here is a little-known movement sweeping across the United States. The movement is "natalism."Posted on 12/07/2004 3:51:25 PM PST by RWR8189
here is a little-known movement sweeping across the United States. The movement is "natalism."
All across the industrialized world, birthrates are falling - in Western Europe, in Canada and in many regions of the United States. People are marrying later and having fewer kids. But spread around this country, and concentrated in certain areas, the natalists defy these trends.
They are having three, four or more kids. Their personal identity is defined by parenthood. They are more spiritually, emotionally and physically invested in their homes than in any other sphere of life, having concluded that parenthood is the most enriching and elevating thing they can do. Very often they have sacrificed pleasures like sophisticated movies, restaurant dining and foreign travel, let alone competitive careers and disposable income, for the sake of their parental calling.
In a world that often makes it hard to raise large families, many are willing to move to find places that are congenial to natalist values. The fastest-growing regions of the country tend to have the highest concentrations of children. Young families move away from what they perceive as disorder, vulgarity and danger and move to places like Douglas County in Colorado (which is the fastest-growing county in the country and has one of the highest concentrations of kids). Some people see these exurbs as sprawling, materialistic wastelands, but many natalists see them as clean, orderly and affordable places where they can nurture children.
If you wanted a one-sentence explanation for the explosive growth of far-flung suburbs, it would be that when people get money, one of the first things they do is use it to try to protect their children from bad influences.
So there are significant fertility inequalities across regions. People on the Great Plains and in the Southwest are much more fertile than people in New England or on the Pacific coast.
You can see surprising political correlations. As Steve Sailer pointed out in The American Conservative, George Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates, and 25 of the top 26. John Kerry won the 16 states with the lowest rates.
In The New Republic Online, Joel Kotkin and William Frey observe, "Democrats swept the largely childless cities - true blue locales like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boston and Manhattan have the lowest percentages of children in the nation - but generally had poor showings in those places where families are settling down, notably the Sun Belt cities, exurbs and outer suburbs of older metropolitan areas."
Politicians will try to pander to this group. They should know this is a spiritual movement, not a political one. The people who are having big families are explicitly rejecting materialistic incentives and hyperindividualism. It costs a middle-class family upward of $200,000 to raise a child. These people are saying money and ambition will not be their gods.
Natalists resist the declining fertility trends not because of income, education or other socioeconomic characteristics. It's attitudes. People with larger families tend to attend religious services more often, and tend to have more traditional gender roles.
I draw attention to natalists because they're an important feature of our national life. Because of them, the U.S. stands out in all sorts of demographic and cultural categories. But I do it also because when we talk about the divide on values in this country, caricatured in the red and blue maps, it's important that we understand the true motive forces behind it.
Natalists are associated with red America, but they're not launching a jihad. The differences between them and people on the other side of the cultural or political divide are differences of degree, not kind. Like most Americans, but perhaps more anxiously, they try to shepherd their kids through supermarket checkouts lined with screaming Cosmo or Maxim cover lines. Like most Americans, but maybe more so, they suspect that we won't solve our social problems or see improvements in our schools as long as many kids are growing up in barely functioning families.
Like most Americans, and maybe more so because they tend to marry earlier, they find themselves confronting the consequences of divorce. Like most Americans, they wonder how we can be tolerant of diverse lifestyles while still preserving the family institutions that are under threat.
What they cherish, like most Americans, is the self-sacrificial love shown by parents. People who have enough kids for a basketball team are too busy to fight a culture war.
E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com
Congrad-u-lations!
Infertility sucks.
Good piece, though it's largely taken from Sailer's article. Andrew Sullivan has a lot of glee attacking the red states, but a lot of what he bashes them with has to do with the high birth rates of the red states. Massachusetts or Pennsylvania may have a low divorce rate because their population is older than that of other states. It's similar for other statistics. Blue states seem closer to zero population growth and hence don't experience some of the strains that that growth can bring. Consequently they aren't as troubled about the influences on children today.
Yes, infertility sucks alright! I will be bringing my adorable baby girl to the Freeper ball... anyone else going? :o)
Red is the color of Passionate Masculinity my friend. Its about time we recovered it from the Communists!
Thanks for my new tag line.
Actually, it's that when people get money, they move to the 'burbs to keep the communists that typically run the big cities from taxing every dime of it away from them and jamming Marxist ideology down their throats and their children's throats.
When we were first married, my husband and I wanted five. After we had our first we thought two or three would be better. Apparently, God had other ideas, though, since we now have five.
I wonder how the fertility rates would compare if they took into account the babies that are aborted in blue states. I guess I now have a name for myself, a natalist, seeing as i want a minimum of four children. :)
And why wouldn't you be?
Where is the picture of the colicky infant at 2:00 AM? ;)
I wanted four but had to settle for three - the wife wouldn't cooperate!
In every Russian peasant home, there was a "red-corner," that had icons of Christ and the saints. The red-corner was basically the family chapel and place of prayer, and it was called the "red-corner" because it was beautiful and because prayer was the most important thing that happened in the home.
So call me a red, for all I care. I'm certainly no "blue-blood." No need to recover it from the commies -- it has been the possession, with a positive meaning, of Christian Russians for a long time, and I'm sure they'll be happy to share the heritage with all of us Christians on this side of the pond, as well.
Bad influences like greedy, big-city liberals.
In my neighborhood we have the most kids in the 30 years I have lived here. Only one of the near families has a trophy kid who can't play because his mother fears life. The others have 2 or 3 kids per family and are growing up in a real neighborhood with lots of kid friends like the one I grew up in.
I wanted two, and I got three. I had twin daughters after our son.
The good Lord does know what you can handle.
I wouldn't trade my girls (or my son) for anything!
Same with our son's neighborhood. Kids are out playing basketball, kick ball, skate boarding and so many other things. Kids are out when they come home from school, after dinner when it is light and on weekends. It was fun to hear the sounds of laugher, hollering to each other and even those sounds when they flip the boards. Kids SHOULD play outside and get away from those mind numbing games on a screen. More exercise playing outside ... less ridalin for those who are on it.
You're not familiar with David Brooks? He wrote this, not the Times.
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