In the midst of a historic “birth shortage,” why do approximately 5% of American women choose to have five or more children, contrary to population norms?
Katherine Ruth Pacaluk’s recent book,Hannah’s Children: Women Quietly Fighting the Crisis of Birth” is a compelling portrait of overlooked but fascinating mothers, women who, like the Biblical Hannah, see their children as their purpose, contribution, and greatest blessing.
“After the age of three, it gets easier, because older children naturally start helping out and get better at what they do. Very few people hear this. Even if you have five children, one It’s not five times more difficult than someone else’s.”
Pakaluku He is an associate professor of social research and economic thought at Catholic University of America.Girlboss, interruptedThis week we talk about her (literally) important work.
Pakaluk, a mother of eight children herself, traveled across the United States and interviewed 55 college-educated women who were raising five or more children. Through her open-ended questions, she explores who these women are, why and when they chose to have large families, and what this choice means for them, their families, and the nation. I tried to understand what it meant.
In this exclusive interview with Align magazine, Pakaluk details the challenges low birth rates pose to society and what can or should be done about it.
Aline: Why did you write this book? What effect do you hope your work has on increasing or changing the conversation about motherhood in America?
Katherine Ruth Pacaluk: Ultra-low birth rates mean future economic stagnation. The supply of workers and ideas slows, political instability arises, government revenues decline, social bonds fray, and people grow up with fewer siblings and extended families. All of these concerns are coming to the fore in the national dialogue, and everyone wants to know: What will it take to reverse this trend? Can we encourage women and their families to have more babies?
But this conversation completely misses the most important point. That is, if people want children, why do they want them? What makes children and motherhood valuable? Are children worthy of wanting for themselves, not just meeting the needs of adults?
I wrote this book to center the issue of desirability in children. Until we face this question, we will not be able to reverse the trend of declining birthrate. So I wanted my work to inspire us to talk more about the value of motherhood.
Aline: Do you think family life has been deliberately neglected? Qui Bono?
CRP: That’s a difficult question. Of course, all sorts of things unintentionally become less valuable when the comparison set changes. How valuable is this compared to what? Something new and shiny is coming. The Apple Watch has reduced the value of analog watches. The contraceptive revolution, the Pill (1960) backed by legal abortion, triggered the largest shift in history of mothers into the nondomestic workforce. I don’t think people think of reproductive control as devaluing family life, but it has fundamentally changed the choice set.
Before the pill, the only option to have children was to become abstinent or give up on marriage. After taking the pill, instead of having children, she had the option of getting married and, if she wanted, getting more education and a job. All without an celibate life.
The Pill has changed the “what to compare” aspect of family life. Many women then and now want that new “compare” option. To the extent that higher education and work became viable for women, family life was “devalued” to that extent. All of this is true even without any deliberate plan to devalue motherhood.
We know that some technologies are individually rational, that individuals may feel better about using them, but that when used collectively they make us worse off collectively. I will set it. We’re starting to wonder if smartphones are like this too. Personally, no one wants to give up their smartphones, but collectively we’re more anxious, depressed, and socially disorganized. Our children may suffer the most. It’s a collective action problem. In retrospect, the pill might be something like that. A reasonable choice for one woman, but a bad deal for all together. The pill caused a shift in which a life devoted to raising children no longer seemed so worthwhile.
Apart from that, I believe that because God loves human life, powerful forces of evil – principalities and powers – have worked to devalue human life in general. These forces employ unsound economic theories and toy with irrational fears that there will never be enough. It’s a long story, but it goes back at least 200 years and includes Marxism, Darwinism, eugenics, Planned Parenthood, population bomb rhetoric and global policy. Now, since the family is the cradle of humanity, devaluing human life itself would be cashed in as an attack on family life.
By: Regnery Gateway
Aline: Why did you choose to focus on college-educated women?
CRP: There is a strong correlation between higher education for women and lower fertility rates, observed across countries and over time, and strong enough that education is touted as the “best contraceptive method.”this is Why President Emmanuel Macron commented About giving African girls access to more education, as “fully educated” women do not have large families.my reply to his statement And the follow-up of my graduation photo was accidentally shared. Use the hashtag #postcardsforMacron.
As people struggle to understand the future of fertility in the modern world, the tension between women’s education and sustainable fertility will come to the forefront. Some on the right are asking whether we are taking aim at women’s education itself and moving towards below-replacement fertility rates.
I don’t think that’s the story, but to find out why it’s not the story, I needed to talk to college-educated women who seem to be “going against” the trend. That’s what I did. Their stories provided a counternarrative in which children’s values took center stage.
Of course, there is a risk that some readers may wonder if I interviewed a college-educated woman. Because I think a college degree is ideal for women and humans. I didn’t and I won’t. In fact, I tend to think that too many men and women attend college today, but that’s a topic for another day.
Align: Can you address the common notion that having children ruins your life? Do you discuss this idea in your case studies and how do you address the real-life difficulties that children can cause? Is there any mention of how to deal with this?
CRP: Lol. absolutely! This came out in various forms throughout the interviews. In short, it was something like, “Of course kids are going to ruin your life!” But what they ruin is, you know, life. On the other hand, you will have a new life that you do not know yet.
You become a mother and the center of the universe for someone who loves you more than you ever thought you could be loved. You become a heroine, a savior, an angel. It is the only arm that answers the night. You can have all of this — yes, it can make you thirsty sometimes, but it’s worth giving up your old life.
One of the mothers said, “When you choose something, something else dies.” That applies to anything you do. No one is going to say, “Your life is ruined because you became a lawyer.” But of course, as a lawyer, you can’t sleep until noon or do whatever you want. Those luxuries disappear. that’s ok. Anything demanding requires changes in your life. It’s about how much you want it. Is it worth changing?
Moderator Truong Nguyen “Unauthorized Philosophy” On the podcast (based in Budapest, Hungary), he tells me that his father used to say (I’m paraphrasing): “The person I am today was born on the day you were born.” I really love it. I think that’s the way of thinking.
This book is full of stories about how women handle everyday difficulties. One of her main lessons is that raising small children becomes difficult up to a certain point, perhaps by the time she’s raised three children. But after the age of 3, it becomes easier as older children naturally start helping and become better at what you are doing.
That’s the message most people aren’t hearing. Five children is not five times more difficult than one child. In terms of lifestyle challenges, it’s actually much easier than having one.
Aline: Immigration issues aside, what do you think it will take for America to reverse its low birth rate?
CRP: Reversing the birthrate trap requires more women and men to see children as a blessing, a sign of God’s mercy, rather than a consumer good to be weighed against other goods in their lives. You have to start seeing it as an expression.
When children fall into the latter category, we tend to fit them into an ever-growing list of things we want to do and do, and they occupy less and less time in our adult lives. But if they belong to the former category and are seen as blessings, they become first-class, the things by which we order our lives and the sacrifices we make for them.
My research suggested that to reverse fertility rates, it is not enough to force people who view children as consumer goods to have one or more extra children. We will need more people who view children as blessings and who lovingly give birth to three, four, or more children.
Israel currently has a stable above-replacement fertility rate, due to a high proportion of devout Jews with large families. It can also be our future. To get there, we need to pass legislation that allows all families to spend their tax dollars on religious and church-based schools where Biblical values are fostered and upheld.
We also need to pursue all other avenues to expand the impact of living religious communities. This generally means that the church becomes stronger when the state takes a step back and does more charity work, more youth work, more medical work, etc. Social assistance work.
