Posted on 02/25/2008 1:13:10 PM PST by Caleb1411
Civilization depends on the health of the traditional family.
That sentiment has become a truism among social conservatives, who typically can't explain what they mean by it. Which is why it sounds like right-wing boilerplate to many contemporary ears.
The late Harvard sociologist Carle C. Zimmerman believed it was true, but he also knew why. In 1947, he wrote a massive book to explain why latter-day Western civilization was now living through the same family crisis that presaged the fall of classical Greece and Rome. His classic "Family and Civilization," which has just been republished in an edited version by ISI Press, is a chillingly prophetic volume that deserves a wide new audience.
In all civilizations, Zimmerman theorized, there are three basic family types. The "trustee" family is tribal and clannish, and predominates in agrarian societies. The "domestic" family model is a middle type centering on the nuclear family ensconced in fairly strong extended-family bonds; it's found in civilizations undergoing rapid development. The final model is the "atomistic" family, which features weak bonds between and within nuclear families; it's the type that emerges as normative in advanced civilizations.
When the Roman Empire fell in the fifth century, the strong trustee families of the barbarian tribes replaced the weak, atomistic Roman families as the foundation of society.
Churchmen believed a social structure that broke up the ever-feuding clans and gave the individual more freedom would be better for society's stability and spent centuries reforming the European family toward domesticity. The natalist worldview advocated by churchmen knit tightly religious faith, family loyalty and child bearing. From the 10th century on, the domestic family model ruled Europe through its greatest cultural efflorescence. But then came the Reformation and the Enlightenment, shifting culture away from tradition and toward the individual. Thus, since the 18th century, the atomistic family has been the Western cultural norm.
Here's the problem: Societies ruled by the atomistic family model, with its loosening of constraints on its individual members, quit having enough children to carry on. They become focused on the pleasures of the present. Eventually, these societies expire from lack of manpower, which itself is a manifestation of a lack of the will to live.
It happened to ancient Greece. It happened to ancient Rome. And it's happening to the modern West. The sociological parallels are startling.
Why should expanding individual freedoms lead to demographic disaster? Because cultures that don't organize their collective lives around the family create policies and structures that privilege autonomous individuals at the family's expense.
In years to come, the state will attempt economic incentives, or something more draconian, to spur childbirth. Europe, which is falling off a demographic cliff, is already offering economic incentives, with scant success. Materialist measures only seem to help at the margins.
Why? Zimmerman was not religious, but he contended the core problem was a loss of faith. Religions that lack a strong pro-fertility component don't survive over time, he observed; nor do cultures that don't have a powerfully natalist religion.
Why should we read Zimmerman today? For one thing, the future isn't fated. We might learn from history and make choices that avert the calamities that overtook Greece and Rome.
Given current trends, that appears unlikely. Therefore, the wise will recognize that the subcultures that survive the demographic collapse will be those that sacrificially embrace natalist values over materialist ones — which is to say, those whose religious convictions inspire them to have relatively large families, despite the social and financial cost.
That doesn't mean most American Christians, who have accepted modernity's anti-natalism. No, that means traditionalist Catholics, "full-quiver" Protestants, ultra-Orthodox Jews, pious Muslims and other believers who reject modernity's premises.
Like it or not, the future belongs to the fecund faithful.
LOL! That happens often enough in real life! I usually lose Pat (6 - the really weird one), because he goes into corners or closets and thinks very hard for long periods. The others can’t be quiet for long.
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That’s great. How does one PAY for it on a workingman’s wages?
- John
God instituted the family, but having kids so that you won’t be lonely in your 70s and there’ll be someone to remember you after your dead is NOT a family, that’s servants with a blood relationship.
You really need to stop reading extra layers into what I said. Stick with JUST the content. I never said, never intimated, that there’s something wrong with caring for each other intergenerationally. I said there’s something wrong with having kids so you won’t be lonely in your 70s. Because that IS wrong, that’s making people to serve you, and that is quite simply wrong.
Again it’s the difference between hope and reason. If you do a good job raising your kids they’ll take care of you in your elder years, but that’s your REWARD for being a good parent, it’s meritorious and not the reason to make them. And the punchline is that if the only reason you have kids is so they’ll be there in your dotage you probably won’t do a good job raising them and they’ll probably bail on you the first minute they can.
Sometimes people change, sometimes people don’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that if they had kids simply for the kids ability to take care of them they had the wrong motives going into it. It’s best to have the right motives going in and not have to change later.
you have high expectations.
If everyone had perfect motives, then how small would the population be?
Luckily - whether you believe in evolution - or God - or both...the human makeup is that most people experience an intense loving bond with their child, and pregnancy lasts for 9 months - time to get used to the idea.
If someone says “I need someone to take care of me...blah blah blah...” does that mean that is their only reason? or that they didn’t ever love those kids? or raise them properly?
There may exist the rare person who fully intends to have kids ONLY for the purpose of creating their own caretakers - but I doubt there very many folks out there like that.
I lose my Stephen at ballparks when he disappears into the portapotties.
We’re scouring the nearby creek and looking for creepy pedophiles - and he’s sitting in there singing to himself.
Don’t earn workingman wages.
“The strong traditional families of medieval times had a lot more in common with today’s Muslim families than with today’s Western families. Family members with power often exploited other family members, especially the females, quite ruthlessly.”
Perhaps the real “decline” could be attributed to the “rise of women’s freedom”?
By that, I mean the ability to choose paths in life _other than_ motherhood?
I contend that for eons, women lived the childbearing life primarily because they had no other choice but to live it. The babies came whether they were desired or not, because until recent times, there were few reliable technical methods to STOP them from being conceived. Nature’s way.
But not any more. As Loretta Lynn wrote back in the sixties:
You wined me and dined me
When I was your girl
Promised if I’d be your wife
You’d show me the world
But all I’ve seen of this old world
Is a bed and a doctor bill
I’m tearin’ down your brooder house
‘Cause now I’ve got the pill
All these years I’ve stayed at home
While you had all your fun
And every year thats gone by
Another babys come
There’s a gonna be some changes made
Right here on nursery hill
You’ve set this chicken your last time
‘Cause now I’ve got the pill
This old maternity dress I’ve got
Is goin’ in the garbage
The clothes I’m wearin’ from now on
Won’t take up so much yardage
Miniskirts, hot pants and a few little fancy frills
Yeah I’m makin’ up for all those years
Since I’ve got the pill
I’m tired of all your crowin’
How you and your hens play
While holdin’ a couple in my arms
Another’s on the way
This chicken’s done tore up her nest
And I’m ready to make a deal
And ya can’t afford to turn it down
‘Cause you know I’ve got the pill
This incubator is overused
Because you’ve kept it filled
The feelin’ good comes easy now
Since I’ve got the pill
From time to time, I see thoughtful comments about how the West is becoming “feminized”, and thus, weaker. All it takes is to look at an ascendant culture - that being, Islam - to see the truths in such comments.
There’s no use saying it’s wrong or right, because I doubt that there’s any way to change things back to where they used to be, other than somehow “taking womens’ freedom away” again. Doesn’t seem possible, nor desirable.
What is, is. What will be, will be.
- John
There’s nothing wrong with high expectations, actually if everyone had perfect motives we’d probably have a huge population because everyone would want lots of kids, and everyone’s childhood would be awesome. The entertainment industry would probably suffer, without that steady stream of emotional cripples desperate to get the love they didn’t get in childhood there’d be a lot fewer actors and musicians. Now sure if ONLY people with perfect motives had kids it might reduce the population, but of course that’s never going to happen.
Most people might, but all people don’t. And that creates problems, some are fairly innocuous like a steady stream of actors and musicians, some not so much like an equally steady stream of serial killers. Not necessarily saying all poorly raised kids are going to wind up in Hollywood or death row, but it’s good to keep in mind that these people are mostly the product of bad parenting.
If the first thing a person can think to say as a reason to have kids is to be taken care of it might not be their only reason but it’s probably they’re primary reason. I’m a firm believer that the top of your head is where the real you lives, that first instinct is your primary motivator. And if that’s their primary motivator then they probably won’t be raising the kids properly.
Woke up all wrapped up my blanket like a mummy. Room was chilly. Snowed last night.
I realize this has nothing to do with the childbirth theme, but just be glad you don't have to wear a burqa that twists around you like a swaddling cloth!
OK. I guess what’s still perplexing me is the “reason” part. Some parents don’t spend much time refining a fully suitable “motive” for having kids. They just come. :o)
Which is fine, accidental pregnancies and outside the scope of what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the people like the poster I originally replied to, the ones that come out and say “well if you don’t have kids you’re going to be lonely in your old age and no one will remember your shallow existence”. That’s a shallow reason to have kids, and if that’s the best that they can come up with they should probably reconsider, either having kids if they haven’t yet, or what they’re raising the kids for if they have.
“There’s nothing wrong with high expectations, actually if everyone had perfect motives we’d probably have a huge population because everyone would want lots of kids, and everyone’s childhood would be awesome”
oh well sure...I’m all for that - but it ain’t ever gonna happen.
And we need to be careful not to deny for others what we demand for ourselves.
For ex: - can I honestly say I put alot of thought, maturity, and perfect motivation into my decision-making when I was 20? absolutely not.
Did it turn out well anyways? yes it did.
Likewise, if I hear someone say “I want to have kids so someone will take care of me when I’m old” - I will try to give them them the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe what you are hearing is that this person wants food, shelter,cash, and someone to bathe them and change their bedpan.
But what if the person means more than that?
They could also be referring to companionship, and love.
They may assume it is a given that they would receive warm and loving care only after having given warm loving care to those children first.
My husband makes fun of me for watching Jon and Kate plus 8 and asked why I did, I told him that I could watch kids all day there is nothing quite as charming, funny or frustrating as a child.
My kids are grown and 2 of my grandkids live far away and the 2 that live next door are teens and they hardly have time for me anymore, so I have a spoiled dog. I teach Catechism too so I’m not totally deprived of the company of children.
Your interpretation of the other poster's "avoiding lonely old age" argument seems so weirdly extreme (as if that's this poster seriously proposed this as the ONLY reason to have a child) and your response is so sustained and vehement, as if it had some passionate real-life impetus.
Just curious.
Take care.
I’m not denying anything for others. People are free to go have kids for rotten reasons, I’m not seeking any kind of government intervention. I’m just pointing out that there’s this group of people who like to condemn the childless for being shallow who also tend to throw around extremely shallow reasons to have kids.
See I don’t give people the benefit of the doubt, never have, never will. It’s why I’m good at my job (software QA, I’m paid to tell people they screwed up, none of my friends were surprised when I got into this work). I assume people mean what the say and say what they mean, and if they had some deeper side meaning they’re free to add that to the conversation. (Note this is also why I get a little annoyed when people start searching for secondary meanings to what I say, assuming there wasn’t a total brainfart what I wanted to say is what I said no searches necessary.)
seven children? Goodness, then I definitley don’t need to have any. You balanced out the numbers for me.
The world was a lot different when my parents had me. I don’t think that the world today is a very safe place for kids.
Also, too many parents have children for their own uses without being ready. That is not fair to the kids.
However, I am sure that you and your husband are wonderful and committed parents, and I am grateful that your seven will be taking care of me in my Golden Years.
I do know a couple of people that were raised to be free labor. And of course one need only be very slightly connected to the world of entertainment news to know that most of Hollywood is incapable of thinking of their kids as actual people that actually need to be taken care of.
Really there’s nothing extreme or vehement in what I said. I think that’s a shallow reason to have kids, and I think it’s hypocritical that the people who put forth this shallow reason are often criticizing childless people for shallowness. The only reason it’s sustained is that you and others keep asking me questions about it, and you’re all being polite and keeping the conversation worth sustaining. And I hope I’m being polite and keeping things interesting.
This is an amazing family, Christians, and what a family should be. They’re so well organized, they homeschool, they built their own large home together, they really love each other. Great family.
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