Opus 2025-173: The Optimism of Children

One of the bits of Clickbait I saw this morning focused on China withering away because of it’s low fertility rate.  That’s one of the common memes that we see about how world population is declining and we are going to have a crisis over that.  People love a crisis.  They have to have something to obsess over.

I think the population situation is a good way to evaluate how we look at the future.  Some people want to have children.  Some people shudder at the thought.  It tells you a lot about their values and their priorities.

Are some people having children a mark of their optimism of the future?  They believe there is going to be a future.  They want to be a part of that future through their descendants.  They want to make the world better by contributing to that.  So they have children  They don’t just have children.  They invest themselves in those children.  That makes a big difference too.

Another sign of values expressed by having or not having children is the reason why people chose not to.  Often it is because they want to live high, party and have a great time and they feel children will get in the way.  This is called narcissism.  This is a self-centered attitude towards everything and it is a poison in our society.  Like many poisons we can handle a small amount.  Warfarin, if you take it in the right amount, will help thin your blood if you have issues that need thin blood.  In larger concentrations it becomes rat poison.

Which will it be?

Some of us are beyond the stage of having children.  We’ve done our thing and we are sticking by it because there’s nothing we can do about it.  However, I noticed that I am surrounded by more and more people who are celebrating life, having children, and investing in the future.  My daughters church is full of people who have six children.  My brothers were very productive.  Alas, I only had two and one of mine never married but I still rejoice in them, and I still rejoice in the fact that I have two grandchildren.

So if you are done having children, celebrate life by being supportive of people who are still in the process.  Sometimes that may involve taking some of that food you have stored under your bed and donating it to a family with many mouths to feed.  If you do it with the right attitude, and with joy, they will except it in the same attitude.

Have a blessed day and a blessed future.

homo unius libri