If two only children get together and have one child, that child has no brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles or cousins. They are just one lonely leaf on a dying family tree, and it only takes two generations to happen. It's sad. Kids, and not jobs or wealth or experiences, are the true life givers to all involved.
We ought to *encourage* people to have children, and I suppose governments can offer tax incentives to couples who do (although there is a lot of debate about the effectiveness of pro-natal policy). However, we need to reckon with the fact that our birth rates are well below replacement levels, and we are not alone. Many developed countries are staring down the barrel of demographic decline, which portends major social/economic/political consequences (China's population is expected to halve by the end of this century). This is happening at varying speeds, but it's bad news for virtually everyone. I call it the curse of modernity; countries that develop and become rich paradoxically reduce the need for children (future workers) to sustain wealth building. The good news is that the US is well positioned to weather it if it can sustain sufficient levels of inbound migration.
Your family is beautiful & you should absolutely be blessed to have more children!
As a fellow millennial mom, agree with you that with the proliferation of smartphones/devices/internet addiction, many youth are focused on instant self-gratification, maximum comfort & unable to tolerate even small amounts of discomfort. With instant delivery of foods, products, etc, their lives are far too easy & comfortable, which actually leads to deep psychological distress, anxiety, depression, etc. Depression/anxiety is super high in youth & very low in elderly. Due to the excess social media & lack of in-person social interaction, lack of religion & community.
We keep our kids off social media & away from devices as much as possible. https://www.waituntil8th.org/ Raising children takes work, as does everything else that is worth pursuing. Children are life's greatest joy & bring a person lasting happiness & meaning in life, more than anything else including careers. And this is something you cannot understand until you have kids yourself.
This is what I don't get. The same people who slam this couple for their pro-natalism have no problem with non-whites having many children, often in single-parent households, and also don't bat an eyelash about pro athletes having ten kids with different baby mamas. Because to do that is considered racist. It's anti-white racism, pure and simple. It's also sexist. Men of any race who have multiple kids with different women are admired for spreading their seed, nobody derides them as "breeders." But when a couple does it, then it becomes somehow sinister.
The Left is not pro-choice. They are anti-birth. They don't want anyone, especially white people, having kids, but when they do they want to tell them how to raise those kids. What schools to send them to, what they should learn in school, how they should be medicated and disciplined. Because they own your kids, not you.
I couldn't possibly despise the Left more than I do.
Hahaha. I was talking to my dad about this, and his general position is that Americans will be fine not getting married, not having children, etc. because technology, AI, and immigrants will replace the need for marriage and children. Now, I should mention he reads the Washington Post.
Yeah white couples having lots of kids and sustaining the status quo is viewed as a threat. These people will criticize fellas chanting "You will not replace us" in one breath. Then, they'll talk about open borders, immigration, and generally wanting different demographics for Americans in the other. Then if you really dig deep, you'll learn they actually don't care whether rural small towns die out. Uh huh.
I think this couple is a bit nuts (cue the autism diagnosis). But the crowd viscerally attacking them online really does want fewer white Americans. No question.
There's a viral image of a white couple with their ten children in a line, each holding a number, and some of the comments are "This is eco-fascism."
I saw where there was an uproar at WaPo because they just brought in four white men to save that failing paper. The staff is having fits.
Yes, they'd love to do away with rural America and all the whites who vote Republican. I guess they haven't thought about where they would get their food.
It used to be normal in America for couples to have 4 to 6 children. I understand that's not always feasible anymore because of the costs involved.
By the way, autism doesn't mean you're nuts. Eccentric and quirky maybe. I have autism, and I suspect the wife in the story has high-functioning autism like I do. It's called the spectrum for a reason. The husband, who doesn't have autism, actually seems pretty intense to me. But I don't mind those qualities so much if you're promoting something positive.
Yeah, I can imagine some pretty big tears. What do you think about this IVF game the couple are playing? I'd think they'd also use egg freezing technology as well. Prolonging fertility past natural limits. Should we encourage people to make kids from actual sex?
What about ladies who prioritize their career and wait until they're 30? This couple waited until they were past 30. Will IVF and other fertility enhancements increase the risk of autism for children simply due to less biologically natural pairings? I'm not trying to be offensive, but from the little I know, autistic people are less likely to reproduce. Will/do autistic people rely more on fertility tech?
Like you say, that guy is intense and fairly combative, but his aggression is channeled into this philosophy of redirecting criticism. And, his parenting philosophy draws from all over the place. I'm wondering why he's broadcasting his personal life to everyone in the first place. I'm suspicious about all these social media influencers.
The article raises so many questions, and the focus is on whether having white kids makes you far right. So silly
I find this couple weird and all the “causes” they are chasing equally weird. I have a proposal for them. How about simply living your life, loving your children and doing the best you can to live a productive and good life? Instead of looking to change the world. World changers strike me as full-of-themselves, over educated people lacking in wisdom and life experience, who think they know best because they achieved academically. And want to impose what they read but never experienced in the real world on everyone else. I’m tired of elites who have no wisdom and no testing from experience wanting to impose their ideas on everyone else. To this couple and the other “elites”, please stop imposing your academic views on everyone else. Until you earn the wisdom from having lived your ideas and seen them through in practice, you actually have no idea what you’re talking about.
The author makes fair points re: reasons to achieve a 'replacement rate' of births. parent should have as many children as they want and can financially support.
However, when there are inevitably less jobs available due to technology/AI advancements, tax revenues to pay for infrastructure will decrease anyways. Except now, society will continue to have more mouths to feed and house with more households in poverty. Does not seem economically feasible.
Bravo, Malcolm! We only managed one child (we didn't even marry until we turned 40) and that required IVF. But we got a wonderful girl who has been a joy to raise. She's just finished her first year of college, still lives at home, and we couldn't be more proud.
I should have started earlier...like at age 21 or so... and had 10 kids. But you know, I was just a dumb kid myself at the time. Now, of course, I know different.
I mention children to every young, eligible person I meet. I tell them it's more fun, and more fulfilling, than any other hobby they will ever have. If you are a concert violinist, performing solo on stage at Carnegie Hall, in the final movement, with the audience paying rapt attention, the pinnacle of your career... this is nothing compared to that moment when they place your newborn infant in your hands for the first time. NOTHING!
By the way, these snide, holier-than-thou coastal elites full of contempt for someone who wants to bring new children into the world... do they reserve some of their bile for the people in Africa and the Middle East, where people still routinely have 6 or more children? I somehow doubt it.
Functional families are a foundational aspect of our culture. Just look at what ‘60’s urban renewal did to functional black families. That destruction has lead to a plague on our cities and criminal justice system.
I am troubled by having children as a way to join a club and make a statement. Childbirth is a miraculous event and should be considered as such. Nurturing and guiding the development of one’s children is one of the most commendable activities an adult can accomplish.
Childbirth and the development of one’s family is an end in itself, and should not be part of some type of protest.
Capitalism trains us to think of the group as a sum of individuals. When we think of "rights", we think of the way each individual should be treated. So when it comes to parenting, it's obviously a "choice" for any individual couple. There is no choice, however, for the MAJORITY of individuals in a society to have no children. There is NOTHING more absolutely essential than a significant majority of a society's citizens procreating. If not enough couples have children, then that civilization just vanishes.
I am the second of four kids. My mom said that she faced a lot of negative comments when she (on purpose) became pregnant again after having had a boy and a girl. My parents had to make decisions inherent to raising four children. For example, they decided to pay for piano lessons and bachelors degrees as opposed to international vacations and overnight summer camps. However, they now have 4 financially independent, full time employed children who plan time off around when the entire family, including significant others, can be together in a single location. I think all of us aspire to have children one day.
Does being pronatalist make you "far-right". I'm afraid so. But understand that "far-right" has no actual meaning. It is a pejorative used by the advocates of the elite center-left consensus to scare people away from any views that challenge that consensus. You are "far-right" if you have noticed that every fiqh of Islamic sharia is deeply illiberal and concluded that unfettered immigration to the West from the Muslim world is a bad idea. You are "far-right" if you have concerns about the efficacy and potential side-effects of mRNA vaccines. In Europe, you are "far-right" if you favor national sovereignty over diktats of the European Commission. So, since that consensus regards increasing the human population as "a threat to the planet", yes, merely being pro-natalist makes you "far-right".
Don't feel bad. I'm "far-right" on the first count of those I listed, and if I lived in Europe, I'd be "far-right" on the last as well.
I'm no pro-natalist, and think people should have only precisely as many children as they want, and no more, but this couple has some good ideas. The fact that a little smack on the cheek has so many people in this comment thread upset is a big reason why the idea of parenting is so off-putting to so many.
Honestly I don't understand how someone has the emotional fortitude to get up every day and live life for 8 decades if they find a little slap that stings for precisely five seconds to be so beyond the pale and shocking. It IS perfectly natural mammalian behavior for unruly youngsters, and would've been considered entirely ordinary for all of human history in every society that's ever existed, up till recently. Now we've decided it isn't okay...and are the kids turning out better? No, they're not, they're all on anxiety meds and have skyrocketing mental health issues and are traumatized by dealing with ordinary life.
This hysterical, over-wrought concern with raising children like they're made of glass, to be protected against even a few seconds of emotional or physical unpleasantness their whole lives, til they're sent out into a brutally competitive reality where truly no one GAF about them at age 18...is just insanity. As is the constant chauffeuring and the arranging play dates and letting them choose what to have for dinner and spending Saturday mornings watching and cheering 7 year olds play soccer, the travel sports...all activities truly in line with raising a child as a young prince or princess set to inherit the throne. No children outside of royalty were ever catered to in this manner. Except they aren't inheriting anything. They hit adulthood and find out they're just a peasant after all, no one is cheering them and no one is concerned with their preferences. No wonder they all go nuts and rebel against and reject everything in society.
So these two are weird and aesthetically off-putting, but at least they're trying to do something or make a change. The current course we're on is a disaster. Parents have made the way they do parenting so unappealing that larger numbers are choosing not to do it at all, or only with one, while the ones who do still do it are so caught up in this ultra-high investment and child-centered approach that they make it seem even more unachievable and more unappealing, and so the cycle continues.
Also, their hysteria about population is just that. Two hundred years is an eternity from now. We tripled world population in less than half that time. People subconsciously sense there are too many of us...too much traffic, too much competition, too much crowding, too much fighting over resources, because we all want the same nice views and access to nice things and we can't all have it. It's all supply and demand, and there are so many people now, they aren't valued. Population is still growing. If it starts to shrink to the point where people become under, rather than over supplied, demand will go back up for them and they'll be viewed as more valuable. That's how it works. You can double population in just 20 years if you want to, there's no crisis here. Though people should feel free to have as many kids as they want (or don't).
I am not sure you understand that the world is in much more danger of underpopulation than overpopulation. Yes of course the population is slowly increasing RIGHT NOW because the small age cohorts are younger than childbearing age. In twenty years, however, the population will flatline because this small cohort cannot produce enough children, even if THEIR birth rates are above 2.1.. At that point, we will be unable to arrest a declining population because of the lag between child bearing and procreation.
"unable to arrest". Really? People could just start having more kids again. It only takes ten years to double population, and women are fertile for THIRTY years of their life. There were billions less people just a few decades ago and it was fine. Population growth has gone down for periods and then increased again several times in history. Viewing a future decrease as being (1) in and of itself an unthinkable disaster, and (2) something that can't be addressed and dealt with in the future, only really makes sense for people who benefit from ponzi schemes.
A slowly decreasing population only negatively affects SOME economic issues, and it HELPS others. They only focus on the negatives. But ultimately it's all supply and demand. Sure, old people will have to pay more for services, for example. But young people will enjoy much higher wages. Everything is a trade-off.
If young people become so rare that they actually become valuable again (instead of like now where there are too many competing for houses and university slots they can't afford and jobs with wages lower than they should be), then people will adjust and start having more again. They aren't now because we are over-supplied with people and almost everyone but the die-hard pro-natalists recognizes that. Old people complaining they need more servants to take care of them, or being wistful about not having had more once they're done with the hard part (I'm sure they also wished they saved more money and spent less and all types of things easier said after the fact when the trade-off no longer has to be made, only enjoying the reward), isn't particularly convincing.
It's hard to go back and forth in a forum like this but I have a suggestion. Everything I would want to say on this subject can be understood by looking at the plight of South Korea. They are in an irreversible population decline right now. If you read in depth about South Korea and still don't agree about the irreversibility of their decline then I guess we can just agree to disagree. Thanks for engaging.
Pro-natal? Hurray! As one of nine children, I'm happy that my father was willing to go along with my mother's from-the-get-go desire to have babies. He had his limits though. When my mom - at age 40 - had twins (a surprise to both her and her OB at the delivery; this was in 1959 after all), the OB took him aside and told him - being Catholic not withstanding - he needed to get the snip.
That said, this couple present as wanting attention more than wanting children.
As to slapping the face of a 2YO - regardless if categorized as "light" or a "bop" - is just wrong. A swat on the butt to get attention of a toddler who is out of bounds, sure. But on the face? No.
Notably, this scenario is an interesting side-by-side to the image at the headline with one of his kids playing at garrotting his father. And when that kid plays at garrotting his 2YO sister? Or - less dramatically - when he thinks he needs to calm his screaming sister down with a (light?) slap to the face?
Everyone, please Google because there is a lot of information about this family even if you’re one who takes The Guardian with a grain of salt. They seemed to be framed here as simply people who want many kids and shouldn’t have to apologize to anyone. But they are…odd in many ways. If CPS is called more than once that’s a problem. If you smack your child in the face in public and wonder why it bothers people, that’s a problem. If you practice eugenics? Also a problem. I have no issue with people having as many children as they want even if they are “quiverfull.” I agree that the birth rate is falling in a way that could be alarming. But this couple seems to be having children in part for the own egos. Oh, and not to mention the kids names are just plain stupid.
From The Guardian Article “They’ve had the genomes of their frozen embryos tested and are selecting which ones to implant according to how well they score on intelligence and future health. They don’t just want a big family: they want an optimal one. Preimplantation genetic screening is unregulated in the US. There are several companies that will test embryos for the risks of certain conditions, including the Sam Altman-backed Genomic Prediction, which the Collinses used for health scores. For what they call “the controversial stuff” they took Genomic Prediction’s data and gave it to another team of scientists who claim to be able to predict everything from how likely it is that one embryo will be happier than another one to its future predicted income”
Thank you for the additional information. Yes the whole notion of choosing genetic characteristics like items in a catalog is uncomfortable for many of us but I would hesitate to call that "eugenics". This term I think should be reserved for the suppression of reproduction (particularly by others) rather than the selection of embryos by couples doing the procreation. To play devil's advocate, the procedure intrinsically involves embryonic selection so why is there a moral obligation to do it randomly? Embryonic screening becomes even more problematic in my view if it involves implantation of multiple embryos and then "selective reduction". This couple is selecting prior to implantation.
You’re right. Eugenics wasn’t the best choice of words. I think I read that somewhere else and it was stuck in my brain :-) And I don’t like hyperbole so thanks for calling me on that in a respectful way. Technology makes for a more complex world when it comes to ethics. I guess I’m bothered by the message “Have more kids!” which is a bit in contrast with their actual practice which is to have more of the right type kids. Although I concede that any parent in their financial situation might do the same.
Hm. Well I'd say that if YOU have to merely *read* about a light smack in the face...which left a toddler whimpering for less than 30 seconds and then was totally over it within a minute, and soon running around the restaurant wildly with zero concern or fear of the father, and think it's so shocking, that YOU have the problem. This incident would not have caused the slightest notice or been remotely outside the norm in an any society on earth through-out the entirety of human history, other than the past few decades in the west.
Most of our parents whooped our asses when we were kids, worse than what is described here. Most of us turned out alright. I don't advocate outright child abuse, but mild physical discipline is not the worst thing in the world. Raising coddled, over-indulged kids is worse.
This guy has 4 kids and that’s…news? I’m confused.
If two only children get together and have one child, that child has no brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles or cousins. They are just one lonely leaf on a dying family tree, and it only takes two generations to happen. It's sad. Kids, and not jobs or wealth or experiences, are the true life givers to all involved.
We ought to *encourage* people to have children, and I suppose governments can offer tax incentives to couples who do (although there is a lot of debate about the effectiveness of pro-natal policy). However, we need to reckon with the fact that our birth rates are well below replacement levels, and we are not alone. Many developed countries are staring down the barrel of demographic decline, which portends major social/economic/political consequences (China's population is expected to halve by the end of this century). This is happening at varying speeds, but it's bad news for virtually everyone. I call it the curse of modernity; countries that develop and become rich paradoxically reduce the need for children (future workers) to sustain wealth building. The good news is that the US is well positioned to weather it if it can sustain sufficient levels of inbound migration.
Your family is beautiful & you should absolutely be blessed to have more children!
As a fellow millennial mom, agree with you that with the proliferation of smartphones/devices/internet addiction, many youth are focused on instant self-gratification, maximum comfort & unable to tolerate even small amounts of discomfort. With instant delivery of foods, products, etc, their lives are far too easy & comfortable, which actually leads to deep psychological distress, anxiety, depression, etc. Depression/anxiety is super high in youth & very low in elderly. Due to the excess social media & lack of in-person social interaction, lack of religion & community.
We keep our kids off social media & away from devices as much as possible. https://www.waituntil8th.org/ Raising children takes work, as does everything else that is worth pursuing. Children are life's greatest joy & bring a person lasting happiness & meaning in life, more than anything else including careers. And this is something you cannot understand until you have kids yourself.
This is what I don't get. The same people who slam this couple for their pro-natalism have no problem with non-whites having many children, often in single-parent households, and also don't bat an eyelash about pro athletes having ten kids with different baby mamas. Because to do that is considered racist. It's anti-white racism, pure and simple. It's also sexist. Men of any race who have multiple kids with different women are admired for spreading their seed, nobody derides them as "breeders." But when a couple does it, then it becomes somehow sinister.
The Left is not pro-choice. They are anti-birth. They don't want anyone, especially white people, having kids, but when they do they want to tell them how to raise those kids. What schools to send them to, what they should learn in school, how they should be medicated and disciplined. Because they own your kids, not you.
I couldn't possibly despise the Left more than I do.
Hahaha. I was talking to my dad about this, and his general position is that Americans will be fine not getting married, not having children, etc. because technology, AI, and immigrants will replace the need for marriage and children. Now, I should mention he reads the Washington Post.
Yeah white couples having lots of kids and sustaining the status quo is viewed as a threat. These people will criticize fellas chanting "You will not replace us" in one breath. Then, they'll talk about open borders, immigration, and generally wanting different demographics for Americans in the other. Then if you really dig deep, you'll learn they actually don't care whether rural small towns die out. Uh huh.
I think this couple is a bit nuts (cue the autism diagnosis). But the crowd viscerally attacking them online really does want fewer white Americans. No question.
There's a viral image of a white couple with their ten children in a line, each holding a number, and some of the comments are "This is eco-fascism."
I saw where there was an uproar at WaPo because they just brought in four white men to save that failing paper. The staff is having fits.
Yes, they'd love to do away with rural America and all the whites who vote Republican. I guess they haven't thought about where they would get their food.
It used to be normal in America for couples to have 4 to 6 children. I understand that's not always feasible anymore because of the costs involved.
By the way, autism doesn't mean you're nuts. Eccentric and quirky maybe. I have autism, and I suspect the wife in the story has high-functioning autism like I do. It's called the spectrum for a reason. The husband, who doesn't have autism, actually seems pretty intense to me. But I don't mind those qualities so much if you're promoting something positive.
Yeah, I can imagine some pretty big tears. What do you think about this IVF game the couple are playing? I'd think they'd also use egg freezing technology as well. Prolonging fertility past natural limits. Should we encourage people to make kids from actual sex?
What about ladies who prioritize their career and wait until they're 30? This couple waited until they were past 30. Will IVF and other fertility enhancements increase the risk of autism for children simply due to less biologically natural pairings? I'm not trying to be offensive, but from the little I know, autistic people are less likely to reproduce. Will/do autistic people rely more on fertility tech?
Like you say, that guy is intense and fairly combative, but his aggression is channeled into this philosophy of redirecting criticism. And, his parenting philosophy draws from all over the place. I'm wondering why he's broadcasting his personal life to everyone in the first place. I'm suspicious about all these social media influencers.
The article raises so many questions, and the focus is on whether having white kids makes you far right. So silly
I find this couple weird and all the “causes” they are chasing equally weird. I have a proposal for them. How about simply living your life, loving your children and doing the best you can to live a productive and good life? Instead of looking to change the world. World changers strike me as full-of-themselves, over educated people lacking in wisdom and life experience, who think they know best because they achieved academically. And want to impose what they read but never experienced in the real world on everyone else. I’m tired of elites who have no wisdom and no testing from experience wanting to impose their ideas on everyone else. To this couple and the other “elites”, please stop imposing your academic views on everyone else. Until you earn the wisdom from having lived your ideas and seen them through in practice, you actually have no idea what you’re talking about.
Lucky neighbours to have someone else's kids dropped on them every morning.
I bet they can't wait
The author makes fair points re: reasons to achieve a 'replacement rate' of births. parent should have as many children as they want and can financially support.
However, when there are inevitably less jobs available due to technology/AI advancements, tax revenues to pay for infrastructure will decrease anyways. Except now, society will continue to have more mouths to feed and house with more households in poverty. Does not seem economically feasible.
Bravo, Malcolm! We only managed one child (we didn't even marry until we turned 40) and that required IVF. But we got a wonderful girl who has been a joy to raise. She's just finished her first year of college, still lives at home, and we couldn't be more proud.
I should have started earlier...like at age 21 or so... and had 10 kids. But you know, I was just a dumb kid myself at the time. Now, of course, I know different.
I mention children to every young, eligible person I meet. I tell them it's more fun, and more fulfilling, than any other hobby they will ever have. If you are a concert violinist, performing solo on stage at Carnegie Hall, in the final movement, with the audience paying rapt attention, the pinnacle of your career... this is nothing compared to that moment when they place your newborn infant in your hands for the first time. NOTHING!
By the way, these snide, holier-than-thou coastal elites full of contempt for someone who wants to bring new children into the world... do they reserve some of their bile for the people in Africa and the Middle East, where people still routinely have 6 or more children? I somehow doubt it.
"the people in Africa and the Middle East, where people still routinely have 6 or more children?"
*in many of these countries, child brides are married off at age 9-10 & are forced to have 15+ children. 6 children would be considered almost barren.
Functional families are a foundational aspect of our culture. Just look at what ‘60’s urban renewal did to functional black families. That destruction has lead to a plague on our cities and criminal justice system.
I am troubled by having children as a way to join a club and make a statement. Childbirth is a miraculous event and should be considered as such. Nurturing and guiding the development of one’s children is one of the most commendable activities an adult can accomplish.
Childbirth and the development of one’s family is an end in itself, and should not be part of some type of protest.
Capitalism trains us to think of the group as a sum of individuals. When we think of "rights", we think of the way each individual should be treated. So when it comes to parenting, it's obviously a "choice" for any individual couple. There is no choice, however, for the MAJORITY of individuals in a society to have no children. There is NOTHING more absolutely essential than a significant majority of a society's citizens procreating. If not enough couples have children, then that civilization just vanishes.
I am the second of four kids. My mom said that she faced a lot of negative comments when she (on purpose) became pregnant again after having had a boy and a girl. My parents had to make decisions inherent to raising four children. For example, they decided to pay for piano lessons and bachelors degrees as opposed to international vacations and overnight summer camps. However, they now have 4 financially independent, full time employed children who plan time off around when the entire family, including significant others, can be together in a single location. I think all of us aspire to have children one day.
Does being pronatalist make you "far-right". I'm afraid so. But understand that "far-right" has no actual meaning. It is a pejorative used by the advocates of the elite center-left consensus to scare people away from any views that challenge that consensus. You are "far-right" if you have noticed that every fiqh of Islamic sharia is deeply illiberal and concluded that unfettered immigration to the West from the Muslim world is a bad idea. You are "far-right" if you have concerns about the efficacy and potential side-effects of mRNA vaccines. In Europe, you are "far-right" if you favor national sovereignty over diktats of the European Commission. So, since that consensus regards increasing the human population as "a threat to the planet", yes, merely being pro-natalist makes you "far-right".
Don't feel bad. I'm "far-right" on the first count of those I listed, and if I lived in Europe, I'd be "far-right" on the last as well.
Far-right? Hell yes! Better than being far-wrong.
Own it. Be proud of it. Tell everyone. It's the only hope for civilization.
Far-anything is always far-wrong.
“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue” - Barry Goldwater
I'm no pro-natalist, and think people should have only precisely as many children as they want, and no more, but this couple has some good ideas. The fact that a little smack on the cheek has so many people in this comment thread upset is a big reason why the idea of parenting is so off-putting to so many.
Honestly I don't understand how someone has the emotional fortitude to get up every day and live life for 8 decades if they find a little slap that stings for precisely five seconds to be so beyond the pale and shocking. It IS perfectly natural mammalian behavior for unruly youngsters, and would've been considered entirely ordinary for all of human history in every society that's ever existed, up till recently. Now we've decided it isn't okay...and are the kids turning out better? No, they're not, they're all on anxiety meds and have skyrocketing mental health issues and are traumatized by dealing with ordinary life.
This hysterical, over-wrought concern with raising children like they're made of glass, to be protected against even a few seconds of emotional or physical unpleasantness their whole lives, til they're sent out into a brutally competitive reality where truly no one GAF about them at age 18...is just insanity. As is the constant chauffeuring and the arranging play dates and letting them choose what to have for dinner and spending Saturday mornings watching and cheering 7 year olds play soccer, the travel sports...all activities truly in line with raising a child as a young prince or princess set to inherit the throne. No children outside of royalty were ever catered to in this manner. Except they aren't inheriting anything. They hit adulthood and find out they're just a peasant after all, no one is cheering them and no one is concerned with their preferences. No wonder they all go nuts and rebel against and reject everything in society.
So these two are weird and aesthetically off-putting, but at least they're trying to do something or make a change. The current course we're on is a disaster. Parents have made the way they do parenting so unappealing that larger numbers are choosing not to do it at all, or only with one, while the ones who do still do it are so caught up in this ultra-high investment and child-centered approach that they make it seem even more unachievable and more unappealing, and so the cycle continues.
Also, their hysteria about population is just that. Two hundred years is an eternity from now. We tripled world population in less than half that time. People subconsciously sense there are too many of us...too much traffic, too much competition, too much crowding, too much fighting over resources, because we all want the same nice views and access to nice things and we can't all have it. It's all supply and demand, and there are so many people now, they aren't valued. Population is still growing. If it starts to shrink to the point where people become under, rather than over supplied, demand will go back up for them and they'll be viewed as more valuable. That's how it works. You can double population in just 20 years if you want to, there's no crisis here. Though people should feel free to have as many kids as they want (or don't).
I am not sure you understand that the world is in much more danger of underpopulation than overpopulation. Yes of course the population is slowly increasing RIGHT NOW because the small age cohorts are younger than childbearing age. In twenty years, however, the population will flatline because this small cohort cannot produce enough children, even if THEIR birth rates are above 2.1.. At that point, we will be unable to arrest a declining population because of the lag between child bearing and procreation.
Elon Musk propaganda. He doesn't take care of all the kids he's created, apart from financially.
I wouldn't use Elon Musk as a source to advance or refute underpopulation. The facts of it are very well understood and documented.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-declining-population
"unable to arrest". Really? People could just start having more kids again. It only takes ten years to double population, and women are fertile for THIRTY years of their life. There were billions less people just a few decades ago and it was fine. Population growth has gone down for periods and then increased again several times in history. Viewing a future decrease as being (1) in and of itself an unthinkable disaster, and (2) something that can't be addressed and dealt with in the future, only really makes sense for people who benefit from ponzi schemes.
A slowly decreasing population only negatively affects SOME economic issues, and it HELPS others. They only focus on the negatives. But ultimately it's all supply and demand. Sure, old people will have to pay more for services, for example. But young people will enjoy much higher wages. Everything is a trade-off.
If young people become so rare that they actually become valuable again (instead of like now where there are too many competing for houses and university slots they can't afford and jobs with wages lower than they should be), then people will adjust and start having more again. They aren't now because we are over-supplied with people and almost everyone but the die-hard pro-natalists recognizes that. Old people complaining they need more servants to take care of them, or being wistful about not having had more once they're done with the hard part (I'm sure they also wished they saved more money and spent less and all types of things easier said after the fact when the trade-off no longer has to be made, only enjoying the reward), isn't particularly convincing.
It's hard to go back and forth in a forum like this but I have a suggestion. Everything I would want to say on this subject can be understood by looking at the plight of South Korea. They are in an irreversible population decline right now. If you read in depth about South Korea and still don't agree about the irreversibility of their decline then I guess we can just agree to disagree. Thanks for engaging.
Pro-natal? Hurray! As one of nine children, I'm happy that my father was willing to go along with my mother's from-the-get-go desire to have babies. He had his limits though. When my mom - at age 40 - had twins (a surprise to both her and her OB at the delivery; this was in 1959 after all), the OB took him aside and told him - being Catholic not withstanding - he needed to get the snip.
That said, this couple present as wanting attention more than wanting children.
As to slapping the face of a 2YO - regardless if categorized as "light" or a "bop" - is just wrong. A swat on the butt to get attention of a toddler who is out of bounds, sure. But on the face? No.
Notably, this scenario is an interesting side-by-side to the image at the headline with one of his kids playing at garrotting his father. And when that kid plays at garrotting his 2YO sister? Or - less dramatically - when he thinks he needs to calm his screaming sister down with a (light?) slap to the face?
Everyone, please Google because there is a lot of information about this family even if you’re one who takes The Guardian with a grain of salt. They seemed to be framed here as simply people who want many kids and shouldn’t have to apologize to anyone. But they are…odd in many ways. If CPS is called more than once that’s a problem. If you smack your child in the face in public and wonder why it bothers people, that’s a problem. If you practice eugenics? Also a problem. I have no issue with people having as many children as they want even if they are “quiverfull.” I agree that the birth rate is falling in a way that could be alarming. But this couple seems to be having children in part for the own egos. Oh, and not to mention the kids names are just plain stupid.
Eugenics???
Upon what basis is your accusation of "practicing eugenics"?
From The Guardian Article “They’ve had the genomes of their frozen embryos tested and are selecting which ones to implant according to how well they score on intelligence and future health. They don’t just want a big family: they want an optimal one. Preimplantation genetic screening is unregulated in the US. There are several companies that will test embryos for the risks of certain conditions, including the Sam Altman-backed Genomic Prediction, which the Collinses used for health scores. For what they call “the controversial stuff” they took Genomic Prediction’s data and gave it to another team of scientists who claim to be able to predict everything from how likely it is that one embryo will be happier than another one to its future predicted income”
Thank you for the additional information. Yes the whole notion of choosing genetic characteristics like items in a catalog is uncomfortable for many of us but I would hesitate to call that "eugenics". This term I think should be reserved for the suppression of reproduction (particularly by others) rather than the selection of embryos by couples doing the procreation. To play devil's advocate, the procedure intrinsically involves embryonic selection so why is there a moral obligation to do it randomly? Embryonic screening becomes even more problematic in my view if it involves implantation of multiple embryos and then "selective reduction". This couple is selecting prior to implantation.
You’re right. Eugenics wasn’t the best choice of words. I think I read that somewhere else and it was stuck in my brain :-) And I don’t like hyperbole so thanks for calling me on that in a respectful way. Technology makes for a more complex world when it comes to ethics. I guess I’m bothered by the message “Have more kids!” which is a bit in contrast with their actual practice which is to have more of the right type kids. Although I concede that any parent in their financial situation might do the same.
Hm. Well I'd say that if YOU have to merely *read* about a light smack in the face...which left a toddler whimpering for less than 30 seconds and then was totally over it within a minute, and soon running around the restaurant wildly with zero concern or fear of the father, and think it's so shocking, that YOU have the problem. This incident would not have caused the slightest notice or been remotely outside the norm in an any society on earth through-out the entirety of human history, other than the past few decades in the west.
Most of our parents whooped our asses when we were kids, worse than what is described here. Most of us turned out alright. I don't advocate outright child abuse, but mild physical discipline is not the worst thing in the world. Raising coddled, over-indulged kids is worse.