Blessings & Curses

Ed West’s contribution to NatCon UK is up on his excellent Substack. (You should subscribe to it — after you sign up for NRPlus, of course.) West writes about cratering fertility rates, which is a problem so many of us are dwelling on:

Now, I happen to think that material factors are a crucial element here. It’s not a coincidence that the collapse to below-replacement-level fertility happened after the invention of the Pill. And it’s possible that the socialization on offer in a lower-fertility society has a compounding effect on lowering overall fertility. That is, if you don’t see your near peers building large families, it won’t easily occur to you that this is an option. I’ve seen people come into a traditional Catholic parish, and their sense of possibility begins to open up when they see some families pushing toward ten children and other very young families are already graced with four kids.

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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Ed West’s contribution to NatCon UK is up on his excellent Substack. (You should subscribe to it — after you sign up for NRPlus, of course.) West writes about cratering fertility rates, which is a problem so many of us are dwelling on:

Now, I happen to think that material factors are a crucial element here. It’s not a coincidence that the collapse to below-replacement-level fertility happened after the invention of the Pill. And it’s possible that the socialization on offer in a lower-fertility society has a compounding effect on lowering overall fertility. That is, if you don’t see your near peers building large families, it won’t easily occur to you that this is an option. I’ve seen people come into a traditional Catholic parish, and their sense of possibility begins to open up when they see some families pushing toward ten children and other very young families are already graced with four kids.