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
My BIL was 34 when he got married....his youngest is number 7.
Here, here. It is a disgusting shame that our traditional American values have become part of the fringe because of those you listed.
Time to take back the country.
--- I wonder if the writer can back up the claim that "natalists" (read: crazed baby maachines) tend to marry earlier. ---
I believe that should read "earlier than all the myopic NY Times writers that haven't seen or spoken to a red stater in the past 30+ years".
The only thing these morons know about red states is that the cars look like little ants from 30,000 feet up.
You are absolutely correct......raising a child is not for the narcissistic.
Tom Tancredo, one of the greatest guys in the House of Reps represents Douglas County, CO......wonder if he has anything to do with creating an environment conducive to child rearing.
Conservative base flock to him, or did the conservative base just elect one who shares their values? Interesting Chicken / Egg conundrum.
They eat their young.
And I think Brooks is very wrong, wishfully wrong about thinking families with multiple chidren aren't active in the culture war...they are often on the cutting edge because they have a lot at stake...
No, they abort them.
THAT is a BEAUTIFUL BABY!!! : )
Seared ... SEARED into my memory ... but unfortunately we don't have the brain-wave-digital-transfer thingie for the pictures yet :-).
Thanks!
I had four. As a rule, by the time the last one arrives, the oldest one is big enough to help out a little. They also help teach and discipline the younger siblings. It doesn't cost any more for a 10-pound bag of potatoes for a family of six or eight than it does for a 10-pound bag of potatoes for a family of three or four, even though it may have to purchased a little more often. Clothes often get handed down, as do toys, bedrooms, etc. The important things in life are often more easily understood in larger families. I am right in the middle of seven, my husband was next-youngest of eight. His parents came from equally large families. My father had nine siblings. Out of all of it, nobody starved, and all got at least an eighth-grade education. Big families are practical and warm, generally.
I gave birth to 5. I wanted 9, but saw there was no way we could have afforded more. It's one of the few regrets I have in this life...I didn't get to have my 9 kids.
He replied, "But you invested all of your money in your 3 kids - and it was a much better investment than any I've made."
I have a little friend for him :)
My first had colic 6 months straight, twenty hours a day, violently threw-up every solid we gave him his first year, and several times managed to hit objects a good ten feet away whilst getting his diaper changed. #2 no less- I took to wearing a smock and always standing to the side while performing the deed.
My second is an angelbaby and has never given a moments trouble, as I knew she would be from the moment I found out she was coming.
I mean, the Good Lord wouldn't do that to a godfearing woman more than once, now, would he LOL
:)
(We were at the zoo, at it was BROILING out, so they are a bit disheveled. : )
Oops. Sorry that is so big.
My grandmother was one of 13 sisters. There was one boy born, but he died after about a month. Some said he couldn't stand it.
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