Birth rates

The theme of low birth rates is back again; from warnings by Steyn to snide derision in The Nation.

Why should there be so few children, though?

Let me count the ways...

Country music sometimes celebrates family and children, but the pop music I hear almost never does. I don't know enough about European pop to reliably compare it with American music, but what I've heard/understood has been more like American pop and rap. Music affects you; and favorite genres that the past few generations have immersed themselves in have little room for family.

C.S. Lewis spent one section of The Four Loves on affection: love for those nearby. It seems unlikely that a person would come to have affection for children if there weren't any around.

Our society is strongly segregated by age and function. If it weren't for church services I'd meet almost no children except my own in an average week—and even in church the small children aren't part of the service. Children and youth spent years in school (and I'm deeply suspicious of the learning efficiency there), and not integrating in any serious way into adult and civil life. There is no legal room for children at work, nor, thanks to intense specialization, is there much practical room for them.

The segregation extends to social gatherings and amusements as well, with the prominent exception of sports. I'm not a big sports fan, but finding all ages gathered around the basketball game on TV or out at the baseball park is good to see. Aside from that: we have children's amusements and adult amusement, and infinite subdivisions of each, with a substantial number of people isolated not just from other ages but from other people as well, while they sit in front of a screen. Just as I am doing right now.... Hmm No meeting means no affection.

With children not part of the daily picture, they tend to become abstract. Abstract children are an expense and interfere with amusements. Real children (yours or the neighbor's) you can think of affectionately, but abstract kids are alien.

And who wants to be bothered with aliens? So, fewer kids.