“Where have all the children gone?” asks the article at TechCentralStation.com. Not surprisingly, because it’s a site focused on free-market economics and politics, they see part of the problem as being the loss of the need for children to provide for parents in their old-age. With socialized government pension plans in place in most industrialized nations, some even more “generous” than the US Social Security, the author says that many people didn’t see a need for children who would care for them. Of course, such thinking, in purely economic terms, is short-sighted because those children are still needed to pay into the taxpayer-funded plans.
But that can’t be all that the crisis is about, because parents don’t simply look at their children as economic units. They love their children… or should. The problem goes deeper than economic interests. The problem is selfishness and a loss of faith. Many people want more themselves so they don’t have time for kids. Children hold back your career and eat up precious resources of time and money. They’re useful as another material possession, a success yardstick to show off to your friends: “Look at my kid’s $1,000 stroller,” “See my kid score that goal,” “My kid just got into Harvard.” A loss of faith is still blame as well. When we lose sight of the love of our Father for us, the love of our Divine Brother who sacrificed Himself for us, is it any wonder we don’t experience the wonder and joy of co-creating human beings with God, of raising up children to love God?
The author warns that those who are reproducing are Muslims, and at such a rate in Europe that soon it will be a Muslim continent. Christendom will not be conquered by the sword, but by the selfishness and loss of faith of Christians. Who will listen to our bitter tears when Chartres and Notre Dame and the cathedral in Cologne and the other great churches have been stripped of their Christian trappings and turned into bare mosques or museums, like the Hagi Sophia.
John Gibson gives us a prime example of this anti-child, selfish attitude so prevalent now. It’s a condom commercial that shows a child having a tantrum and then advises that if the father had used a condom…. Sick, isn’t it? This is the attitude that is killing our society by aborting our children and preventing the rest from being born. If I didn’t have to live in this world, I’d almost be tempted to say they’re all getting what they deserve.
With regard to Social Security people think that *they* don’t need children any longer to take care of them when they are old. That’s right…. because the government will make *my* children do it. The worst aspect of this is that if it isn’t corrected soon it never will be because those who have no children have no incentive to try to protect them from inordinate burdens later in their lives. —I got mine, who cares about you—
As far as the condom ad goes, that’s why with the rise of birth control we also got a rise in child abuse.
I worked with an older gentleman several years ago and he has six (now adults) children. He mentioned to me he could never afford such a family if he was starting out now. What changed from now and 30 or 40 years ago? Economic interests and material gains are key in this perception.
Also, China is facing a problem with its one child policy. Previously children (and most often the eldest son) were responsible for aging parents. Today, a married couple has the responsibility of taking care of two sets of older parents—parents who sacrificed a lot to provide an education—and maybe even an elder grandparent or two. This places additional economic pressure on the young couple. Wish I could find the article link ..there was one recently that described this problem…..“Will China get old before it gets rich?”
And with an aging populace, the younger generation (here in the US and elsewhere) will have to make some hard choices given our focus on materialism. Imagine what the aging baby boomers, who came to age in the ‘60s and view abortion as a fundamental right, think when harsh measures come their way as the younger generation decides who is useful or not to society. The abortion mindset has created some in a generation who have devalued life and will make decisions on who is a benefit or not to society…..hopefully for all of us, the chickens will not—in this case—come home to roost.
peace
http://www.piraeus.us/blog/2005/01/true-but-unfair-piece.html
is a post about some of the attitudes I have personally viewed about ‘trophy kids’
very sad indeed
“The author warns that those who are reproducing are Muslims, and at such a rate in Europe that soon it will be a Muslim continent. “
I got an alumni magazine from my Jesuit alma mater a while back and there was a report about a poll taken on contraception. Before entering the Catholic college about 50% rejected the teaching of the Church on the use of artificial birth control. After four years of Catholic Jesuit education, it turned out that 95% rejected the teaching of the Church on artificial birth control. My personal opinion is that Vatican II was a dsiaster for the Church. I am looking at the headlines in the newspaper and there is a picture of another priest in court, facing charges of molesting boys in or near a Church. The cardinal at that time gave him a sterling letter of recommendation to another diocese, which had contemplated on suing the cardinal, basically for lying about the priest in his letter. The annulment rates are at about 50,000 per year today, in contrast to what they were before Vatican II of about 10 in the year 1930. What marriage cannot be annulled today? I did hear of a case of a famous Catholic who successfully received two annulments. However, since he was a public figure, the Church decided it would be too much to grant him his third annulment, and true, the third annulment was denied in that case. So there are a few cases when the annulment is denied. But it looks to me like the Church has effectively discarded the notion of indissolubility of marriage, by introducing the concept of easy to receive annulments. And getting back to the question of contraception, how many Catholics today feel good about limiting their families by the use of contraceptives? Father Greeley has a discussion of the question in one of his novels. According to the discussion in his novel, scatological terminology is applied in reference to the teaching of the Church on contraception.