As reactionary “trad-isms” and “anti-feminisms” proliferate there are more calls for “every woman to have a child.” Really! This is uttered by otherwise thinking people of above-average intelligence. Their zeal is understandable, but the claim is ridiculous.
One facet of a culture in which there are many children—in other words, a culture that is not dying—is that people who are not personally siring or birthing babies have the benefit of interacting with them. Such interaction has many benefits beyond the individual.
As Anthony Esolen observes, “Children bring people together who would otherwise keep apart.” Being a self-sufficient adult between the ages of 20 and 60 without the companionship of the very young, the very old, or the chronically or mortally ill is to live in a false sense of security. In the presence of people who cannot be self-sufficient, we are taken out of ourselves and thrust into contact with other beings. Not to mention reminded of our vulnerability and impending death.
Some of Elizabeth Goudge’s stories, like “The Little White Horse” and “The Linnets and Valerians” illustrate marvelously how children—simply by being themselves—draw adults out of their accustomed patterns of isolation and vice. The adults so changed are, in almost all instances, not the parents of the children! That propulsion toward human connection means that many adults who are not directly related to the young people are changed by their being in existence.
You can see it at gatherings with many small children. The sheer number of people drawn into the celebration invites more. While a stuffy dinner of a few adults cannot admit unexpected guests, a picnic or sprawling buffet-style family meal can easily accommodate a few more. Adults, childless or lacking any grandchildren, will often remark in such a setting that such a scene is “the way things used to be.”
There is no reason why in individual communities, what Edmund Burke called “the little platoon,” we cannot continue to have it so. Attempting to coerce “every woman” into cooperating with the forces of procreation is decidedly unhelpful. Encourage the people already having children and the lifestyle will promote itself (when it’s lived virtuously with admirable self-sacrifice, of course. How simple!).
The ever-witty cultural commentator and mother of many Peachy Keenan (a nom de plume) has a book “Domestic Extremist.” Granted, I have not read it but heard about a chapter title that gets it just right: “Babies Are Good, More Babies Are Better.” A critical mass of young people infuses a chaotic excitement to human interaction, a need for interdependence, an invitation to a deeper connection, that childless social groups lack.
None of us gets to decide who has the babies. As in so many areas of human life, there can often be the Matthew Effect on display (Matthew 13:12. “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.”). Perhaps we can view more as an opportunity for some of us to make hay while the sun shines.
Our culture, like all living organisms, cannot simply hold steady. There is no maintaining a precisely calibrated 2.1 replacement rate. Firstly, the threats of the future are unknown but certain to the extent that we know they will come. 2.1 isn’t enough. Second, the idea that each family unit needs to replace itself ignores the variability of human experience. Finally, there is no stagnation without death in nature: an organism that is not growing and developing is dying.
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