For many decades, the popular consensus, buoyed by an axiomatic cultural acceptance of contraception’s goodness, took for granted that people just should have fewer babies. The neo-Malthusian errors of Paul Erlich, that influential but deeply misguided false prophet, reigned supreme and filtered down to the general populace, mixed no doubt in some places with deep-set anti-Catholicism. No wonder we encounter confusion and even dismay at public figures (Elon Musk comes to mind) promoting a kind of militant fecundity.
But concerns about declining birthrates are well founded. Again, once we move beyond the mythic assumptions about overpopulation that still cloud our social vision, we can look at the numbers, as Nicholas Eberstadt and Patrick Norrick do in this summary paper. There are many unanswered questions, but the numbers belie so many of the popular conceptions about population growth. We do not really know the economic, social, and cultural consequences.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI argued in Caritas in Veritate that declining birthrates, not population growth, hinder human development: “Smaller and at times minuscule families run the risk of impoverishing social relations, and failing to ensure effective forms of solidarity” (44). He continues: “It is thus becoming a social and even economic necessity once more to hold up to future generations the beauty of marriage and the family, and the fact that these institutions correspond to the deepest needs and dignity of the person.”
If we could summarize the papal magisterium of the last century on this subject, it would start with this emphasis on personhood. A human person is a great and incalculable good. Catholic teaching on procreation thus begins from this theological reality before making any claims about social or economic goods. The widely misunderstood Catholic teaching on contraception’s immorality stems from this primary positive teaching on the dignity of human persons. In his encyclical of 1930, Casti Connubii, Pope Pius XI argues that the child is the first and greatest gift of marriage because the child is a new rational creature capable of loving and worshiping God (11-12).
It is worth holding this vision before our eyes especially in those moments when children seem a burden. Our children teach us how to be human and how to love God. After the Blessed Sacrament, I cannot think of anything else in this life more to be treasured.
Accepting a Catholic understanding of these issues can often place us at a political impasse. We can meaningfully cast votes and attempt to influence public policy, but sanity requires recognition that a slow and patient witness is finally more important than winning momentary battles. It is useless to try convincing someone about what is or is not natural when mainstream culture no longer believes in nature as such.
So let me propose three ways that we can fruitfully witness to the goodness of life.
1. We can show people that it is possible to have children without giving in to the expectations of consumer society.
In other words, what does it really mean to “afford” children? There are licit reasons for a couple to avoid pregnancy, but I am unconvinced that these usually center on the “cost” of children that the common consumer indices suggest. According to those statistics, I would need nearly $100,000 a year just to raise my children, not to mention caring for myself and my wife. That is significantly more than what I make as a priest!
It does take a certain amount of faith simply to refuse to treat children as a question of consumer costs. There is a legitimate question of family economics when using natural family planning, so it would certainly make sense to avoid pregnancy if there is grave doubt that we can provide basic necessities (food, shelter, clothing) for a child. I think the trouble is that our mainstream understanding of what is necessary is exaggerated. The consumer price calculations usually include enormous childcare costs, for example. And we are often told how important it is to establish education funds for our children’s future college costs. I am not saying we should never pay for childcare or set up savings funds!
But college is not necessary (and, I think, increasingly not even advisable in many cases). Nor are two incomes. Nor is it necessary for each child to have his own room, his own sports equipment, his own musical instruments, his own smartphone, or any number of other things that so many people seem to think must be part of the “cost” of having children. It is a powerful witness to say, with our actions, that persons are more important than consumer expectations.
2. We can resist the isolation and individualism of the “nuclear” family.
It is not natural or normal for a mother and father to raise 2.2 children alone without any friends, family, or supports.
One of the other ways I have seen Catholics promoting the consumer “cost” calculation rejected above is the admirable idea that we should be “contributing” to society rather than taking. I guess the idea is that non-wealthy people who have a lot of kids are moochers. The premise assumes two rather un-Catholic ideas: that having children isn’t itself an enormous gift to society, and that children are only the responsibility of their parents.
But children are not a consumer choice along the lines of buying a new car or sofa. They are persons. A society that treats other people’s children as other people’s problem is a depraved and disordered one. Children are good for everyone. How can we ever learn to approach the kingdom of God “as a little child” if we never encounter them? Childless couples and older couples and celibate people need children, too. If “society” (whether the state, or the parish, or the extended family) has to share the “cost” of families with lots of children, good. That is how it should be.
Our churches, more than anywhere else, should be places of multi-generational fellowship and support, and we need to talk about these things out loud. What I mean is that it is much harder for a woman struggling with infertility to resent a mom with more kids than she can handle, and vice versa, if they can talk about those struggles together and lean on one another. The world wants us to think matters of fertility, infertility, childbearing, and childrearing, are all merely private concerns that we have to deal with on our own. This is nonsense.
Of course, the only way to avoid talking about these things in a meddlesome way is in the context of friendship, Christian charity, and a commitment to common values.
3. We can lean into the awkwardness of children being seen and heard in normal places.
One consequence of lower birthrates is that children are more and more absent from public spaces. Sometimes my wife and I feel that bringing our younger kids to the grocery store and letting people see them dancing around, being silly, and begging for marshmallows is itself a reminder to people that children are a gift and an integral part of normal society. As Pope Benedict suggests in the passage quoted above, the presence of children and families promotes human solidarity.
Yes, childrearing is hard, and yes, I find myself complaining, and no, I am not yet at the point where I can always say with great confidence, “It’s hard, but it’s so rewarding!” But I have to tell you that I have never met anyone who regretted having a lot of kids. I have met many, many people who look at my mess of kids, even when they’re being rude or gross or whatever, and say, quietly, “I always wanted another child.”
It’s so sad to me that we have created a world where they’re not supposed to want this natural human good. If we can remember as a people how to feel this kind remorse (guilt, even), perhaps we can also start remembering a more authentic and human approach to family life.