The Reason for Babies
The title of this post is vaguely evocative of the 1929 James Thurber / E.B. White comedy classic, Is Sex Necessary? If such a book were written today, after the sexual revolution and the ascendence of the birth control pill, it would more likely be titled, Are Babies Necessary? That sounds like a joke... right?
For most of human existence, babies were not really optional (and not only because they were a by-product of sexual desire). But with birth control widely available even in poor countries, the reason for babies is less obvious, and indeed, women around the world have fewer children than could have been imagined just a few decades ago. Why would they? No longer do most people need offspring to help out on the farm. Do they need kids for support in old age? Or do we have children as a way of living past death, to carry our genes into the future and so create a fuzzy scientific echo of our brief existence? People say things like, 'The dead live on in our memories' — and children are a way of ensuring that remembrance.
The phenomenon of falling birth rates around the world is beginning to draw significant academic and political attention. Two writers who address these questions are academics Michael Teitelbaum (at Harvard) and Jay Winter (at Yale), co-authors of The Global Spread of Fertility Decline, published in 2013. They also wrote "Bye Bye Baby," a New York Times' opinion piece published on April 4, 2014, that speaks to the same issues. They argue that declining fertility rates (including in some countries below the 'replacement level') are nothing to get too excited about. Not only may fertility rates rebound, but even on current trends it will take many decades before reduced fertility has a widespread effect on population.
They also ponder the possible causes of this development, identifying likely suspects such as increased rates of divorce (which lead to the hardships of single parenting), rising life expectancies (which means more old family members who need care), demanding educational and professional obligations (which increase the financial and scheduling costs of childcare), employment and earnings instability (rendering family provision uncertain), limited and expensive housing stock (which crowds families into smaller or shared homes), etc.
Teitelbaum and Winter then identify four positive effects of this reduction in births:
- an increase in "rights and opportunities for women" with the reduction in childcare;
- "higher levels of productivity" among workforces in low birthrate societies;
- "greater social and social political stability," achieved by reducing both the size of young adult cohorts and their unemployment; and
- an end to government policies which "encourage the emigration of... young citizens."
What I particularly notice about this list is that Teitelbaum and Winter treat the question of reduced fertility in strictly politico-economic terms — and the politico-economic implications of having a fewer children are apparently all good. Fewer babies means that women have more time for non-childcare activities... fewer babies means that more financial resources can be diverted away from child-rearing... fewer babies means that fewer troublemakers are born... fewer babies means that fewer mouths go hungry. When you look at the world through this kind of lens, a baby is just a problem, distracting us from all the other problems we already have.
The authors acknowledge they are ignoring the obvious politico-economic problems of reduced fertility, leading an air of inevitability to their discussion. Why do we have fewer children than ever before? Because children are a distraction from the truly productive, enjoyable and rewarding parts of life. Perhaps if you just happen to love being around children, you would want to have them. But ultimately you should make an informed, rational decision about the merits of children, and decide whether they will on balance make your life happier or not.
(Indeed pro-abortion advocates explicitly endorse the idea that women should abort their babies if they do not want the baby to take away from the time and money they spend on other, often sympathetic pursuits. See, e.g., Bryce Covert's April 25, 2017, New York Times op-ed, "Why Abortion is the Most Progressive Issue," in which he notes with approval that women's "most frequently cited reasons [for abortion] were that a new child would interfere with education or work or that women couldn’t afford to have a baby at that time.")
But could something justify having children that transcends the economic calculus of personal happiness? What if there were more to it than weighing the pros and cons to you of a choice as momentous as this? What if the reason for babies is not to increase your happiness, but to better your character?
In my experience, children — like spouses, in-laws, parents, siblings — do something far more important than increase my life satisfaction quotient. They force me to think beyond and outside myself. They force me to make decisions with others in mind. They require me to be a not-completely-self-interested person.
Of course, I could approximate that by having a pet, or volunteering at a charity, or practicing meditation every day... right? No, none of those are even pale shadows of the character-transforming power of a never-stops-screaming baby... of a perpetually-disobedient toddler... of an always-watching-and-imitating adolescent... of an insufferable teen.
What is the politico-economic value in that? How does it affect economic productivity? Women's empowerment? When we find ourselves asking only those questions, we have already answered them. Because in so doing we have resigned ourselves to a view of life shaded only in the duotones of personal happiness and sadness, concepts too elusive and watery to serve as our base colors. Let's reserve "happiness" for summer picnics in the park — and return to more permanent ideals when it comes to the really big decisions in life.
If you wish to discuss this post with me, I'd welcome receiving an email from you. Please email me at language.on.holiday@gmail.com.