This is my final climb onto the Social Security pulpit (relieved, appreciative applause). We don’t really do politics here – which I think is wise – so I am grateful for the indulgence. My parting thoughts are informed by Ben, who provided this interesting Foreign Affairs article a while back, and also pointed me to Orwell’s The English People as he straightened me out on GO’s views on abortion.
The President and his men will be crossing the country over the next couple months, beating the war drum for Social Security reform. What they will fail to mention – and what all of us are loathe to recognize – is that any fix is merely treating a symptom.
Orwell diagnosed the malady in The Future of the English People section of The English People:
There was a small rise in the birthrate during the war years, but that is probably of no significance, and the general curve is downwards. The position is not quite so desperate as it is sometimes said to be, but it can only be put right if the curve not only rises sharply, but does so within ten or at most twenty years. Otherwise the population will not only fall, but, what is worse, will consist predominately of middle-aged people. If that point is reached, the decline may be never be retrievable.
We just don’t make babies anymore.
The Foreign Affairs piece describes not an American or Western dilemma, but an approaching worldwide crisis. We don’t have a Social Security problem, we have a survival of the species problem. Forget about retirement: the achievements and glories of humankind will be lost if we don’t reproduce. We need to at least replace ourselves. A small challenge you would think, but one that my generation wasn’t up to and that the succeeding generation is failing to meet.
Why? Again, Orwell:
At bottom, the causes of the dwindled birthrate are economic. It is nonsense to say that it has happened because English people do not care for children…In a sense it is true that modern English people have small families because they are too fond of children. They feel that it is wrong to bring a child into the world unless you are completely certain of being able to provide for him, and at a level not lower than your own…No doubt the dearth of babies is partly due to the competing attraction of cars and radios, but its main cause is a typically English mixture of snobbishness and altruism.
If he were speaking of Americans, I’d say he was being too kind by leaving out the “selfishness” factor. And I think it is the truth of that selfishness that keeps even a conservative President from advocating we kick up the birth rate. We are all of us to some degree selfish, and so we prefer our national leader leave that fact off the table. Making babies is great fun, keeping them is damn hard work. Avoiding that work is the business of excuse-making:
Bringing a child into such a messed up world is irresponsible. The world can’t get too much worse, and we don’t stand a chance of improving it by refusing to have new inhabitants.
We’re waiting to have children until we can afford them. Then you'll never have any.
I’d make a terrible parent. It’s true: you will make a terrible parent. Nobody is good at it, but most of us give it our best shot and usually we don’t raise mass murderers.
I realize the idea that we should have more babies may pose a challenge to the women’s movement. Challenge is the key word. I don’t see women having complete reproductive rights and achieving equal status with men as roadblocks to a sustainable birthrate. In fact, I’d say that until we live in a society where men and women live together as equal partners, truly responsible population growth is impossible.
It has to be conceded that if someone had shared this “wisdom” with me twenty years ago, it would have likely little changed my behavior. I write now from the luxury of having my baby producing years behind me. I did have two daughters, but they are the product of three failed marriages, so I didn’t do my bit (on more than one count). If you are looking for a poster child to stand for the selfishness of the Baby Boomers, I’m your man.
Working until we’re seventy, receiving reduced benefits, suffering a tax increase – these are the prices my generation will pay for its actions.
Politically, a “value” is never anything more than a charm or incantation. As long as it remains a talking point, it will be safe to touch. An actual value requires some work to keep it alive; it calls for personal sacrifice. So we won’t mention it. Because in this country we don’t do sacrifice. Even during wartime I go to a movie, grab a bite to eat, travel, buy a new car, price a larger house, and let someone else go off and make the sacrifice. This may be the end road of individualism and materialism, where the “me” triumphs over the “us.”
That triumph is the legacy my generation leaves yours. A family is not a “me” thing. You’ll have to give up something in order to have one. My mother said she wished she could have more grandchildren. I wouldn’t listen.