Brilliant piece. Climate apocalypse fearmongering is anti-human demoralization. Extinction Rebellion pushes people to stop having children because it reduces carbon emissions. Substacks like Gen Dread and HEATED are sad examples of Zoomers who have been emotionally broken by propaganda.
You can see the consequences all too well. Replacement by people who hate you and want to destroy your progeny and way of life and replace it with robotic slaves to the Satanic Verses. Globalism is a suicide pact. All the beauty of the ages will be destroyed. And a new darkness will descend unless the West wakes up from it fever dreams.
I noticed that the author carefully skirted around the fact that in the developing (or not-so-developing) world, birthrates are much higher. Leftists will scream that "replacement" is a White Supremacist conspiracy theory, when it's actually the by-the-numbers end result of differing birthrates.
My husband and I had four children. I wanted five, but my type 1 diabetes inevitably made pregnancy a medical condition.
Our oldest daughter died as an infant. Of our three living children, our younger son had a vasectomy at the tender age of 25, because his wife is scared of having a baby. Our younger daughter is in no hurry to have a baby, and her SO is a girl who thinks she's a boy. Maybe there'll be marriage in their future, and maybe artificial insemination if my daughter ever wants to give birth. I'm not exactly holding my breath.
Our oldest son and his wife--after years of trying--had a baby boy in May: our first and possibly only grandchild. A C-section revealed a uterine malformation that explained why they had so much trouble conceiving. All of us consider this little boy a miracle. And in the world as it is now unfolding, I fear for him to an extent that I didn't fear for my own children. (And considering that I feared for them all the time, because I lost their oldest sister, that's a lot of fear.)
I see what you see, Bruce. I see what the Left wants: the destruction of Western civilization. They don't realize what a precious thing it is. What kind of barbarity will ensue in its wake.
I really enjoyed this essay, as it is quite telling. I especially liked your comment, Celia. I can relate to the part about your daughter-in-law being "scared of having a baby." My wife and I have a person in our family who's has expressed some of the same fear. I suspect that this fear was always there among women through the proverbial ages, but it never was that much of a "thing" that it became a widely expressed neurosis. (I'm going out on a limb here and waiting for a few accusations of toxic masculinity, though this site seems not to have many of those thinkers, thank goodness.) Couple that with the overabundance of choices we all - male and female - have in this affluent age (rewarding careers, enormous well-appointed houses, exotic travel) and Paul Ehrlich's prediction of a population bomb in the early 70s now seems quite silly, does it not?
"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times."
G. Michael Hopf
It seems like we're approaching hard times. There's a surfeit of weak men. Just look at who's president. So, optimist that I am, I'm predicting the coming of strong men followed by good times.
Hope you're right. I see one hopeful sign in the fact that those who are having the most children are by definition the most optimistic and our progeny (my wife and I have 3) will eventually outnumber those of the self hating and doom obsessed.
“Fewer humans are being produced, suggesting a slump in the value of new human life.”
Approximately 1 in 5 pregnancies in the US ends in voluntary abortion. (Guttmacher Institute) A “slump in the value of human life” indeed.
If this were happening with any other species, we’d want to know what was driving mothers to do this to their offspring. It’s a deeply unnatural act. But to admit this is too messy, too threatening. So we focus on defending our right to do it instead.
Back in the Spotted Owl days in the 90s, my husband wrote an essay that posed exactly this question: if Spotted Owls were pushing eggs out of the nest, environmentalists would be in a panic trying to figure out why.
I write this waiting for the birth of my 3rd grandchild in Israel. I was supposed to go there a few weeks ago to babysit the 3.5 & 2 year old. Talk about a terrible situation. My son was called to serve in the reserves, but stayed at home to be with his family. There seem to be a playground every 100' feet in Israel, something I don't see here. As the saying goes, if I knew grandchildren were this much fun, I would have had them first. Pray for everyone....
Nonsense! High world population is a recent phenomenon. It only became possible after the Industrial Revolution and modern medicine (the germ theory of disease), both starting around 1800. Prior to that, infant mortality was so ubiquitous and 'normal' that no one bothered to keep statistics. Women died in childbirth and men died of sepsis from even minor battle wounds. Droughts and floods were followed by mass starvation. In short, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ran free.
A world population of less than a billion would mean no pollution to speak of, no human caused global warming, no mass shootings because antisocial young men would be out wandering in deserts and other empty landscapes, just to name a few of the benefits.
The old cliche, nonetheless true, goes, “The future belongs to those that have babies.” The future does not belong to you, or to those that think like you.
That is an idealistic view. Those wandering young men could also form up a pillaging group. And your viewpoint doesn't talk about what thing will look like as we lose 6 billion people. Are the people left all equally distributed amongst the various countries and cultures now? Or is it possible that certain groups will be more represented? Since the educated are under populating, does that mean we will have a less educated population? Will the people left have the knowledge to use all of the technology that got us away from the lives we used to leave when people died willy nilly? What is to stop the population from rising again once all of the people who were avoiding families are gone? When big swathes of the population are back to subsistence farming, they are surely going to stop popping out children again (since children aren't just precious darling, but also free labor).
The Ideal of a smaller population seems nice, but things rarely go the nice way. Far more likely it will be chaos where lots of people suffer.
The groups still maintaining high fertility tend to be deeply religious such as devout Muslims, evangelical Christians, or Hasidic Jews. If fertility trends don’t change that’s what the future will look like. I suspect most groups thinking a world with radically fewer people would be a better world are not imagining the world that is actually likely to result.
I too am frightened by recent horrible events and cannot imagine the pain and horror of losing or watching someone hurt a child. I spent decades working in the environmental field...and recall coming out of college full of fear from listening to the 70's zero population propaganda. I recall learning of the perils of global warming and global cooling --in the same lecture, no less!! One or the other horrible ends was surely to be our end. Gratefully I emerged out the other side of this mindset. So maybe it seems an indulgence to the haters of humans, but spending time with babies and kids in my family gives me so much joy and hope, and even if just for a few hours, can take me completely out of my own misery. But the biggest thing is how babies show me just how incredible, astonishing, and worthwhile life and humans can be. And who am I to stop life?
As a parent myself who derives incredible joy from my three children, I frankly feel sorry for people who have opted out of that joy.
BUT. I also recognize that not everyone is cut out to be a parent. And I respect the choices other people make about their own lives & their own destinies.
Other factors come into play in declining birth rates as well. There are far fewer unintended pregnancies today than there may have been when your children were born, Mr. Guerri. Compared with earlier eras, people today start having their children later, which is probably connected with an overall sense of economic uncertainty.
Also, in their brief lives, Zoomers have been confronted with end game scenarios that I don't remember growiing up (although I DO remember being told to duck and cover beneath my deskk as a school child in NYC—I think somehow that was suppposed to save me from incineration in case of a nuclear attack.)
COVID had a devestating effect on birthrates. (There was a similar effect following the Spanish flu epidemica although that one, of course, is difficult to separate out from the effects of WWI.) Plus, of course, we're playing whack-a-mole with WWIII. (It didn't break out in Ukraine? Wait! Maybe it will break out in Gaza!) Neither of these things stokes the desire to reproduce.
When you first hold your new child you are quite sure only of two things - one, the existence of true and unselfish love; and, two, the reality of God, in whatever form you imagine him or her.
That's just ego and the primitive brain reacting. As Homo Sapiens we have been around only since about 300,000 years ago. In short, we may do dental work, blogging and a host of other things but we are still the best at tearing up the earth and each other and trying to breed like flies so that at least a FEW of our spawn will survive disease, starvation, and war. Note bene, there doesn't need to be 8 BILLION of us on the earth and there shouldn't be. I am done responding to the personal attacks and assumptions about who I am and what I should be doing (I have been an activist for animals and women since I was about 11 and have no intention of changing that) as it is apparent that too many of those posting on here are apologists for their backward and selfish thinking and attack mode is their only response.
I have two children who turned out successful and happy both because of and despite their parents' efforts. Nevertheless, I still don't believe in God. I'm now enjoying the wonderful blessings of being a grandfather of an almost two-year old but still am an atheist. I think kids are great but I'm an outlier or an exception to your rule.
I’m also a mother of three. I had a girl - then a boy - to which everyone I know - both young and old (at the time) replied how ‘lucky’ I was and that I was done. Really?! My inner voice told me there was one more yet to be born. And I have two adult sons and a daughter. The joy they have all brought to our lives is indescribable in so many ways and raising them was also challenging in many ways. Agree - I too respect other people’s decisions on bringing - or not bringing - children into the world. Being a parent requires personal SACRIFICE - and this word or theory seems to have been wiped or diligently scrubbed from our search parameters. Parenting - for the most part - requires long hours and much of what happens after the birth process - is not documented in any manuals. I’m now the Nana to 4 beautiful grandchildren and being alive & helping to raise them is my greatest reward. Yes it does take a village.
I think the term sacrifice has been overtaken as a negative act of suffering by more recent generations. It is in fact, a generous offering of love to those you care the most about. If we could teach more people to view what they sacrifice as instead an act of love, I think the idea of marriage and children would be more palatable.
Yes, agree there should be NO state or government interference with families. The context of my use of ‘village’ was meant in the sense of a familial community - the live and support of extended family and trusted friends. I’ve been fortunate to have both in my life and my children & grandchildren have this as well Its importance cannot be accurately measured yet its impact cannot be downplayed.
I agree with your overall point as far as modern context, but the idea of a community helping raise a child isn't that far fetched. The Village used to be friends and family for the most part, so it made more sense. But you are absolutely right that for some, they use that phrase to mean :Your kids are our to brainwash as we please".
Thanks for respecting other people's choices, because I'm in a very weird situation myself. I've always been pro life and have always seen parenthood as the most valuable thing you can do, but I have a disability that is keeping me from embracing parenthood. It makes me feel very guilty sometimes, but I also know I can't change my reality either.
Absolutely no need to feel guilty. Children need adults other than their parents in their lives, you know!
I have many friends who elected not to have kids of their own and played Auntie or Uncle to my kids. When my boys became teens, these Aunties & Uncles could often communicate with them far better than I could. 😀
My dad's parents didn't get married until my grandma was twenty-nine, and didn't have a baby until she was thirty. It was thought of as being REALLY OLD. (Still ended up having five kids, though.)
Something I see today, in addition to the apocalyptic drumbeat, is an obsession on self and bodily perfection, the obesity epidemic notwithstanding. Cosmetic surgery ads are everywhere, and we read stories of celebrities who use surrogates. Gotta keep that bod looking like it's 20 and can keep partying. I hope my children someday enjoy the wonder of having children themselves. Having children is the most beautiful thing I've accomplished in my life.
I don't mean to scold. I just mean to ask you to express yourself without ad-hominem attacks. I am interested in hearing what you have to say but personal attacks on people make your writing hard to read and your opinions easy to dismiss.
“The youngest generation to reach breeding age, the Zoomers, has been infected with this grudge against humanity. From every corner of a broken culture, with monotonous repetition, the Zoomers hear their species characterized as sadistically cruel, “senseless and suicidal,” locked in “a spiral of self-destruction.” If they somehow survive school shooting massacres, viral pandemics, and Donald Trump, they’ll be annihilated, along with the planet, by climate change.”
Only a few commenters I have read (so far) touch on my questions: Isn’t the world over populated? We have surpassed 8 billion people on this planet. In 1927 there were 2 billion. In approximately 100 years we have added 6 billion. I am no math wiz, but it seems an exponential growth on a small planet. We are edging out wildlife, polluting our oceans and waterways, and air pollution, although not as bad as the 70’s, is still an issue. During the pandemic when humans stood still for awhile we saw the air clear, as one tiny example.
I am an anti natalist for a few reasons: I don’t want to impose human life on someone. And if the human population shrinks maybe the wildlife, oceans and air will clear for those of you who want a better world and life for your offspring,
I didn’t ask to be born. No one asks to be born. Most people’s comments lead me to think y’all live pretty privileged lives in which you don’t worry about food security, safe water to drink, easy transportation, etc. And it also seems, with so many waxing poetic about having a family, that you came from loving families and have created the same. Bully for you. I didn’t have children for a few reasons, chiefly because of the family I came from. I didn’t want to, not only impose life on another, but I didn’t want to set loose the genes in my family that are violent and narcissistic. I worried I would not be able to overcome those propensities and turn on a tiny baby the way my father had done. My husband and I should be thanked for not procreating.
So back to my main wonder: why is 8 billion on the planet a good idea?
BTW ‘hedonistic binge’? Such a judgmental piece. Here’s a bit of judgment, a line from an old movie, Planet of the Apes: Man is a plague upon the Earth. There, I said it.
I used to be on the side of population reduction, and in theory I still am. However, none of our current systems are built with the idea that tomorrow they will be less people to support the system. And frankly I don't know what systems exist that do better when your population is going down. Especially since you can't control what parts of the population decline. Not to mention, some countries have tried controlling population and it is now going to bite them super hard.
Even if population decline would end up being good in the long run, the path to get there is not going to be pretty. Especially when central planning minded people end up trying to run it.
It seems more logical to maintain populations at replacement level, allowing a certain amount of attrition to very slowly reduce the population over time.
But of course, humans don't have children (or choose not to have children) at a pace set by central planners. Unless they're forced to, as they were in China. And as you say, that isn't working out well for them.
The ugly reality for the central planners is that if the population of the planet is increasing, *someone* is having children. But it clearly isn't Europeans or Americans. And yet the DEIers are ideologically incapable of telling the growing populations that they shouldn't grow, because that would be racist.
I suspect that long after Western civilization has collapsed, the forces of starvation, disease, and war will invariably reduce the population that remains. The only consolation in that is that the central planners will also be dead.
I can appreciate your case for anti-natalism although I disagree to the fullest. You seem to have the gift of being able to see beyond yourself and look at things through a broad lens. For this reason, you may not be giving yourself enough credit for the capacity of transformational change. I too had a childhood riddled with addiction, violence, abuse, poverty, homelessness for a time, etc. I’ve wanted children for as long as I could remember and yet feared the toxicity it seemed I would reproduce. The greatest fear to confront was that maybe I could not protect my children from myself.
Ultimately, the greatest power is of personal choice and freedom of agency to change. I made a choice to break generational cycles of abuse. It’s hard because it’s unfamiliar and the unfamiliar is uncomfortable. But that’s all personal growth. It’s worth the hard work. And I sometimes like to imagine my three kids growing up and creating new limbs of healthy, loving family stories on the tree, and going on to maybe help a future spouse who had a background like me overcome their own negative cycles. That’s probably waxing poetic but I’m halfway there. I can’t go back and change the bad but I can certainly contribute more good to this world and hope that the latter outnumbers the former in time.
A lot of different mechanisms go into making a species successful or not. Sometimes a mechanism that was helpful in the past ends up hindering the organisms in a different environment. It seems that some of ours are currently not being very helpful.
Children are the hope for the future, since their arrival, by no means to belittle the challenge of raising them, speaks to the promise of something new.
The prolonged adolescence of my generation and the generation below in Gen z, presents an interesting challenge. Just last night at a party someone made the comment that the older generations needed to die off so that the younger could step in and start running things—specifically work from home. While said in jest, it speaks to the mindset that having kids and creating extended family communities is not the important factor here, but that our triumph and progress is impeded by the “grownups” who deny us adult rites of passage and opportunities.
There’s an old saying: adults don’t make children, children make adults. But when all the adults are in various stages of adolescence, afraid to have children and take on “responsibilities”, what are we as a society to do?
I sense the sentiment of that comment made in jest in my life and think it is meant seriously. But it just makes me less inclined to help. FWIW I do not want to live forever. But I do not appreciate the suggestion that I need to move aside. I came by what I have fairly and without help from the state. Now is my time to reap the rewards of my endeavors.
Why do the olds have to get out of the way? Why do you have to take over their stuff...make your own. Mind you, starting your own business and building it up would be hard...and likely mean you have to work even MORE than now and you might actually see why making your staff work from the office has merit.
See, even the cry of "the older gens need to move aside" is the cry of infants. An adult would learn to work in the current system and have the patience to make the changes happen overtime instead of expecting everyone to stop how things have been done for generations just because the youth say to. None of the current generations started at the top. Each one had to make room for themselves by showing their worth and creating value that made those in change take notice of them.
As for the work from home thing...having seen it at multiple places that allow it, it seems like a one way street to me. It is great if you want the freedom to do things at your pace, when you want. But it sucks if you are a part of a team that needs people to be available and respond. Again, it is an immature way to look at work. Like you are an island that just does their own work in a vacuum. But for most jobs, that isn't the case. So having a chunk of the workforce potentially unavailable at any given time is not as productive as having everyone around at the same time.
When people feel they are part of something greater than themselves you will frequently see them have more children. It can be part of a new religion or new country (I think this can explain the number of children secular Israeli women have) or other movement. This used to be present when there was more interest in religion for example. For many, it is not there.
Funny how you had to throw in the threat of Donald Trump causing GenZ not to want children. I take it you support the Democrat party - the party that brings climate hysteria to our children, convincing them there is no future, so why have children?
I think Trump and his Republican Party welcome children, celebrate the family, have hope in America. The Democrats, no. America is evil, we are all oppressors, don’t bring children into this malice that is America. Sorry, but this is what Democrats now profess, and Trump Americans dispute it and find your alliance self fulfilling.
Your assumptions are badly off. Gurri is a deep, neutral, and profoundly intelligent observer of our cultural moment. In his writing he betrays no bias “for” or “against” Trump; “for” or “against” the Democrats; “for” or “against” the Republicans. The reference to Trump in the article above was a gentle nod to the overwrought anxiety towards Trump which so many people feel. I am quite certain that he meant humorously. That, anyway, is how I took it.
Brilliant piece. Climate apocalypse fearmongering is anti-human demoralization. Extinction Rebellion pushes people to stop having children because it reduces carbon emissions. Substacks like Gen Dread and HEATED are sad examples of Zoomers who have been emotionally broken by propaganda.
Anyone who pushes ESG and the climate narrative is causing harm to our economy, democracy, and young people: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-raise-your-esg-score
You can see the consequences all too well. Replacement by people who hate you and want to destroy your progeny and way of life and replace it with robotic slaves to the Satanic Verses. Globalism is a suicide pact. All the beauty of the ages will be destroyed. And a new darkness will descend unless the West wakes up from it fever dreams.
I noticed that the author carefully skirted around the fact that in the developing (or not-so-developing) world, birthrates are much higher. Leftists will scream that "replacement" is a White Supremacist conspiracy theory, when it's actually the by-the-numbers end result of differing birthrates.
My husband and I had four children. I wanted five, but my type 1 diabetes inevitably made pregnancy a medical condition.
Our oldest daughter died as an infant. Of our three living children, our younger son had a vasectomy at the tender age of 25, because his wife is scared of having a baby. Our younger daughter is in no hurry to have a baby, and her SO is a girl who thinks she's a boy. Maybe there'll be marriage in their future, and maybe artificial insemination if my daughter ever wants to give birth. I'm not exactly holding my breath.
Our oldest son and his wife--after years of trying--had a baby boy in May: our first and possibly only grandchild. A C-section revealed a uterine malformation that explained why they had so much trouble conceiving. All of us consider this little boy a miracle. And in the world as it is now unfolding, I fear for him to an extent that I didn't fear for my own children. (And considering that I feared for them all the time, because I lost their oldest sister, that's a lot of fear.)
I see what you see, Bruce. I see what the Left wants: the destruction of Western civilization. They don't realize what a precious thing it is. What kind of barbarity will ensue in its wake.
Thank you for that searing honesty. Your grandson is a miracle. And we must take back and make America safe for him.
I really enjoyed this essay, as it is quite telling. I especially liked your comment, Celia. I can relate to the part about your daughter-in-law being "scared of having a baby." My wife and I have a person in our family who's has expressed some of the same fear. I suspect that this fear was always there among women through the proverbial ages, but it never was that much of a "thing" that it became a widely expressed neurosis. (I'm going out on a limb here and waiting for a few accusations of toxic masculinity, though this site seems not to have many of those thinkers, thank goodness.) Couple that with the overabundance of choices we all - male and female - have in this affluent age (rewarding careers, enormous well-appointed houses, exotic travel) and Paul Ehrlich's prediction of a population bomb in the early 70s now seems quite silly, does it not?
Bruce, I just finished my coffee. Bit early for this much doom, innit? (PS: I know you’re right, but seriously, lemme digest.)
I would say "sorry, but being a dick means never having to say you're sorry......
BEST. COMMENT. EVER. Can we put this in the TFP Hall of Fame? I hereby nominate you to cover for Nellie on TGIF when she needs a day off!!
"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times."
G. Michael Hopf
It seems like we're approaching hard times. There's a surfeit of weak men. Just look at who's president. So, optimist that I am, I'm predicting the coming of strong men followed by good times.
Hope you're right. I see one hopeful sign in the fact that those who are having the most children are by definition the most optimistic and our progeny (my wife and I have 3) will eventually outnumber those of the self hating and doom obsessed.
“Fewer humans are being produced, suggesting a slump in the value of new human life.”
Approximately 1 in 5 pregnancies in the US ends in voluntary abortion. (Guttmacher Institute) A “slump in the value of human life” indeed.
If this were happening with any other species, we’d want to know what was driving mothers to do this to their offspring. It’s a deeply unnatural act. But to admit this is too messy, too threatening. So we focus on defending our right to do it instead.
Back in the Spotted Owl days in the 90s, my husband wrote an essay that posed exactly this question: if Spotted Owls were pushing eggs out of the nest, environmentalists would be in a panic trying to figure out why.
I write this waiting for the birth of my 3rd grandchild in Israel. I was supposed to go there a few weeks ago to babysit the 3.5 & 2 year old. Talk about a terrible situation. My son was called to serve in the reserves, but stayed at home to be with his family. There seem to be a playground every 100' feet in Israel, something I don't see here. As the saying goes, if I knew grandchildren were this much fun, I would have had them first. Pray for everyone....
Nonsense! High world population is a recent phenomenon. It only became possible after the Industrial Revolution and modern medicine (the germ theory of disease), both starting around 1800. Prior to that, infant mortality was so ubiquitous and 'normal' that no one bothered to keep statistics. Women died in childbirth and men died of sepsis from even minor battle wounds. Droughts and floods were followed by mass starvation. In short, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ran free.
A world population of less than a billion would mean no pollution to speak of, no human caused global warming, no mass shootings because antisocial young men would be out wandering in deserts and other empty landscapes, just to name a few of the benefits.
The old cliche, nonetheless true, goes, “The future belongs to those that have babies.” The future does not belong to you, or to those that think like you.
That kind of nihilism is horrifying.
That is an idealistic view. Those wandering young men could also form up a pillaging group. And your viewpoint doesn't talk about what thing will look like as we lose 6 billion people. Are the people left all equally distributed amongst the various countries and cultures now? Or is it possible that certain groups will be more represented? Since the educated are under populating, does that mean we will have a less educated population? Will the people left have the knowledge to use all of the technology that got us away from the lives we used to leave when people died willy nilly? What is to stop the population from rising again once all of the people who were avoiding families are gone? When big swathes of the population are back to subsistence farming, they are surely going to stop popping out children again (since children aren't just precious darling, but also free labor).
The Ideal of a smaller population seems nice, but things rarely go the nice way. Far more likely it will be chaos where lots of people suffer.
The groups still maintaining high fertility tend to be deeply religious such as devout Muslims, evangelical Christians, or Hasidic Jews. If fertility trends don’t change that’s what the future will look like. I suspect most groups thinking a world with radically fewer people would be a better world are not imagining the world that is actually likely to result.
I too am frightened by recent horrible events and cannot imagine the pain and horror of losing or watching someone hurt a child. I spent decades working in the environmental field...and recall coming out of college full of fear from listening to the 70's zero population propaganda. I recall learning of the perils of global warming and global cooling --in the same lecture, no less!! One or the other horrible ends was surely to be our end. Gratefully I emerged out the other side of this mindset. So maybe it seems an indulgence to the haters of humans, but spending time with babies and kids in my family gives me so much joy and hope, and even if just for a few hours, can take me completely out of my own misery. But the biggest thing is how babies show me just how incredible, astonishing, and worthwhile life and humans can be. And who am I to stop life?
I love this. We need more independent thinkers.
As a parent myself who derives incredible joy from my three children, I frankly feel sorry for people who have opted out of that joy.
BUT. I also recognize that not everyone is cut out to be a parent. And I respect the choices other people make about their own lives & their own destinies.
Other factors come into play in declining birth rates as well. There are far fewer unintended pregnancies today than there may have been when your children were born, Mr. Guerri. Compared with earlier eras, people today start having their children later, which is probably connected with an overall sense of economic uncertainty.
Also, in their brief lives, Zoomers have been confronted with end game scenarios that I don't remember growiing up (although I DO remember being told to duck and cover beneath my deskk as a school child in NYC—I think somehow that was suppposed to save me from incineration in case of a nuclear attack.)
COVID had a devestating effect on birthrates. (There was a similar effect following the Spanish flu epidemica although that one, of course, is difficult to separate out from the effects of WWI.) Plus, of course, we're playing whack-a-mole with WWIII. (It didn't break out in Ukraine? Wait! Maybe it will break out in Gaza!) Neither of these things stokes the desire to reproduce.
When you first hold your new child you are quite sure only of two things - one, the existence of true and unselfish love; and, two, the reality of God, in whatever form you imagine him or her.
That's just ego and the primitive brain reacting. As Homo Sapiens we have been around only since about 300,000 years ago. In short, we may do dental work, blogging and a host of other things but we are still the best at tearing up the earth and each other and trying to breed like flies so that at least a FEW of our spawn will survive disease, starvation, and war. Note bene, there doesn't need to be 8 BILLION of us on the earth and there shouldn't be. I am done responding to the personal attacks and assumptions about who I am and what I should be doing (I have been an activist for animals and women since I was about 11 and have no intention of changing that) as it is apparent that too many of those posting on here are apologists for their backward and selfish thinking and attack mode is their only response.
I offered you a perfect plan. You could set an example and improve the planet at the same time.
I have two children who turned out successful and happy both because of and despite their parents' efforts. Nevertheless, I still don't believe in God. I'm now enjoying the wonderful blessings of being a grandfather of an almost two-year old but still am an atheist. I think kids are great but I'm an outlier or an exception to your rule.
You might want to hedge your bets a bit.
Thank you, Blaise Pascal.
I agree. I remember clearly thinking/understanding "[T]his is immortality".
Raising a family is far and away the hardest thing most of us will do in the course of our lives. The most important. And the most rewarding.
I’m also a mother of three. I had a girl - then a boy - to which everyone I know - both young and old (at the time) replied how ‘lucky’ I was and that I was done. Really?! My inner voice told me there was one more yet to be born. And I have two adult sons and a daughter. The joy they have all brought to our lives is indescribable in so many ways and raising them was also challenging in many ways. Agree - I too respect other people’s decisions on bringing - or not bringing - children into the world. Being a parent requires personal SACRIFICE - and this word or theory seems to have been wiped or diligently scrubbed from our search parameters. Parenting - for the most part - requires long hours and much of what happens after the birth process - is not documented in any manuals. I’m now the Nana to 4 beautiful grandchildren and being alive & helping to raise them is my greatest reward. Yes it does take a village.
I think the term sacrifice has been overtaken as a negative act of suffering by more recent generations. It is in fact, a generous offering of love to those you care the most about. If we could teach more people to view what they sacrifice as instead an act of love, I think the idea of marriage and children would be more palatable.
No village child rearing (that phrase was created to mean the "state").... it takes a family!
Yes, agree there should be NO state or government interference with families. The context of my use of ‘village’ was meant in the sense of a familial community - the live and support of extended family and trusted friends. I’ve been fortunate to have both in my life and my children & grandchildren have this as well Its importance cannot be accurately measured yet its impact cannot be downplayed.
Hilary ruined that phrase for me
I strongly agree. Many states and the federal government really want to raise our kids instead of us - to the point of assigning parents the term "abusive" if they do not believe in Gender Ideology. I am really glad about the movement to have money follow the student - because government schools have become indoctrination centers. Just one example: https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-attorney-general-sues-school-district-over-gender-parental-notification-policy
I speak as a mother/survivor with an intact family :-)
I agree with your overall point as far as modern context, but the idea of a community helping raise a child isn't that far fetched. The Village used to be friends and family for the most part, so it made more sense. But you are absolutely right that for some, they use that phrase to mean :Your kids are our to brainwash as we please".
Thanks for respecting other people's choices, because I'm in a very weird situation myself. I've always been pro life and have always seen parenthood as the most valuable thing you can do, but I have a disability that is keeping me from embracing parenthood. It makes me feel very guilty sometimes, but I also know I can't change my reality either.
Absolutely no need to feel guilty. Children need adults other than their parents in their lives, you know!
I have many friends who elected not to have kids of their own and played Auntie or Uncle to my kids. When my boys became teens, these Aunties & Uncles could often communicate with them far better than I could. 😀
Amen to that! I'm blessed enough to be an Auntie myself, and have loved that role with all my heart!
My dad's parents didn't get married until my grandma was twenty-nine, and didn't have a baby until she was thirty. It was thought of as being REALLY OLD. (Still ended up having five kids, though.)
Something I see today, in addition to the apocalyptic drumbeat, is an obsession on self and bodily perfection, the obesity epidemic notwithstanding. Cosmetic surgery ads are everywhere, and we read stories of celebrities who use surrogates. Gotta keep that bod looking like it's 20 and can keep partying. I hope my children someday enjoy the wonder of having children themselves. Having children is the most beautiful thing I've accomplished in my life.
I don't mean to scold. I just mean to ask you to express yourself without ad-hominem attacks. I am interested in hearing what you have to say but personal attacks on people make your writing hard to read and your opinions easy to dismiss.
I agree except I saw it as smugness which I found off-putting. I quit reading and went to skimming until the Zoomer part.
I think the best reason to have children is you don’t want to die alone. Friends are nice but family is better.
And you just know Trump is the reason for zoomers being wusses amiright? What a boogie man
Loved your first sentences. Whydya hafta bring the Donald into it this early in the morning?!
I wasn’t the one who brought Trump into it.
“The youngest generation to reach breeding age, the Zoomers, has been infected with this grudge against humanity. From every corner of a broken culture, with monotonous repetition, the Zoomers hear their species characterized as sadistically cruel, “senseless and suicidal,” locked in “a spiral of self-destruction.” If they somehow survive school shooting massacres, viral pandemics, and Donald Trump, they’ll be annihilated, along with the planet, by climate change.”
Dear UII, I think I may have replied to the wrong comment. My apologies. Respectfully, HTTN
Only a few commenters I have read (so far) touch on my questions: Isn’t the world over populated? We have surpassed 8 billion people on this planet. In 1927 there were 2 billion. In approximately 100 years we have added 6 billion. I am no math wiz, but it seems an exponential growth on a small planet. We are edging out wildlife, polluting our oceans and waterways, and air pollution, although not as bad as the 70’s, is still an issue. During the pandemic when humans stood still for awhile we saw the air clear, as one tiny example.
I am an anti natalist for a few reasons: I don’t want to impose human life on someone. And if the human population shrinks maybe the wildlife, oceans and air will clear for those of you who want a better world and life for your offspring,
I didn’t ask to be born. No one asks to be born. Most people’s comments lead me to think y’all live pretty privileged lives in which you don’t worry about food security, safe water to drink, easy transportation, etc. And it also seems, with so many waxing poetic about having a family, that you came from loving families and have created the same. Bully for you. I didn’t have children for a few reasons, chiefly because of the family I came from. I didn’t want to, not only impose life on another, but I didn’t want to set loose the genes in my family that are violent and narcissistic. I worried I would not be able to overcome those propensities and turn on a tiny baby the way my father had done. My husband and I should be thanked for not procreating.
So back to my main wonder: why is 8 billion on the planet a good idea?
BTW ‘hedonistic binge’? Such a judgmental piece. Here’s a bit of judgment, a line from an old movie, Planet of the Apes: Man is a plague upon the Earth. There, I said it.
It isn't the Western world that is causing the population to grow, as the essay points out.
And yet I doubt that you would actually dare to advocate that the people currently having lots of children should stop.
The reality is every person in First-World countries could die off, but it wouldn't stop the population growth you fear.
What do you think should be done about that? Are you jonesing for an Infinity Gauntlet? Ready to snap?
I used to be on the side of population reduction, and in theory I still am. However, none of our current systems are built with the idea that tomorrow they will be less people to support the system. And frankly I don't know what systems exist that do better when your population is going down. Especially since you can't control what parts of the population decline. Not to mention, some countries have tried controlling population and it is now going to bite them super hard.
Even if population decline would end up being good in the long run, the path to get there is not going to be pretty. Especially when central planning minded people end up trying to run it.
It seems more logical to maintain populations at replacement level, allowing a certain amount of attrition to very slowly reduce the population over time.
But of course, humans don't have children (or choose not to have children) at a pace set by central planners. Unless they're forced to, as they were in China. And as you say, that isn't working out well for them.
The ugly reality for the central planners is that if the population of the planet is increasing, *someone* is having children. But it clearly isn't Europeans or Americans. And yet the DEIers are ideologically incapable of telling the growing populations that they shouldn't grow, because that would be racist.
I suspect that long after Western civilization has collapsed, the forces of starvation, disease, and war will invariably reduce the population that remains. The only consolation in that is that the central planners will also be dead.
I can appreciate your case for anti-natalism although I disagree to the fullest. You seem to have the gift of being able to see beyond yourself and look at things through a broad lens. For this reason, you may not be giving yourself enough credit for the capacity of transformational change. I too had a childhood riddled with addiction, violence, abuse, poverty, homelessness for a time, etc. I’ve wanted children for as long as I could remember and yet feared the toxicity it seemed I would reproduce. The greatest fear to confront was that maybe I could not protect my children from myself.
Ultimately, the greatest power is of personal choice and freedom of agency to change. I made a choice to break generational cycles of abuse. It’s hard because it’s unfamiliar and the unfamiliar is uncomfortable. But that’s all personal growth. It’s worth the hard work. And I sometimes like to imagine my three kids growing up and creating new limbs of healthy, loving family stories on the tree, and going on to maybe help a future spouse who had a background like me overcome their own negative cycles. That’s probably waxing poetic but I’m halfway there. I can’t go back and change the bad but I can certainly contribute more good to this world and hope that the latter outnumbers the former in time.
Amen
So weird to know that the only species ever known to have both capabilities of reason and faith is hell-bent on creating its own extinction.
A lot of different mechanisms go into making a species successful or not. Sometimes a mechanism that was helpful in the past ends up hindering the organisms in a different environment. It seems that some of ours are currently not being very helpful.
Children are the hope for the future, since their arrival, by no means to belittle the challenge of raising them, speaks to the promise of something new.
The prolonged adolescence of my generation and the generation below in Gen z, presents an interesting challenge. Just last night at a party someone made the comment that the older generations needed to die off so that the younger could step in and start running things—specifically work from home. While said in jest, it speaks to the mindset that having kids and creating extended family communities is not the important factor here, but that our triumph and progress is impeded by the “grownups” who deny us adult rites of passage and opportunities.
There’s an old saying: adults don’t make children, children make adults. But when all the adults are in various stages of adolescence, afraid to have children and take on “responsibilities”, what are we as a society to do?
I sense the sentiment of that comment made in jest in my life and think it is meant seriously. But it just makes me less inclined to help. FWIW I do not want to live forever. But I do not appreciate the suggestion that I need to move aside. I came by what I have fairly and without help from the state. Now is my time to reap the rewards of my endeavors.
Why do the olds have to get out of the way? Why do you have to take over their stuff...make your own. Mind you, starting your own business and building it up would be hard...and likely mean you have to work even MORE than now and you might actually see why making your staff work from the office has merit.
See, even the cry of "the older gens need to move aside" is the cry of infants. An adult would learn to work in the current system and have the patience to make the changes happen overtime instead of expecting everyone to stop how things have been done for generations just because the youth say to. None of the current generations started at the top. Each one had to make room for themselves by showing their worth and creating value that made those in change take notice of them.
As for the work from home thing...having seen it at multiple places that allow it, it seems like a one way street to me. It is great if you want the freedom to do things at your pace, when you want. But it sucks if you are a part of a team that needs people to be available and respond. Again, it is an immature way to look at work. Like you are an island that just does their own work in a vacuum. But for most jobs, that isn't the case. So having a chunk of the workforce potentially unavailable at any given time is not as productive as having everyone around at the same time.
When people feel they are part of something greater than themselves you will frequently see them have more children. It can be part of a new religion or new country (I think this can explain the number of children secular Israeli women have) or other movement. This used to be present when there was more interest in religion for example. For many, it is not there.
Funny how you had to throw in the threat of Donald Trump causing GenZ not to want children. I take it you support the Democrat party - the party that brings climate hysteria to our children, convincing them there is no future, so why have children?
I think Trump and his Republican Party welcome children, celebrate the family, have hope in America. The Democrats, no. America is evil, we are all oppressors, don’t bring children into this malice that is America. Sorry, but this is what Democrats now profess, and Trump Americans dispute it and find your alliance self fulfilling.
Your assumptions are badly off. Gurri is a deep, neutral, and profoundly intelligent observer of our cultural moment. In his writing he betrays no bias “for” or “against” Trump; “for” or “against” the Democrats; “for” or “against” the Republicans. The reference to Trump in the article above was a gentle nod to the overwrought anxiety towards Trump which so many people feel. I am quite certain that he meant humorously. That, anyway, is how I took it.