Of course, we never actually use those lines but simply reply, "Yes, they are." Most people mean no harm by their question (though some, alas, clearly do, as the shaking of their heads and the clucking of their tongues indicates). Recently, though, we've noticed that people have begun asking the same question of parents with only three children. Or, in looking at a family with only two children, they'll remark, "Well, you've got your boy and your girl, so you're done, right?"
The idea that the "ideal" family size is four--two parents, and two children to replace them--has become deeply engrained in the Western mindset. And yet, from a demographic standpoint, it's simply wrong.
On February 1, 2009, the Sunday Times of London ran an article entitled "Two children should be limit, says green guru." (The editors placed the article in the "Women" section of "Life & Style," a fact which is probably worthy of a separate blog post.) The guru in question, Jonathon Porritt of the Sustainable Development Commission (a U.K. government agency), believes that "governments must reduce population growth through better family planning," including the use of contraception and abortion, in order to "fight global warming."
Setting aside the politics of global warming and the effect that population growth may or may not have on the earth's temperature, a fertility rate of 2.0 children per woman would not simply reduce population growth but reverse it. As Stephen M. Barr points out while commenting on the Sunday Times article on the First Things blog, "demographers say that for a constant population, the fertility rate averaged over all women should be 2.1 children per woman, not 2.0, since not all children survive to adulthood."
Barr goes on to point out that, since not all women have children, a fertility rate of 2.1 is itself not enough to ensure a stable population. For instance, given a combination of other factors, in the United States today, "in order to have a constant population, those women who are able and willing to have any children should have on average 2.6 children."
Barr's blog post is well worth reading, but one thing he does not note about Mr. Porritt's recommendation is the practical effect that it would have in the United Kingdom. As the Sunday Times notes, the fertility rate for women in the U.K. varies: "The fertility rate for women born outside Britain is estimated to be 2.5, compared with 1.7 for those born here."
Since native Britons already, on average, have a fertility rate considerably below 2.0, Mr. Porritt's policy would reduce that rate even further.
To put it another way: Some native Britons have more than two children today. If all native Britons capped their family at Mr. Porritt's ideal size, the rate would decline, not rise, since those who have decided to have zero children or even one child would no longer be balanced out by those who have more than two.
On the other hand, if those women in the U.K. who are not native to Britain (that is, recent immigrants to the U.K.) were to reduce their average fertility rate to 2.0, their population growth would decline as well, but not nearly as fast as that of native Britons.
Nominally, at least, most of the women born in Britain are Christian (though the percentage who could be classified as practicing Christians is quite low), while a large percentage of those born outside Britain are non-Christians.
In other words, in the absence of any other changes (such as immigration restriction, which Mr. Porritt does not mention), the effect of Mr. Porritt's suggested policy would be a demographic shift in the U.K. away from the historic population toward recent immigrants--which means, as well, a shift away from at least a nominally Christian population to a non-Christian one.
The same dynamic is at work throughout Europe, where native Christian populations reproduce at rates well below replacement level, while recent (and largely non-Christian) immigrants reproduce at rates well above replacement level. The population growth of Europe today is not evenly distributed, but is tilted heavily away from Christianity toward non-Christian religions. (The situation in the United States is somewhat different, because the bulk of our recent immigrants come from Mexico and Latin America and are at least nominally Christian.)
In the Sunday Times article, Mr. Porritt declares, "I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table." In light of his policy proposal, those words are doubly ironic: first, since he's suggesting that we leave empty seats at the dining-room table (and empty bedrooms throughout the house); and second, because, his proposal would ensure that Christianity in the U.K.--already a ghost of its former self--would go the way of the dinosaurs.
On the up side a lot of new migrants to the UK are Christians and practising ones at that especially those from the West Indies, Africa and Poland. Also in my experience a disproportionately high number of migrants from India and Sri Lanka are Catholic or otherwise Christian. Certainly there are a lot of Sikh, Hindu and Muslim migrants too but in a sense they balance each other out so the idea that the UK is being Islamicised is rather overblown.
Having said which clearly the fact that the indigenous population seems to be becoming extinct out of apathy at round about the same rate as it is secularising is of some historical and cultural significance. As a Christian though I do believe that evangelisation and proper catecheses rather demographics is the greatest and best hope to grow the Kingdom. Though of course big, loving. Christian families are a good thing in and of themselves.
Respectfully, read like fear mongering to me. I didn’t know we where in some sort of race. Like others in the West, Christians use more than than their share of the planet’s resources. In the event large families are noble, it would be just as noble for those families to be the leaders in reducing man’s impact on the planet. What resources today’s families don’t use today will be there for the families of the future, large or small. I’m not sure I’d have your patience when it come to others sticking their nose in my business. I’d at least try to engage them in a discussion on the topic.
A good article… but expectation far beyond.
In the Western world, family size, lifestyles, as well as ways in which people take up biological recreativity is far below normal. In the dominating countries of the European continent for example, the average size of every household lies between four (4) and five (5) members of a household. This including parents. In some other ocassions, many young adults rather prefer to be childfree than to bear the responsibility of either been a father or a mother. This indirectly is aptly dangerous to the Western world.
For example, in the U.K, many growing adults are either lesbian, gay, and some are just single. These if at all, would rather prefer the use of artificial means of childbearing.
Whereas, immigrants from Africa and Asia give birth to an average of five and six children and in such a way, in the nearest future may become dominant in these ‘foreign-lands’.
Could Africans and Asians become the earth’s major inhabitants in the nearest century?
This idea of “lifestyle policy” meant to reduce population may be seen as a danger not only to Christianity in the Western world but also as a danger of the existence of European and Northern Americans in the nearest future.
There is a chance for changes. Not only for the Westerners, but for all developed countries in the world who no longer cohere to biological recreation gradably.
While the seriousness of your post is not lost on me – the first paragraph made me chuckle.
We also are an “above average” homeschooling family (go Seton!) and get it all the time. Often the inqiries are much more personal than if they are all ours – even from complete strangers! Quips like – “don’t you have a TV?” and “don’t you know what causes that?” and of course “are you done?” which is usually followed by “well, how many are you going to have?!” My husband and I have gotten to the point where we find the humor, but it is very intrusive.
Our society has trained these people (I was one of them) to believe that they cannot handle more than two kids. Their limited experience of large families is either welfare or fundamentalism. This has been the media’s goal for years and I believe they have finally succeeded. The reality that we larger families have come to know is that it’s actually easier with more. That statement is an entire post in itself and would get me even further off topic.
AMGP, thanks for the info on recent trends in immigration to the U.K. And I couldn’t agree more on the correlation between secularization and lower birthrates. The demographic problem does not stand on its own; and I firmly believe that evangelization will take care of the demographic problem.
That said, sometimes it pays to look at the issue from the outside, so to speak. Mr. Porritt may not intend his policy to lead to the further decline of the indigenous and Christian population of the U.K., but that would be its effect. And his seeming lack of interest in the impact of immigration on the environment (and even on the birthrates that he finds so horrifying) does lead me to wonder whether, in fact, he might intend the results I’ve outlined above.
In the event large families are noble, it would be just as noble for those families to be the leaders in reducing man’s impact on the planet.
Doug, I’ve actually done a lot of work on this question, most of which has been published in the magazine that I edit during my day job, but some of which has been published elsewhere. Simple fact: Large families are more efficient than small ones.
To outline everything that I’ve discussed over the years would take thousands of words, but I’ll give just one example: housing. My wife and seven children and I live in one house. On our street, there are childless couples, and couples with only one or two children, who live in the same size house. Our utility bills are almost certainly comparable, and ours may even be lower than theirs (our children know to turn off lights when they leave rooms, and we keep our thermostat set at 60 degrees in the winter).
To broaden it beyond our family, the population of Rockford, Illinois (where we lived), declined between 1970 and 1990. Yet, in that same 20-year period, the housing stock in Rockford rose by 40 percent. Why–how–does a declining population lead to an increase in the number of housing units? That seems counterintuitive, until you dig a little deeper.
The rise in housing units correlates almost perfectly with two factors: the decline in marriage rates during the same period, and the decline in family size. In other words, the number of people per housing unit declines when people do not marry or have fewer children. There’s a third correlation with divorce rates: Where before, a husband and wife and any children lived in one house, they now take up two.
Again, housing is just the tip of the iceberg. As Ellen, who commented above, can likely tell you, the amount of money that large families spend on food per person is usually lower than the amount spent by small families or single people (and for most of us, dramatically lower).
People who make twice or three times the money that I do, and have no children or only one or two, constantly tell me that they cannot make ends meet. Yet somehow we do so with seven, and I know a few dozen other large families (many from our parish) who do the same. That right there is a pretty good indicator of who is using the greatest amount of resources per capita.
Ellen, we’ve heard every one of those lines, too. And I could not agree more with this statement: “The reality that we larger families have come to know is that it’s actually easier with more.”
One child was hard; two was a little bit harder; from three on, life has gotten much easier. People with only one or two children find that hard to believe, but I don’t know a large family that hasn’t found it to be absolutely true.
check out
http://www.demographicwinter.com
We are talking about people here, bringing children into the world, which goes far far beyond demographic predictions. What we really need are people who are worldly and are going to go out into the world to evangelize, and in my opinion this critically involves experiences that occur outside of the home. Then, hopefully individuals will be in a position to spread the Gospel in areas including the U.S. and the U.K. but also OUTSIDE of those countries, even into Africa and Asia and around the rest of the world. I would say this is at least as noble, if not moreso, than obsessing about our own demographic predictions, acting as if having a large family is better than a small family, and then homeschooling the children.