Posted on 03/17/2006 10:02:54 AM PST by SirLinksalot
In a trend that’s found worldwide as well as in the U.S., liberals are much less likely to have children than conservatives.
That trend "augers a far more conservative future — one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default,” Phillip Longman, a fellow at the New America Foundation, writes in an essay in USA Today.
"Childlessness and small families are increasingly the norm today among progressive secularists. As a consequence, an increasing share of all children born into the world are descended from a share of the population whose conservative values have led them to raise large families.”
Conservatives, most of whom are pro-life, are also less likely to have abortions than are their politically liberal counterparts. Liberals, in essence, may be killing their own future through abortion.
Longman points to these figures:
In the U.S., 47 percent of people who attend church weekly say their ideal family size is three or more children, but only 27 percent of those who seldom attend church feel that way.
In Utah, where more than two-thirds of residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 92 children are born each year for every 1,000 women. Vermont — the first state to embrace gay unions — has the nation's lowest rate: 51 children per 1,000 women.
The average fertility rate in states that voted for President Bush in 2004 is more than 11 percent higher than the rate in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry.
Demographic data show that in Europe today, progressives who say they find soft drugs, homosexuality and euthanasia acceptable are far more likely to live alone or be in childless, cohabiting unions than those with more conservative views. Longman also points out that nearly 20 percent of American women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having children.
Therefore, "the greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and '70s, will leave no genetic legacy,” writes Longman, author of "The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It.”
He concludes that tomorrow's children "will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society.”
The USA Today essay was adapted from a story in Foreign Policy magazine.
In a trend that’s found worldwide as well as in the U.S., liberals are much less likely to have children than conservatives.
They still have control of the schools where they are indoctrinated.
My twin daughters will be going to a Catholic shool prek through 12.
shool =school.
He seems to be forgetting the tens of millions of illegal aliens that out-breed even conservatives and, if illegal immigration continues at the present pace, will eventually become the dominant group in the U.S.
They still have the dead vote locked up.
Twin daughters... Sheesh! How old are they? Did you get any sleep when they were babies? I could only imagine.
Proud patriarch checking in here...
No. Leftists would not have children just to counter conservatives. Children are too demanding of one's time and energy, and leftists would rather spend their time in self-indulgence.
One thing this article doesn't mention is the large families that immigrants are having. Where do they stand politically? What about the large welfare families in this country? How about illegals?
Republicans are better looking.
8 1/2 months. I gave up sleep for lent.
Proud to say that my daughter cast her vote for GWB in her very first Presidential election in 2004.
Smart girl.
God bless you. :)
Oh you kid, my grand daughter cast her first one.
I've lost count of the babies born just in our church family in the past five years. Several with toddlers are pregnant again. It's great to see! They have four, five, six children and they are all blossoming. (No, they aren't flower children--smile.)
This assumes that the children of coservatives will also be conservative. Rebellion against parental values will asure that many kids will at least be libs through their 20's.
And of course, that is vice versa for liberal parents. Out of the 5 kids my ultraliberal parents had (all in their 50's now), 2 are conservative 2 moderate...and one still quite wacky lib.
Thanks. She was only 18 at the time, too. She really made me a very proud dad when she broke the news to me.
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