TonesNotes 🇺🇸

A Mother of 14 On How to Solve the Fertility Crisis Last night, I had the pleasure of hearing tenured economics professor and mother of fourteen Catherine Pakaluk speak at the University of Virginia on "Faith, Fertility and the Future of Family." I do my best to write about the causes and solutions to the birthrate crisis but ultimately, we need models of success. And there is no one better to help us understand high-functioning pronatalism - one that recognizes our values of education and success - than the Harvard-educated speaker and author Dr. Pakaluk. Here are some highlights from her talk: The Old World is Gone There was a time when having children was the natural and largely inevitable result of coupling up. When men and women got romantically involved, one could expect at least a few children as a byproduct. Kids came and people had to figure things out. The revolution has been gradual. There were rubber condoms in the 1800s, but they weren't very good. Latex condoms were invented in the 1920s and were much better. And on and on. We've reached the point where children have to make their case and each child has to justify their own existence. And the math just isn't adding up. So many costs Pakaluk lists the huge costs of parenthood: · Time · Money · Sleep · Plans · Status · Accomplishments · Freedom · Hobbies · Life No wonder fertility is at all-time lows. What can overcome all the costs? Children need to offer a very high value proposition to meet all those costs. This is why the religious are almost the only ones not experiencing a collapse in birthrates. They tend to have a worldview that values children profoundly. Pakaluk, who interviewed successful mothers of many for her book Hannah's Children, uses quotes from those mothers to describe a particular outlook where children have extraordinary value, a value so high that all costs are overcome. · “A child is the most worthwhile thing you can do” · “Children are blessings from God” · “Children are a unique gift, a light in the world” · “Children are life’s greatest joy” · “The salvation of the world is the birth of a child” The Best Pronatal Policies? Pakaluk is skeptical that common pronatal policies like cash incentives and tax relief will persuade people to have children. (Perhaps a bit too skeptical?) What does she suggest? Religious liberty as family policy. School vouchers as a way to let people educate children according to their values. "Cultivate a world where Hannahs and their communities thrive." (Hannah = A reference to one of the bible's greatest stories.) More pointers · You can cultivate a desire for children. That is a value that can be taught and learned. · Marriage should be a foundation, not a capstone. · Plan your career around children, not children around your career. · Pakaluk seems to have it all, but it didn't happen all at the same time. She began her tenure-track journey at 40, after many years of motherhood. The greatest white pill Demography can feel extraordinarily grim. Some of the greatest nations in the world are rapidly fading, and we confront the deep-down fear that civilization itself is dying. But here is an antidote and it works completely. Pakaluk is not only succeeding in this generation. Her children, highly educated and successful in the world, have given her around 35 grandchildren so far and there seem to be a whole lot more in the future. She's still so young! The shift to the kinds of values embodied in those quotes is profound. But there are pockets of people who are making the shift, and it is really working! They will carry the world forward. Amid our demographic winter, there are quiet flashes of spring, and the sight is incredible!