As you probably already know, The Baby Boom occurred right after World War II. The men were coming home proud of their accomplishments and this led to celebration. The Baby Boom was happening all over except in Japan where they had just been defeated, therefore not quite as celebratory. Over the next few years wives were having children rapidly, or at least that is what we have always been told. In reality women were having on average 3.7 children. I was shocked when I heard this number because I guess I assumed each woman was having at least 6 kids!
A man named Bob Ehrlich, grew concerned that population rates were increasing so rapidly. He decided to write a book about his thoughts. The book titled “The Population Bomb”, focused on how the population was going to blow up! He predicted mass starvation by the mid 70’s because of how many people there would be and not enough resources to accommodate everyone. He predicted no oil, air, or water. These were predictions based off of the time he spent in India. This is one of those times when someone writes about something they believe, without much to back them up, and they end up getting to everyone because they think what he is writing about is accurate. I like to relate it to the time someone decided to link vaccinations to autism… literally no proof. People took this book to heart and became scared to have too many children. They did not want to be the ones that were contributing the world running out of everything!
Well, as I’m sure you can see the world is doing just fine with water, food, air, and oil. But there are definitely not many children being born. As the number of children being born decreases it makes us look to a few other factors that are contributing to that, other than “The Population Bomb” scaring everyone to death.
A few of the things that have an impact include some trends that seem normal these days, but when there were a lot of children being born these things were not as common. Premarital sex, cohabitation, older average age people are marrying, moms being employed, living alone, divorce rates increased, and age of moms increased. As you can probably imagine, these things all can have an impact on the number of children being born. For example; premarital sex can lead to unwanted pregnancies being terminated, later leading to trouble getting pregnant. Cohabitation can put equal stress on each person to pay their share of the living expenses, making children not a priority. Older average age of people getting married can make it harder to get pregnant because they are past the age of becoming pregnant, or they are already so fixed in their careers a child would hinder that. There are many factors as to why the fertility rates are decreasing.
I think this is so sad. There are many benefits to having children, and in order for us to even function when we get older, we need to have raised children who will also raise children. We will get to a time in our life when we will depend on younger generations. If there are no younger generations the average age of people living will begin to go back down. We have come so far in the world and to not bring children into this beautiful world is sad. We have been asked to multiply and replenish the earth. Yes, it may seem difficult to us when we want a big house or a new car to imagine bringing a child into the world who will take up so much time, energy, and money. That is just selfish thinking. We were literally sent here to learn and to raise children. If we are not fulfilling this, I would not feel like I had accomplished anything. I do not have children yet, but I am excited for the day I do. I would love to have as many children as God has planned and will do whatever it takes to raise righteous children even when the world can feel so wicked at times. This is our calling!
Best of Family Relations 