St. Darwin & No Kids

If St. Darwin (just kidding) read this story from Great Britain about not having kids, he'd be appalled. "That's no way to survive!" he'd say. And I'd have to agree with him 100 percent. (The irony is that those who don't believe in him--I'm sure of it!--have more children than those who do. Why don't they just use logic? Or maybe they don't care about survival of the species, but just their own enjoyment.)

Comments

[Tim]

The future dies with God.

[Stuart Koehl]

I actually saw lots of kids in Britain, just not in London. Get out into the country, go to the North, where Old England still lives, and you'll find very different people than in the rich, pampered Cool Britannia of London and the Home Counties.

[W.E.D. Godbold]

That's about the shallowest thing I have ever read.

[GL]

>>>Take 43-year-old . . . .<<<

She has plenty of time to change her mind. Judging whether deliberate childlessness was a good choice half-way through life is not the acid test.

>>>"Despite working full-time I spend lots of time doing things I like. I swim at least two mornings a week and play netball, which if I had children I could maybe still do, but not be able to sit in the pub afterwards - guilt-free."<<<

Oh, I should have read further before commenting. I can now see that she had important reasons for not wanting children. I mean, what's more important, having children to love or going swimming, playing net ball and sitting in the pub afterwards -- guilt-free to boot?

>>>There's nothing to say that those children you cared for and looked after are going to be there to do the same for you. And if they are, will they do it out of genuine love or just because that's what's expected?"<<<

That's right, those ungrateful kids whom you cared for with such love and devotion when you could have been swimming, playing net ball and sitting in the pub might just care for you out of a since of obligation without genuine love. It's hard to imagine how they might have come to be such ingrates. Why I bet the immigrants from North Africa who will be staffing the old age home and whom you rail against because "they're taking over and can't even be bothered to learn proper English, why they don't even appreciate a good game of net ball" will be caring for you out of genuine love and not just because they have to to get a paycheck.

>>>I just like my life and am not sure that a child would improve it - but I know it would change it."<<<

Good for you sister, no use being tied down by a crew of snotty-nosed kids who'll interfere with the good life. I mean if they won't improve your life, why who'd want to be stuck with the nuisance? You know that's kinda how it is with all those old folks as well. Who needs them either? They really interfere with a good morning swim.

"When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard 'having children' as a question of pro's and con's the great turning point has come. . . . When reasons have to be put forward at all in a question of life, life itself has become questionable." Oswald Spengler (1880-1936)

[Stuart Koehl]

One of the things we have to remember is Christianity, in contrast to other religions, including Judaism, does not solely value women for their fecundity. From its inception, Christianity provided alternative paths for women aside from wife and mother. Virgins were singled out for special recognition and status within the Church, as women who had consecrated their lives to Christ, and the Church in return took special care to look out for their welfare in a world where women really had to rely on men for protection.

Similarly, the Church also honored widows, whether they had children or not. Rather than encouraging them to remarry and fulfill their destiny through motherhood, widows were commended for remaining unmarried, and were accorded a status similar to that of virgins. Remarriage was definitely discouraged in their case--as it was for widowers, as well.

A bit later, monasticism opened yet another vocational path for women, and as many of them as men fled to the desert to seek God through a life of constant prayer in the wilderness. Women monastics, along with their male counterparts, fulfilled a vital role in the Church from the 4th century onward.

In none of these cases were women denigrated for not marrying and having children; quite the opposite. On the other hand, this was not because they were seen as giving up something, but because they were seen as taking up something better: a life devoted entirely to Christ, total living in Christ, a rejection of the world even for those who remained in the world.

In this, they differ from many of the childless women of our own day, who turned their backs on motherhood not in the service of God but in the service of the world. There were such women in late antiquity as well, but the Church did not honor them. A woman who turned her back on motherhood because she simply could not be inconvenienced was not considered the same as a woman who either could not have children through no fault of her own, or who forsook motherhood in the service of God.

The Church was always very clear: life presents people with two main vocational paths--marriage on the one hand, monasticism on the other. For most people, marriage is, by reason of inclination and nature, the right vocational path, a sacramental form of live of equal value to that of the monastic. And, while children are not the purpose of marriage, children are the fruit of marriage, the seal of the sacrament. Those who marry should intend to have children; to marry with no intention of having children (aside from the physical ability to have children) is to enter the Mystery under false pretenses.

Conversely, the Church teaches that children are to be conceived and raised within the boundaries of the sacrament of marriage, for the act of procreation is also an act of co-creation with God, whereby husband and wife demonstrate that they are partakers in the divine nature, for God is above all, the Creator. Therefore, the Church cannot approve of women who use artificial means to conceive children in the absence of a husband, nor of the conception and raising of children outside of marriage. Both of these actions remove the bearing of children from the Mystery of marriage, and reduce it to mere physical reproduction.

For all that, though, the Church does not believe the sins of the father (or mother) descend to the children, and does not hold children to be of less intrinsic worth because conceived outside of marriage. That does not mean, though, that the Church should pretend that bastardy is just one alternative among many. And it must be remembered that the Christ who said we should forgive our enemies seventy times seven and then again, is a font of never-ending mercy and forgiveness, and that a second chance is always open to those who sincerely repent and look for His mercy.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>"When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard 'having children' as a question of pro's and con's the great turning point has come. . . . When reasons have to be put forward at all in a question of life, life itself has become questionable." Oswald Spengler (1880-1936)<<<

Spengler was being polemic. Of course, highly cultivated people have always considered the pros and cons of having children--the more refined, the more they do. True of the Greeks, true of the Romans, true even of Christians for 2000 years. Mundane things like dowries, laws of inheritance, family finances, the political situation--all of these have contributed to decisions by the well-to-do whether to have children.

The common herd, too, considered the pros and cons of having children, though their concerns were more basic, like "Did the harvest come in and will we have enough food to eat?" When times were really bad, the peasants often resorted to post-natal family planning--or did you think Hansel and Gretel was made up out of whole cloth?

At the root, the decision to have children is a profound statement about one's view of the future. When people are optimistic about the future, they have more, and when they are pessimistic, they have fewer. This is why economic incentives aimed at boosting fertility (like child bonuses, subsidized or free day care, family leave, etc.) don't usually pan out: having children is a long-term decision, most incentives are short term and don't cover the perceived risk. That the U.S. fertility rate is as high as it is reflects our general societal optimism (note that the people most down on childbearing are also the ones who believe our society is fatally flawed). That Europe's is so low reflects their long-term pessimism.

It's always been much easier to stop people from having children than it is to get them to start up again. The Chinese are going to find out, very shortly, how true this is. But demographic declines are not irreversible, just not particularly responsive to overt and artificial government programs. Rather, fertility turns around when people think the future is bright and shiny.

Augustus decried the low fertility of the Roman elites, but Rome did not fall because of this. Rather, it continued to expand for another two centuries, and then maintained itself for two more. Its population declined mainly because of a series of pandemics that reduced its citizenry by at least a third, while continued wars and barbarian incursions caused (in the West) the kind of pessimism that depresses total fertility.

But elsewhere in the Empire, population continued to increase--particularly in Asia and the Middle East, at least until the second great plague under Justinian, and then the Persian Wars and the Muslim invasions, which cut population of the Eastern Empire at least by a third (not counting lost territory). But even there, the process reversed itself several times, matching the general fortunes of the Empire, with which the people identified. The process of population decline can look dramatic and irreversible in the short term, but history tells us that such things can by cyclic, and that it is the long term trends that need to be studied.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

A lot of secular liberals believe in neo-darwinian evolution (ably assisted by theistic evolutionists) and they believe in survival of the fittest. If an older couple who happen to be liberal atheists-in-practice have a pregnancy where they find out that the baby-to-be has Down Syndrome, chances are they'll abort the baby.

Here's an example of the mockery they have towards those opposed to evolution, I Miss My Mommy, a website devoted to ridiculing Sarah Palin's son Trig for having Down syndrome.

[Pedanticus]

I think Steve Hutchens' title above should read '... caudam suam ...'

[Susan Peterson]

Darwin himself had 14 children and one of them had Down's Syndrome, by the way.

Since Darwin lived on an estate called "The Downs" I have sometimes wondered if that is how Downs Syndrome was named. Probably it is just a coincidence.
Susan Peterson