Book Review: Why Aren’t Americans Having Children?

....and another thing that strikes me is that many couples may not be having children, or as many children, simply because they lack confidence in the future. When our fathers/grandfathers often worked 30 years for a single company, but we're moving around every 3-10 years, and we're doing multiple different trades/professions in our careers, it's hard to get comfortable to the point of being able to say "you know, we can afford more children."

My feeling is that you get there in a very simple way; you get government out of the way and do things to reduce job insecurity, starting with "securing the border so people without skilled professions can get a decent job."

You will limit the number of children you have. That's been my observation, anyway.

Of course, there are other reasons why parents will choose to have fewer children, or to stop at a certain point. But if affordability is the issue, it means you will have less.

Other reasons could be simply, at the Bible puts it, "the Lord has closed the womb." Or health reasons, especially increasing risk to the mother's life because of complications in child-bearing. There can be lots of reasons.

In my opinion, though, affordability shouldn't be one of them.

Luke 14:28-30: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”

I don’t think cost (or affordability as Don puts it) should be the primary factor when deciding on children. However, to not consider it at all makes one foolish. If a couple simply has as many children as possible while vaguely “depending on the Lord to provide” without making plans on how to support them or expecting the government or community to simply take up the burden, that to me shows a certain type of selfishness that is really just another version of the selfishness displayed by those who reject having any children because it will impinge on their convenience.

I’m not saying that we can exactly know in advance all the costs involved in raising each child, or that we should look at the expected average amount and just give up before starting since we think we couldn’t possibly come up with that amount. But if a couple is having issues providing food and clothing and necessary items for their children (and no, I don’t mean an iPhone, iPad, personal computer, fancy clothing, and own bedroom for each child) to just continue to have more children without consideration of what it will take for the parents to be able to provide is foolish.

I think people can generally afford more children than they have, and they might not want to in order to maintain a particular lifestyle, but for nearly everyone, there is a very real limit that may come quite a while before the end of fertility. Money isn’t even the only cost. Time spent with work, church, spouse, and other required parts of life isn’t an infinite resource. If someone is working three jobs to pay for having a lot of children, but doesn’t even have the time to raise each in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” that is also a problem.

Cost (IMHO) should not be the ultimate determination on having children, but it needs to be counted nonetheless.

If our parents or grandparents had the “affordability philosophy” many of us on this forum would not exist. In the case of my grandparents, BTW, they were dirt poor. I’m glad they didn’t take cost into consideration

Don, I think there will be various experiences on this. I am one of 3 children (one adopted). My parents are also each one of 3 children. From what I have seen of genealogical records further back in my family, some of the family had very large families, but not all, so it’s uneven. Clearly, the instances of people having 8 or more children these days is rare compared with previous generations, but families (at least in my background) having 2, 3, or 4 children were also not uncommon in the past.

Obviously, I can’t say that smaller families were because they “counted the cost.” It may have simply been due to illness, death, or genetics, but societal factors may have played a role. I would agree that cost is probably over-emphasized these days (and certainly convenience is a big one for many of the newer generations). I wouldn’t disagree that part of the issue is the priorities of people today vs. in the past. However, given the changes from agrarian society to a more industrial one today, the requirements for being able to have and support a large family are quite different, and the cost is not simply designating larger shares of what is grown on the farm to the children. Therefore, I still think any parents need to plan as best they can to properly raise and provide for the number of children they have or will have. It’s not a simple “no-brainer” to just have more children.

Is that those who make cost/affordability a factor will have fewer children.

Don, I agree with your main point. Where I disagree is with your contention that affordability shouldn’t be one of the reasons used for deciding how many children to have. I don’t think it’s the main consideration, but IMHO, that factor can’t be ignored.

In the Luke 14 passage I quoted, Jesus gave the example of a tower, but his main point was about understanding what it would cost to follow him. He wants them to make the right decision, but he clearly tells them to consider the cost. I believe the principle is generally applicable, even to considering how many children to have.

Given we agree on the main point, if someone is saying "affordability" it seems to me the decision is already made. The reason isn't affordability, but affordability offers something of a rationalization for the decision.

I am not against some forms of birth control, so don't misunderstand. There are many reasons for limiting the number of children one has, and some of those reasons are very good reasons. Others are not so much. I suspect those that use the affordability rationalization have other reasons they don't want to voice.

Being fruitful and multiplying is the creation mandate, after all.

Regardless, I am grateful for all my children and all my grandchildren. They are all blessings, and I'm not throwing any of them back.

For some people, it means whether there will be potatoes on the table with more mouths to feed. For others, it's the difference between a Chevy and a BMW. I think we can honor Luke without deferring to the "I need my Bimmer" crowd, no?

I think it is not so simple as this book implies. There are so many factors here. I am not sure which contribute, but things are very different today then when I first got married. For one, when I got married the average age of marriage was 22. It is now over 30. A life is very different when two individuals barely out of childhood get married, than when two professionals with growing careers get married. The world is a far more dangerous place for children than they were when we were younger. Most adults don't want to deal with the pain. Having a lot of children in the 1800's was necessary in order to provide workers for the farm. That is not the case today. I doubt economic factors are the leading concern of having a child. But they are probably more of a concern on how many someone may have. The Bible doesn't dictate a specific number a family should have, nor does it dictate that a couple should have the maximum that they biologically can create. Marriages aren't necessarily stable institutions in today's world and many individuals don't want to put children through a divorce. There are probably so many different reasons that it might be hard to articulate them all. I doubt that tax credits and the cash benefits that the author outlines is what is needed to counteract what he states around the decrease in the value of life.