One of the dangers of consorting only with like minded people, as we do here, is the opportunity to view everything through the tunnel vision of our own prejudices. I would not be surprised if Wretchard had written this piece just to see how prejudiced we are because I can not imagine that he would willfully ignore all the other causes of low birth rates, nor that he would put the individual’s depression about the far future ahead of the far more immediate causes. He presses the button and the hare is out of the gate, he sits back and watches the hounds chase a ball of inanimate fluff round in circles!
Until the sixties people had sex and then they had babies. At least till the fifties there was, essentially, no competition for one’s attention, save the delights of chopping wood or the occasional visit to the theatre (most of the plays I have seen it amounts to the same thing.) In the sixties there was a paradigm shift in the West which is still and slowly spreading across the world.
For a start, with the advent of the pill and other reliable contraceptives sex no longer meant babies pro rata. Yes, we had more sex (well some did, somehow I got left out,) but birth rates didn’t go up, in fact since bearing children became a choice (yeah, blame the socialists!) they went down. Then came HIV and the availability of partners went down, maybe not to their original level, so birthrates declined some more. Then came planned parenthood. Suddenly sensible people left having babies until their thirties, and with the dual income required era till their late thirties, then for some it was too late.
The other great contraceptive of our time is television. Like it or hate it, most of us watch television five or six nights a week. Your average pre television couple went to bed and , often enough, made babies. Now we wait up for CSI and follow it with the news till midnight. With such a potent distraction it’s a wonder anyone has any kids at all. Don’t think that’s true? Ask a hospital administrator what happens nine months after a big power outage. Check birthrates against sweeps or reruns.
Nah, it’s easier just to blame socialism.
