People often look at countries like Liberia and focus on the trauma of war, the chaos, the displacement. But here’s what I see: our government does the same thing in America when it tears families apart. The trauma may not be caused by civil war, but the suffering is eerily similar.

The child welfare system uses its power to forcibly remove children from their parents, just like I was separated from my siblings. These children are often placed with strangers, stripped from their community, their culture, and everything they know. Siblings are split up. Families are erased. And all of it is done in the name of safety.

Let’s be honest. This isn’t safety. It’s state-sanctioned separation. And it’s causing a level of trauma that mirrors the effects of war.

The answer to humanity’s civilizational crisis isn’t the multiplication of fatherless children; the solution is men who are truly willing to be fathers. //

Musk reduces fatherhood to passing along his genes and putting food on the table. He’s not alone in this. Forty percent of babies in the United States are born out of wedlock, and there are plenty of non-billionaire absentee dads. But a father isn’t just a DNA-donor and bring-home-the-bacon sort of person. A father is supposed to be a man-of-the-house, hug-crying-kids-in-the-middle-of-the-night, beat-the-tar-out-of-anyone-who-tries-to-hurt-you sort of person. //

When a baby comes into the world, he can do little aside from crying, and the father should often be near enough to hear those cries — even though the mother is the primary caretaker and the father will likely spend long hours away at work. A father should change his babies’ diapers and know his kids’ quirks and witness their day-to-day triumphs and temper tantrums.

Children should be able to yell, “Dad!” far too loudly and dramatically for whatever the problem is and not be met with silence or their mother telling them that Dad isn’t here, again. They should be able to watch their dad shave, kiss their mother, use sarcasm, and even engage in other less exemplary behaviors (like playing video games all night, for example) on a regular basis. It’s fun and heart-warming to see Musk trot the globe with X and other offspring in tow, but trips to the Oval Office don’t make up for perennial absence. //

But Musk misunderstands human nature and human capital. Humans are spiritual beings with emotions and a will — not mere “boot loaders” for an omniscient AI chatbot. His children need to be trained and mentored, not just handed the gift of intelligence and told, “Have fun saving humanity, kids.” And to the degree that Musk’s intelligence is heritable, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. The key input is Musk himself, not his genetics, and Musk isn’t scalable in the way his genes are.

Without his personal involvement as a father, Musk’s children could just as easily become evil geniuses as saviors of civilization. More important, children aren’t simply units of production in the war to save humanity, or at least, they shouldn’t be. Not to dads. Yes, they will fight the state’s wars, pay its taxes, and sustain its existence. But to fathers, children should mean much, much more. I know numerous fathers — true force multipliers — who are having lots of children within the confines of marriage and doing much to save humanity. But for them, rescuing civilization is a byproduct; the children are an end in themselves. Despite his civilizational aspirations, Musk doesn’t seem to go as far as viewing his children as mere units. But he comes close, and he could learn much from these men.

Along with other right-wing influencers and writers, Keeperman offered his thoughts on family formation and human fertility. Yet, unlike other speakers who discussed remedies for encouraging people to have more children, Keeperman took a different approach by declaring from the outset: “I’m going to explain why this conference should be disbanded as soon as possible.”

Far from dismissing the very real problem of depopulation, Keeperman thinks about it more than most people, but has concluded that this is one of those cases where less is more. As he puts it, people “need to care a lot less about their kids” and should stop calling themselves “pro-natalists.”

His first point warrants elaboration since most non-parents usually miss it. For several generations now, parents are expected to devote ever more of their time and attention to their children for the purpose of guaranteeing their material success, boosting their self-esteem, and conforming to an artificial standard projected by mass media. This means following all the new parental trends, seeking out the best schooling options, blocking out harmful influences, spending endless time bonding, and sparing no expense to keep their children happy and entertained.

Keeperman notes how these additional parenting burdens have made having more than one or two children far too onerous: “When parenting is redefined from an obsessive, resource-intensive exercise in micromanagement and resume-building to something much more hands-off and organic, each child no longer represents an exponential increase in parental workload and anxiety.”. //

For his part, Keeperman rightly sees the bigger problem with both views, which is that they make raising kids much more stressful and thus much less appealing. Hence, he admonishes his audience: “Don’t do this [over-parenting]. Stay as far away from this as possible. Actively reject this. Your kids don’t want this. It will not help them. You don’t want this. It is completely and utterly the wrong approach to parenting.”. //

After all, no normal person has children for the good of the country or to own the libs, nor should they. Rather, they should have children out of love. As Peachy Keenan said in her own excellent speech at the Natal Conference, “any healthy natalism movement must be about more than numbers and technology. It has to be about, simply, maternal love. We should do it for their babies, for our babies, out of infinite love for them.”

And for that infinite love to fully emerge, prospective parents need to distance themselves from the pressures to over-parent as well as disengage from the natalist debates. To do this, they need limit their exposure to the incessant chatter of digital media so that they can rediscover their natural impulses to pair up, procreate, and raise children. There is little need to complicate it, and much to lose from making the effort.

My crime: I had four kids, now growing into adults, and they are all wonderful. Truth be told, I hadn’t planned on four: we had two, a boy and girl, and life seemed perfect. But I wanted one more: I was one of three, and that seemed like a perfect number. Then we were blessed with twins, something that I never even considered, but which has turned out to be amazing.

The truth is, raising kids is God’s work, and there’s nothing like it that can bring meaning to your life—not career accomplishments, not money, not fame—only family. There are those out there on social media and the like claiming that they’re oh so happy with childless life—they’re able to travel!—but they just don’t understand what it means to raise a child. Meanwhile, call me when you’re 80 and need a helping hand—suddenly, your phone will grow silent. //

The left, in their insanity, has now made having multiple children a bad thing. This directly contradicts the order from the Bible, which commands: "Go forth and multiply." Not to mention Mother Nature, who says basically the same thing

To me, raising children has been the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate joy. It certainly hasn't been easy; I can tell you that, but I can also argue that for America to return to prominence, we must acknowledge that children are our future.

Without them, humanity ceases to exist. //

anon-jzmf
4 hours ago
You do make sacrifices for your children. But it's not hard. It's easy to make those sacrifices because you love your kids so much that it's easier to give them what they need than it is to short-change them. //

St. Joseph, Terror of Demons
4 hours ago
Here’s where I am more conservative and traditional than even self-described conservative Republicans.

Once a woman has had a child, her primary function is to be at home raising her children. Certainly there are circumstances that require women to go back to work (e.g., the husband can’t work, is unemployed, or is no longer around).

However, the point of this life is not to strive to accumulate as much wealth, items, and comforts as possible, especially when you have a family. The point of this life is to know, love, and serve God, and to do everything that you can to get you and your family to Heaven. //

misterright St. Joseph, Terror of Demons
3 hours ago
When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, if your mom worked outside the home (as it was called back then) you were pitied. The notion of warehousing kids in daycare centers not only didn't exist, it was resisted because "that's what they do in the Soviet Union!" How far we've gone downhill in 60 years.

The Left argues that children who don't go to daycare are not properly socialized. My experience teaches me that children who are raised in daycare centers and spend time only with their age group in schools are not well socialized at all. I have never met such a child who could look you in the eye and carry on a conversation with adults. Children raised by their parents and especially if they have the blessing of growing up in close proximity to extended family are much better socialized and able to interact with others of all ages. Children of parents who, in addition to the above, are active in their church are even better socialized. In other words, the Left is absolutely wrong once again.

Marxists need to get their grip on children at an early age. The fact that stay-at-home moms are denigrated by the Left is not an accident. The fact that all daycare centers must be licensed (read: controlled) by the state and are thus turned into indoctrination centers is not an accident. The Left viewed the Soviet Union not as a cautionary tale, but as a model. If we don't drastically change course, our fate will be that of the Soviet Union. We need to start with families and education. //

7againstthebes
4 hours ago edited
The left, by their nature are anti-child. They are pro consumerism, pro hedonist, pro abortion, and pro drug and alcohol.

So, they are childless, materialistic, drug users and drunks. Welcome to your empty life.

As a country, we need to do more to encourage marriage and children. Some of that certainly pertains to an active faith in God as a society.

More than that, as a society we need to return to the traditional roles of society and the acknowledgement of the value added for each role. Further, those that are outside of those roles should be widely viewed as not as valuable to society.

The US tax code needs to be rewritten to substantially increase the child tax credit. To decrease the tax rate of married filing jointly. To offer more far reaching tax write-0ffs for child education costs, and daycare costs.

New civil laws that offer mortgage rate discounts for married couples. Civic planning that encourage and foster community planning that centers around children centric families.

These changes are a good way to start a focus on marriage and child rearing. Let the anti-child left be scorned and seen as valueless. Let their behavior be enough to mark them as useless to society. //

misterright 7againstthebes
3 hours ago
The family is the single most successful social unit in the history of civilization. For that reason, the Left cannot tolerate the existence of a society centered on strong nuclear families. Your comment that "society must be returned to traditional values that work to provide those goals and not against them" is spot on. Expect, however, that the Left will fight strenuously and with everything they've got to make sure that never happens.

Of course, many women who aren’t expecting a positive pregnancy test do experience all those feelings. It’s compassionate to meet women and their emotions where they’re at. But not once does Natural Cycles balance its we-understand-this-is-the-worst-thing-to-ever-happen-to-you attitude with Hey, this might not be what you were expecting, but your baby is worth celebrating, and you can do this!

Instead, it apologetically admits “the sad truth is that any sexually active woman is always at risk of pregnancy.”

The sad truth? That’s how human sexuality is designed, guys! You’re not actually pro-woman or body-positive if you think the procreative nature of sex and a woman’s natural ability to bear children are a “sad truth.”

Alternatives to hormonal contraceptives are appealing because they recognize a woman’s cycle is an amazing, intricate design to be understood, not suppressed with synthetic hormones. But treating the biological fact that sex creates babies as a bad thing sends women the same message that pumping them with carcinogenic pills and abortion drugs does.

There’s a huge market for a hormone-free alternative like Natural Cycles among pro-life women who want to avoid the anti-birth industry and its risks to their health. For Natural Cycles to shove abortion propaganda in their faces isn’t just bad business, it’s also insulting.

By promoting abortion, Natural Cycles is buying into the same lie as the pharmaceutical contraceptive industry: that women’s bodies and their potential for baby production are a problem. Even worse, it’s ensuring that one of the first reactions an expecting mother receives about her new baby is “here’s how to get rid of it.”

Every baby and every pregnancy deserves to be celebrated. The sad truth is that Natural Cycles doesn’t see it that way.

Article

See new posts
Conversation
Elon Musk reposted
More Births
@MoreBirths
A Pronatal Culture is the Clearest Path to Solving the Birthrate Crisis
Many worry that we won't be able to solve the low fertility crisis without terrible costs on society. Some fear women will lose access to birth control and abortion, like in Ceaușescu's Romania.Ceau Others imagine a religious theocracy as in The Handmaids Tale.
A slightly better possibility is the Scandinavian model, where significant sums are spent on subsidies for children. That's not a bad idea. But it seems to take big spending for only modest increases in fertility. Norway, Sweden and Finland all have a fertility rate below 1.5 anyway.
There is a way to solve the fertility crisis that is compatible with reproductive choice, reasonable government spending and a broadly freedom-oriented society. What is that? A society that priorities having children as one of the highest values.
Don't all societies do that? No, it's actually pretty rare in the modern world. Israel and Mongolia are two examples of countries that achieve healthy birthrates through a directly pronatal culture.
In December I wrote "Understanding High Israeli Fertility" about the only rich country with above-replacement fertility.
https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1870911221630685465
In August I wrote, "Elevating the Status of Motherhood Solves Low Birthrates" about how Mongolia achieves triple the fertility of its neighbors with the help of national celebrations of motherhood. (The top image shows a Mongolian mother of four receiving the Order of Maternal Glory award, at the presidential palace in Ulaanbaatar.)
https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1827418468813017441
That thread went viral thanks to @ElonMusk.
Both of these countries solve the fertility crisis in the most straightforward way possible. The fact that society needs more children is communicated openly and sincerely, over many years so that everyone in society understands. Having children became not just a personal choice but a national cause.
Building society-wide pronatal belief may not be easy. But that has to be the foundation of any successful pronatal strategy.
What is so great about having children as a national goal? A lot of things:
(1) It is honest about what society needs from people.
Society needs children and will fall apart without them. Most countries aren't willing to openly say it, but nations that do say it, and have a sense of national identity, can see profound results. //

Having children may bring happiness to adults, but so can fine dining and travel to beautiful places. Why should someone choose the first one which is hard instead of the latter two, which are easy? Are we willing to make the ask, to say we need people to have more children?

(2) A pronatal culture makes parenthood and especially motherhood higher status. //

(6) A pronatal culture solves fertility simply, mainly by getting existing parents to have more kids!
One the few examples of a country that went from below replacement fertility to above is Kazakhstan, whose TFR went from 1.8 in 2000 to 3.0 today. It did it much like Mongolia did, by celebrating motherhood and directly urging people to have more children for a brighter future.
What happened in Kazakhstan? First order births hardly changed but third, fourth and fifth+ births rocketed upward.

This has to be the easiest solution! People who aren't ready for kids don't have to have them. Those who already have kids just choose to have more!
Guess what: That is also how the Patriarch of Georgia got his country to raise its birthrate, by persuading parents to have more.

Doubtless, you've seen the random moments where Elon Musk is in an important place, saying important things, and talking to important people. It's pretty much his day-to-day, however from time to time, you'll see his little son, X Æ A-Xii, more commonly known as "X," right alongside him. Not only is Musk keeping him around during these important moments, he sometimes allows X to take part at the moment, giving him the microphone to be cute.

X can be seen being carried around on Musk's shoulders, or playing nearby as Musk speaks. The last clip of this happening took place in the Oval Office itself.

As Bonchie noted in an article, X stole the show as Musk was discussing battle plans with the press while Donald Trump sat at the Resolute Desk. It was a highly official moment, but X playing quietly right next to Musk as he spoke was the thing people were most impacted by. //

Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
·
Children are a blessing. The most powerful people in the world are normalizing children in public.

Love this ❤️🇺🇸
3:05 AM · Feb 12, 2025. //

I try to take my son where I can. I don't just do this because I want to introduce him to various environments where he can watch me do things and learn, I do it because I think he belongs there. He's not taking up space, he's a person, and while he's just a toddler who will do toddler things, his little-kid mannerisms shouldn't be something we feel embarrassed about.

I believe there's a stigma about children in public, and that when they act like children in front of others, we feel apologetic or that we've done wrong by disturbing the peace with childlike antics. I think that's wrong.

While I don't think parents should let kids run wild and be nuisances, I think children being in public is a beautiful thing. I don't think we should ever feel guilty about the noise and disturbances they make to the extent we do. I don't think the public should see it as a negative event, either.

Being alive is a family affair, and healthy families oftentimes have little ones. We should consider them a blessing, not a burden. They should be brought out into the open and included in society, and not just in the everyday moments, but the important ones too, just like Musk is doing. This should be normalized, and have the message sent to everyone that children aren't just welcome, they're also fun little inclusions.

But it's not just about the kid, it's about the parent. We're normalizing, and elevating parenting in public. These moments where Musk has X nearby or on his shoulders sends a clear message that I think is often absent from the public consciousness.

He's a very powerful, influential, man... but he's a dad first. //

We have this idea in our head that we can't be a parent and a career-based individual, but Musk is disproving that consistently. He's worth more than anyone on the planet, and he has the ear of the most powerful man on the planet, but his son is his real priority. He conducts the business of the world, his decisions having national and global impact... and X is playing nearby while he does it.

We're not just normalizing children in public, we're normalizing parenting during critical moments and big decisions. Trump seems to have also had this strategy going, as his children are all successful business-minded people like him. Being included, even from a young age, helped pave the way for their own successes. //

Mike Ford
8 hours ago
Her Majesty [wife] shared something with me one day in church, when a little kid was being...well...a little kid.

She said, "The best sign of a healthy, growing church, is crying babies."

Stephen L. Miller @redsteeze
·
Elon Musk answering more questions in the Oval Office than Joe Biden did in 4 years.
9:45 PM · Feb 11, 2025. //

Standing next to President Donald Trump, Musk lambasted the bureaucratic state, noting that it is antithetical to democracy to have unelected officials operating outside the authority of elected representatives. No doubt, he was referencing several recent court decisions that have sought to prevent Trump from being president despite his holding of the office. //

Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47
·
ELON MUSK: "If the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives... then we don't live in a democracy... It's incredibly important that we fix that..."

9:31 PM · Feb 11, 2025. //

Well, we have this unelected fourth, unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy, which has, in a lot of ways, currently more power than any elected representative. That's not something that people want, and does not match the will of the people. It's something we've got to fix. //

This is what Democrats refuse to accept, and for completely cynical reasons. You do not have a democracy if federal bureaucrats can simply override, either directly or through lawfare, any change to the status quo made by the President of the United States. If an agency has such total control that it can stop the executive branch from even changing the content of government websites, that is authoritarianism despite the faceless nature of federal employees. American voters voted for change by electing Donald Trump. They did not vote for federal judges to stop any and all reforms under absurd legal theories.

Democrats see the bureaucracy as a protection of their power structure. As long as it persists, they don't have to win elections. They can simply continue their reign of terror from the shadows, hiding behind millions of federal employees exercising immense control without any accountability. That's what Trump is seeking to stop, and it has Democrats screaming bloody murder. //

MUSK: You know there's crazy things like, we just finished the examination of Social Security, and we've got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that is 150? I don't, okay. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records. They're missing out. So, you know that's a case where I think they're probably dead, or they should be very famous. One of the two. //

The federal bureaucracy has been a gravy train for Democrat partisans for decades. Somehow, despite relatively normal salaries (though far too high in some cases), many of these people become fabulously wealthy. How did Samantha Power, who headed USAID during the Biden administration, see her wealth surge up to $30 million holding the position she did? These are questions that deserve answers. //

Brigitte Gabriel @ACTBrigitte
·
Cuteness overload!

Elon Musk is talking about how he's going to cut the deficit in half and his son X is whispering to President Trump and picking his nose.

Little boys will be boys! It's nice to see beautiful young families back inside the White House!
0:22 / 0:22
9:41 PM · Feb 11, 2025. //

There's something wholesome and refreshing about children being normalized in public spaces again. Whether it's Musk or Vice President JD Vance, we are seeing a return of kids not being seen as a burden but as a blessing worth cherishing. Once again, it represents a stark contrast to the hateful resentment shown by the left, and Musk calmly answering questions while Democrats screech like banshees is why the latter keep losing.

Baby showers are a way culture and churches bestow value and honor to mothers and infants, unborn children, and growing families.

Catherine Pakaluk and Emily Reynolds’ new book, ‘Hannah’s Children,’ studies mothers of large families and concludes they may hold the key for solving many societal ills. //

While there is much to be said about the particular reasons people choose to have large families, Pakaluk writes that there is one beautiful commonality among these women:

I suppose it boils down to some sort of deeply held thing, possibly from childhood — a platinum conviction — that the capacity to conceive children, to receive them into my arms, to take them home, to dwell with them in love, to sacrifice for them as they grow, and to delight in them as the Lord delights in us, that that thing, call it motherhood, call it childbearing, that that thing is the most worthwhile thing in the world — the most perfect thing I am capable of doing.

Hannah
Pakaluk opens with the story of Hannah, a woman from a Reformed Jewish background whose search for meaning led her ultimately to procreation and the proliferation of family through child-bearing, what she called “this key to infinity.” At the time of her interview, Hannah had seven children, and described her choice to have a large family as a “deliberate rejection of an autonomous, customized, self-regarding lifestyle in favor of a way of life intentionally limited by the demands of motherhood.” //

The modern challenge to traditional and cohesive family roles has absolutely impacted family growth patterns, the book argues, and will likely continue to do so. And the declining population will impact future workforces, infrastructure, and entitlement programs far beyond basic demography.

“The political and economic consequences of these trends cannot be overstated,” Pakaluk writes. “Birth rates are falling because of tradeoffs women and households are making — tradeoffs between children and other things that they value.”

What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with this culture, that it sees this as acceptable?

This is not a mere "cultural" difference. This isn't something that may be considered wrong in one society and not in another. This is wrong in essence; it is wrong no matter where, when, or to whom it happens. And the sad part is that the current law isn't nearly as, well, savage. //

Batta's story, should serve as a cautionary tale, as we have been importing thousands upon thousands of people from this part of the world, for who knows what reason, for years now. They are setting enclaves in places like Dearborn, Michigan, and Minneapolis, Minnesota - and some among them might agree with these Iraqi lawmakers and clerics.

It can happen here, and if you think some of these people might not try it, well, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

There are a lot of ways the government can overreach, but I've always considered its ability to worm its fingers into controlling how parents raise their children to be the most despotic of all, and it's still an issue that's happening today.

I think many people pardon this intrusion because it's based on care for the children, which you'll find this is an excuse used by a lot of authoritarians to pass off their control-focused legislation with.

But the brutal truth is that this kind of "care" isn't care at all. It rips apart families on the basis that the government can do a better job parenting your children than you can. It's a signal to Americans that the government has more authority over your child than you do, and that it will wield that authority if you give them any flimsy excuse.

I can't help but wonder how many parents keep their children locked up in America and under constant supervision, not because they're terrified they might come to harm or be kidnapped, but because the state will come down on them after one phone call from a nosy Karen. I have a very strong feeling that America isn't a country of helicopter parents, it's just filled with parents unwilling to risk being taken from their kids.

What kind of free country are we living in, if that's our mentality?

And what does this do to our children? Nothing good. //

Not that there hasn't been state-level pushback. To be fair, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Colorado, and others have been passing laws over the past five years that protect parents who let their kids roam.

My advice? Familiarize yourself with your state's laws, and if they're too tight, make it clear they need to be loosened. Make it a big deal. Get your friends and family involved. Get your neighbors to raise a stink about it.

Will America become a majority-childless society? A new Pew Research Center survey suggest that sadly may be the case. Such a direction would have alarming consequences for not just individuals but also for our nation.

When Pew asked Americans younger than 50 if they ever plan to have children, 47 percent—one-half of those polled—said “no.” That’s up 10 percent from just five years before. In fact, of those younger than 50, 57 percent said they never wanted to have children, even if they ended up doing so.

The reasons why? Pew writes: “Not having kids has made it easier for them to afford the things they want, have time for hobbies and interests, and save for the future.” But what kind of future are they saving for? It will quite likely be a lonely one. //

The Social Security Administration saw this coming in 2010, noting trouble ahead in its financial report because “birth rates dropped from three to two children per woman.” Previously, there had been a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio between workers paying into the system and retirees taking money out. That ratio has already dropped to almost two-to-one. With even fewer children in the future, the ratio will decrease further.

Leor Sapir, PhD, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute whose areas of research include pediatric gender medicine, shared that anywhere from 5,288 to 6,294 double mastectomies were performed on girls under age 18 between 2017 and 2023 — and that 50 to 179 of those girls were just 12 years old or younger. //

This was based on analysis of an "all-payer national insurance database," including patients who were previously diagnosed with gender dysphoria and had the treatment covered by insurance, Sapir wrote in an article revealing the findings.

The actual numbers could be higher, the Manhattan Institute claims, because researchers did not include patients who paid for the procedure themselves without submitting an insurance claim. //

Thousands — thousands — of children are subjected to invasive, irreversible surgeries. These girls will never be able to breastfeed a child; if they are also being subjected to hormone treatments, they may never be able to have children.

To call this medical malpractice is to indulge in a gross understatement. //

adults, presumably able to give informed consent. Children are not; that's why we don't allow them to sign contracts, buy booze or guns, get married, or join the military. And to see these numbers — thousands of young girls, surgically mutilated because of a social contagion that they would have grown out of, that should have been treated at most with therapy and counseling — this is nothing short of horrifying.

Ever since my little boy came into the world, I've steadily become a different person than I was before he was around. The more he grows, the more I do, or at the very least, the more I notice my perspectives change. //

Angela Belcamino @AngelaBelcamino
·
Imagine being 42, child-free, stress-free, and being this happy.

The right hates this.
0:20 / 0:20
6:58 PM · Jul 28, 2024

Is being child-free less stressful? Absolutely. At nearly two, my son is a gremlin who has two modes; asleep or going wild. When he's not in the house, I feel my muscles relax and my focus return.

But ease does not make for happiness. The question isn't whether your life is easier, the question is whether your life is filled with joy. That little gremlin is a joy to have. He gives my life far more purpose than something beyond myself and represents something much larger than me. Watching him grow is like watching a slow miracle unfold right before my eyes. My life is harder with him in it, but far better overall.

I don't need to use the "when you're on your deathbed, you'll want to be surrounded by your children and not your cats" argument. I can tell you that the joy is in the present, turning these little gremlins into proper people.

But the grandest of childless takes are the ones I see in positions of power. I'm amazed at how often school boards are made up of childless bureaucrats.

How could America shift so babies were more welcomed, less dreaded?

Tim Carney, author of the new book “Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be,” has a few ideas. He’d like to see corporations offer parents their child’s birthday off every year. He wants parents to not work so hard at parenting—and to never, ever, sign up their kids for a travel sports team. He’d like to see local governments prioritize sidewalks and denser housing, which would make neighborhoods safer for kids.

But he also wants us to think about why we have a falling birth rate—and what it says about us. After World War II, America had a baby boom, while Germany experienced a baby bust. Now, we’re struggling with our own baby bust, even as we are hammered by relentless discussions of America’s failures, the threat of climate change, and more. “The spirit of the age now is what I call civilizational sadness,” says Carney. “And the sadness is a belief that we’re just not good or that humans were a mistake.” //

"Kids make us be better people. They make us aspire to be better people, both our kids and other people's kids around us," says author Tim Carney.

In the small town of Calhoun, Georgia, the Timms family has found itself embroiled in a heart-wrenching legal battle that further exposes the profound flaws within the state’s child welfare agency. The ordeal began when Brady and Carrie Timms’ three-month-old son Jameson was forcibly removed from their care following medical visits that quickly spiraled into a misdiagnosis and false accusations that brought about their current nightmare. //

The couple later petitioned the court to have Jameson examined at Boston Children’s Hospital by an expert. The court agreed, provided that two case workers with DFCS were also allowed to be present. The doctor diagnosed both Carrie and Jameson with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a genetic condition that could explain the child’s symptoms and injuries. //

The family believed the diagnosis, which occurred with the DFCS agents present, would vindicate them. Unfortunately, the agency disregarded this critical evidence and refused to move toward reunifying the family.

We all think we know the story of pregnancy. Sperm meets egg, followed by nine months of nurturing, nesting, and quiet incubation. But this story isn’t the nursery rhyme we think it is. In a way, it’s a struggle, almost like a tiny war. And right on the front lines of that battle is another major player on the stage of pregnancy that not a single person on the planet would be here without. An entirely new organ: the placenta.

Demographers and pundits have been blaring alarm bells about declining birth rates for decades, and that future is finally here. //

What used to be fodder for ’80s comedies about clueless single men or frigid career women is now the lived experience of the few children who escape the infertility-spreading medical establishment. These kids face an uphill battle: life with fewer friends, fewer siblings, and fewer child-friendly spaces. And that’s just the half of it: If current birth rate trends hold up, they might be facing the end of civilization as we know it. //

There, in the first blessing God speaks to the first man and the first woman — “be fruitful and multiply” — lies the answer to Berenson’s question of why so many wealthy, privileged couples worldwide are refusing to have children. It is not that humanity is losing faith in itself. It’s that we have faith only in ourselves.

As Dennis Prager puts it in his invaluable commentary on Genesis, secularism is the most important explanation for the modern world’s low birth rates. The poem “Epithalamion,” Edmund Spenser’s famous ode to his bride, ends with a fervent prayer that the Heavens bless their marriage, “that we may raise a large posterity” and increase the count of the blessed saints. //

The future, Steyn likes to say, belongs to those who show up. I do not know who, if anyone, will end up living in the lands our society increasingly has no children of our own to bequeath to. But I bet they’ll know how to change diapers.

all the tags from https://b.plas.ml

1st-amendment 2nd-amendment 4th-amendment 5th-amendment 9/11 a8 abortion acl adhd afghanistan africa a/i air-conditioning amateur-radio amazon america american android animals anti-americanism antifa anti-semitism antiv antivirus aoip apollo apple appliances archaeology architecture archive art astronomy audio automation avatar aviation backup bash batteries belleville bible biden bill-of-rights biology bookmarks books borg bush business calibre camping capitalism cellphone censorship chemistry children china christianity church cia clinton cloud coldwar communication communist composed computers congress conservatives constitution construction cooking copyleft copyright corruption cosmology counseling creation crime cron crypto culture culture-of-death cummins data database ddt dd-wrt defense democrats depression desantis development diagrams diamonds disinformation diy dns documentation dokuwiki domains dprk drm drm-tpm drugs dvd dysautonomia earth ebay ebola ebook economics education efficiency electricity electronics elements elwa email energy engineering english environment environmentalism epa ethernet ethics europe euthanasia evolution faa facebook family fbi fcc feminism finance firewall flightsim flowers fonts français france fraud freebsd free-speech fun games gardening genealogy generation generators geography geology gifts git global-warming google gop government gpl gps graphics green-energy grounding hdd-test healthcare help history hollywood homeschool hormones hosting houses hp html humor hunting hvac hymns hyper-v imap immigration india infosec infotech insects instruments interesting internet investing ip-addressing iran iraq irs islam israel itec j6 journalism jumpcloud justice kindle kodi language ldap leadership leftist leftists legal lego lgbt liberia liberty linguistics linux literature locks make malaria malware management maps markdown marriage mars math media medical meshcentral metatek metric microbit microsoft mikrotik military minecraft minidisc missions moon morality mothers motorola movies mp3 museum music mythtv names nasa nature navigation navy network news nextcloud ntp nuclear obama ocean omega opensource organizing ortlip osmc oxygen paint palemoon paper parents passwords patents patriotism pdf petroleum pets pews photography photo-mgmt physics piano picasa plesk podcast poetry police politics pollution pornography pots prayer pregnancy presentations press printers privacy programming progressive progressives prolife psychology purchasing python quotes rabbits rabies racism radiation radio railroad reagan recipes recording recycling reference regulations religion renewables republicans resume riots rockets r-pi russia russiagate safety samba satellites sbe science sci-fi scotus secularism security servers shipping ships shooting shortwave signal sjw slavery sleep snakes socialism social-media software solar space spacex spam spf spideroak sports ssh statistics steampowered streaming supplement surveillance sync tarsnap taxes tck tds technology telephones television terrorism tesla theology thorium thumbnail thunderbird time tls tools toyota trains transformers travel trump tsa twitter typography ukraine unions united.nations unix ups usa vaccinations vangelis vehicles veracrypt video virtualbox virus vitamin vivaldi vlc voting vpn w3w war water weather web whatsapp who wifi wikipedia windows wordpress wuflu ww2 xigmanas xkcd youtube zfs