Save the World, Have a Baby

Or just hug a baby and give it a handful of candy.

Happy Belated Memorial Day. I unintentionally took the day off to clean my house and regather my wits—and go to a fun party. And read a lot of articles about Trad Wives, and then this morning a long thing about the declining birth rate in almost every country. I know the stats have been making the rounds on Twitter/X but I hadn’t really paid attention. But I happened to avail myself of a free 3-month trial of Apple News, which I have heretofore resisted, and so I was able to read more than a few tweets.

I should say, before anything, that I haven’t thought about declining international birth rates very much. I have always liked to joke that I had my own children and some for some other women. Every female person must have at least two children, and I had six, so I’ve done two unknown women a favor. No one ever laughs when I say this. But a lot of people are shocked that I had “so many.” Except that it wasn’t that many and has been a source of immense happiness to me. Other people are shocked that I “stopped” at six and want to know why. And the reason is that my body betrayed me. My thyroid malfunctioned and then I went through menopause a lot earlier than I expected. But I had a good run—six babies in ten years isn’t bad. If my children all get married and each have six children, we will have done our bit.

Obviously, women have to have babies, or else all the places where people live will become de-inhabited. All the foods and cultures and languages will disappear, and the trees and vines will grow up over abandoned houses, and the sound of vehicular traffic will cease, and the silver chord of humanity as a whole will be severed. And some people think this is a good thing, for humans are the problem. And those people do have a point—people are the problem. Their sin continually blights the beauty of the earth. But, paradoxically, there was a solution provided, a Divine redemption that makes it possible not to give up, a mandate that means that human people still need to go on being human and living and gardening and cooking food and having children. Being human in the world is a hard work, a material exercise of toil and sweat and blood. But it is more crucially a spiritual work. And no one worrying about the declining birth rate seems to know this.

In fact, as the governments of the world try to cope with the fact that women in their various jurisdictions are not having children, they are taking radical measures—offering tax breaks and free childcare and free maternity leave. I can’t go back and get the article because it’s on my phone and I’m not clever enough to even search through this new app and find it, but I think it was in the Wall Street Journal, and there were a lot of graphs and interviews. Funnily enough, whenever I typed “birth” into the search box, “control” popped right up, and never “rate” or anything else that one might be interested in reading about. As one scrolling around in the early dawn, I was emotionally unmoved by the graphs and indeed felt like rolling my eyes like Tracy Ullman pretending to be Angela Merkle.

My question is, when will the rulers of the world finally be anxious enough about the collapse of their own societies to be curious enough about discovering for themselves what would make women want to have children? I feel like it’s not that complicated. But apparently, it is absolutely beyond the reach of modern societies. I have some suggestions, in case anyone in any dank office complex making government policy is interested. Here are some things that women would require in order to desire to have children—with the caveat that I know no one will do any of them because it would mean the complete reordering of our society.

One—Get rid of Pride Month and stop valorizing men pretending to take on the trappings of femininity and motherhood.

Two—Somehow, by magic?, produce some men who fall in love with women. For in order to desire to have a child, the offer of a tax break is not that alluring. Children are about love, not economics, though money certainly factors in. I wouldn’t have wanted to have a child if I couldn’t feed and clothe that child. I think about money all the time, and so does my husband—but it is not the first thought. It is the thought that comes along after you have fallen in love. You fall in love with a man. You fall in love with your baby. You keep falling in love with God. And the money, in all its dripping anxiety, is somehow there, through hard work and the help of the community that blessed you when you fell in love.

Three—Take away the idea that children are difficult and expensive. I don’t know how to do this, at scale. Children don’t have to be expensive, though they can be. You don’t have to buy everything, but you do have to feed them.

Four—Stop pitting children against personal happiness, as if they two are incompatible. I guess to do this you would have to redefine happiness. Or at least rejoin it to goodness and virtue, which of course no one wants to do.

In other words, the birth rate will continue to fall, because the rulers of this age will not outlaw porn, abortion, and weed. And therefore there will not be men that women can fall in love with, nor children, nor happiness. We must all just be as miserable as Chelsea Handler with her vat of wine. We mayn’t have squishy babies and beautiful cluttered houses full of mismatched baby socks and lost pacifiers. We can’t lose ourselves in the love of others and God. We have to shudder our way past selfish men in dresses and lipstick.

Have a nice day!