out on their own for no good reason is a stupid way to run a culture. There's a long list of good reasons, but given that most conservative religious women are going to spend most of their adult lives raising children and caring for husband and elders, most of those reasons (scholarship, musical training, medical training for example) don't apply. We've normalized the insane stress a woman has to put herself through to live as a bachelor so much that we don't even see it. Young men don't fear rape. Young women do, *with reason.* If we really want young women to have a period of living away from their families before marriage, I guess you could put them in residential hotels with big burly doormen. But get ready to have doormen for sons-in-law.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>You're not a woman, and therefore you've never had a threatening stalker.<<<

Men get stalked, too.

>>>Nubile women out on their own for no good reason is a stupid way to run a culture.<<<

So we should build a "terem" onto our house?

>>>There's a long list of good reasons, but given that most conservative religious women are going to spend most of their adult lives raising children and caring for husband and elders, most of those reasons (scholarship, musical training, medical training for example) don't apply.<<<

I think it mildly presumptuous for you to say what conservative religious women are going to do with their lives.

>>> We've normalized the insane stress a woman has to put herself through to live as a bachelor so much that we don't even see it. <<<

You seem to ignore all the stress that women faced back in the "good old days" when they stayed close to home.

>>>Young men don't fear rape. Young women do, *with reason.*<<<

Women were never raped before they started leaving the home? I will remind you that rape is far more prevalent in societies where your model still prevails, in part because women there are generally treated as chattel, and also because such societies, being prone to endemic violence on a scale you would find unimaginable, see rape as an extension of power politics.

>>>If we really want young women to have a period of living away from their families before marriage, I guess you could put them in residential hotels with big burly doormen. But get ready to have doormen for sons-in-law.<<<

I'm glad you have such a low opinion of women.

And now I will remind you that Jesus did not insist women remain in the home while the men went out to plow in the fields of the Lord. Rather, he instructed everyone, regardless of sex, to drop everything and follow Him. Among his followers were many unattached women, which was an occasion of grave scandal to the Jewish authorities of his day; apparently, it scandalizes you as well. Paul's letters recognize the presence of a number of women of independent means who serve as patrons of the Church, and others who serve in various ministries. The early Church was notorious for giving women options other than marriage or prostitution--it's emphasis on the virtues of virginity, on the inherent value of a woman in society not dependent on a relationship to a male, the rise of female monastics, the invalubale role played by unattached women as evangelists, teachers, prophets, confessors and martyrs, were all very "countercultural" in their day. For the sake of being "counter-culturalal", you seem to want to go back to the model of society held by the pagans. That in itself ought to be an advertisement for the triumph of Christian values--that which Christianity enabled is now so taken for granted that Christians no longer recognize it as their own.

Instead of rejecting it, why not try to recover it? Women alone in the world, serving through their various vocations as witnesses to Christ, can eminently strengthen the Church, whether these women eventually marry or remain married to their careers.

[Rob Grano]

'But there is a difference between leaving where you are to put down roots elsewhere, and being the proverbial "Wandering Jew". A child leaves his home to find a new place, a place that is not that of his father, but a place which he will make his own. Americans have been doing that from the beginning. Had they not, we would be called "Englishmen".'

Thing is, most of these folks aren't leaving to put down roots elsewhere; there is very much of a 'grass is greener' mentality present in their way of viewing things. They purposely do not want to put down roots in case a "better" opportunity arises. I can't remember the exact stats but I read recently that the average American under 35 moves every four years.

This is really nothing new, however. Cultural critics were noting the phenomenon of American 'rootlessness' as far back as the 1930's.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I can't remember the exact stats but I read recently that the average American under 35 moves every four years.<<<

That seems about right for the frontier days between 1775-1875. Maybe that's normal for us.

>>>This is really nothing new, however. Cultural critics were noting the phenomenon of American 'rootlessness' as far back as the 1930's.<<<

European intellectuals hate us for that. Of course, we all know what a good job European intellectuals have done in ordering their own societies.

[Rob Grano]

"That seems about right for the frontier days between 1775-1875. Maybe that's normal for us."

Except we're not pioneers anymore. As a matter of fact, one of those writers from the 30s (can't remember who) said something about us still being pioneers but forgetting about what the point of pioneering was -- to end up someplace.

[Gene Godbold]

Rob,
I think the point of moving for the pioneers was the find a decent living for the family in question. "Someplace" wasn't just "anyplace". Usually decent agricultural land was the key consideration. Now it's a decent job. The ambiguities in the definition of a "decent living" create the tension. I think it's a good thing that most of us have some flexibilty in deciding where we live.

I was driving around Reston, Virginia yesterday and was appalled by the ugly agglomerations of monstrously large, butt-ugly houses on next-to-nothing patches of grass within spitting distance of a major highway (I-66) and I thought that my soul would shrivel in such circumstances. But then I reflected that the people in question probably never heard the traffic in their hermetically sealed home and were content (in some fashion) sitting in the basement of their McMansion, gathered around the gargantuan screen TV, absorbing pablum. And I got to return to my warm household on five acres in rural central Virginia. Do I know something they don't? I think so, but I don't know where they came from--maybe the pablum-absorbing folks are escaping from coal-mining parents in West Virginia and their current existence looks peachy in comparison.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>> was driving around Reston, Virginia yesterday and was appalled by the ugly agglomerations of monstrously large, butt-ugly houses on next-to-nothing patches of grass within spitting distance of a major highway (I-66) and I thought that my soul would shrivel in such circumstances.<<<

"Tract Mansions"--one step down from "Starter Mansions", two steps down from "McMansions". Funny thing, though--the people who own them don't live in them, they just sleep in them, The rest of the time, they're at work, or driving the kids from place to place, or dining out, or being entertained, It does explain why there are no yards--who has time to mow?

>>>Do I know something they don't? I think so, but I don't know where they came from--maybe the pablum-absorbing folks are escaping from coal-mining parents in West Virginia and their current existence looks peachy in comparison.<<<

Take the people of my parish. They're mostly third or fourth generation, grandchildren or great-grandchildren of people who came over from the Carpathian mountains or Silesia, where they worked in coal mines and steel mills. Most of those people settled in eastern PA and the Pittsburg area, where they worked in coal mines and steel mills. They told their kids to work hard in school, get a good education, and then they wouldn't have to work in the mines or the mills. The kids listened, and when they got out of school, they discovered that there were no jobs for them in their little coal or steel towns, so they moved, and ended up here in Northern Virginia, where they work for the government, or government contractors, or the military, or for high tech companies. They know what it is to live in a small, ramshackle cottage perched on the side of a hill or down in a hollow (Watch "The Deerhunter"--its full of people just like that), and they did not want to live that way.

But few of them actually have "McMansions", fewer still live in hermetically sealed houses isolated from the world. Most are extremely involved in their Church, in their communities, and in the world at large. Most of the people who do live hermetically sealed lives in their tract mansions in fact are among the most stridently secular, non-religious people you could hope to meet. But how are they different, except in the quality of their vices, from trailer trash who spend their days with their feet up on the porch knocking back beers and smoking cigarettes?

In fact, and much to the chagrin of the Rod Drehers of the world, people living in ostensibly sterile suburbs in fact have more and better friendships, interpersonal contacts, and community involvement than do people living in the big city. As the study authors concluded, "Good fences really do make good neighbors".

[Gene Godbold]

Stuart,
Thanks for the correct to my mansion taxonomy. They looked right huge to me.

What study are you referring to? I've read some that discussed the outward-directedness of church-goers in comparison with their suburb-mates that came to similar conclusions.

Incidentally, my "hermetically sealed" comment was actually referring to Tyvek-covered houses which might not be so great for the immune system of kids growing up in them (unless you have some dogs or cats to bring the "outside" in).

[Rob Grano]

Stuart said: '"Tract Mansions"--one step down from "Starter Mansions", two steps down from "McMansions". Funny thing, though--the people who own them don't live in them, they just sleep in them, The rest of the time, they're at work, or driving the kids from place to place, or dining out, or being entertained, It does explain why there are no yards--who has time to mow?'

Exactly -- Dreher's complaining about the same thing, so why dis on him?

Gene said: 'The ambiguities in the definition of a "decent living" create the tension. I think it's a good thing that most of us have some flexibilty in deciding where we live.'

Agreed. But the main point of a 'decent living' nowadays seems to be the accumulation of more and more 'stuff,' which is usually stuff we don't need but that the commercial culture has convinced us that we can't live without. Witness the poor saps waiting outside in the rain and snow for the last three days for the latest video game device, which will be either sitting collecting dust or in the landfill two years from now (if it takes that long).

[Gene Godbold]

Rob,
Sure, but I've got hobbies that are probably equally incomprehensible to them:
1) Hermeneutics ("Was he on the Addam's Family?")
2) Gardening ("Oh, my grandmama used to do that.")
3) Wargaming ("So you just push those little tank-thingies [alternately Uruk-hai or Haradrim] over the board for three hours?")
4) Raising children ("Have you never heard of BC?")

I might think some people spend their resources foolishly and I might urge them to do otherwise if they are my friends, but for strangers? Best to live in a manner that honors Jesus (okay, maybe the wargaming doesn't, uh, exactly do that) and let the chips fall where they may.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>3) Wargaming ("So you just push those little tank-thingies [alternately Uruk-hai or Haradrim] over the board for three hours?")<<<

I prefer 25mm Seven Years War and Napoleonics. Got a pretty nice little army of Prussians and Frenchies.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Exactly -- Dreher's complaining about the same thing, so why dis on him?<<<

Because he elevates his aesthetic to a moral imperative. To Rod, live in the wrong house, wear the wrong clothes, eat the wrong food, drive the wrong car, and you are a bad person (or at least suspect). On the other hand, drive the right car, eat the right food, live in the right house, etc., and be numbered among the righteous. As I learned from South Park, smug is the leading cause of global laming, and Crunchy Conservatism is the smuggest thing I've read since George Clooney's Oscar speech.

[Rob Grano]

Gene -- I get your point about hobbies and such, but what I was commenting on was the idea that a 'decent living' is what Madison Ave. or LA tells us it is. That's the notion that I think we need to resist.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Agreed. But the main point of a 'decent living' nowadays seems to be the accumulation of more and more 'stuff,' which is usually stuff we don't need but that the commercial culture has convinced us that we can't live without. Witness the poor saps waiting outside in the rain and snow for the last three days for the latest video game device, which will be either sitting collecting dust or in the landfill two years from now (if it takes that long).<<<

Like people in 17th century Amsterdam lining up to get the latest tulip bulbs?

[Rob Grano]

"Because he elevates his aesthetic to a moral imperative." and "Crunchy Conservatism is the smuggest thing I've read since George Clooney's Oscar speech."

I wouldn't necessarily consider some of these lifestyle choices as an "aesthetic," but even so, I didn't find the book smug. Then again, I'm sure that I agree with him on more things than you do, so maybe that's why.

[Rob Grano]

"Like people in 17th century Amsterdam lining up to get the latest tulip bulbs?"

If it was 17th century Amsterdam's version of Madison Ave. telling them that they needed these NEW IMPROVED! tulip bulbs, and they fell for it, then yes, afraid so.