It’s not every day I get called creepy and am lumped in with eugenicists by a journalism professor. But also, it’s weirdly common for liberals in the media to level such charges at those of us who care about family formation.
Having children is good, both for people who have children and for the people who don’t have children. Birth rates are dropping, as are marriage rates. People say their ideal family size includes closer to three children than two, but we are having, on average, way less than two.
Because babies are good, a deficit of babies is bad. America currently has a deficit of babies — we have the lowest birthrate in our history, and births have been dropping for 16 years. This will harm the economy as we will, in a couple of decades, have fewer young adults to work, innovate, and generally keep things going. More importantly, a deficit of babies makes the world sadder.
Parents are happier than non-parents — much less lonely, more likely to find life meaningful, and more likely to call themselves pretty happy or very happy. Becoming a parent changes you for the better—one study found that becoming a parent massively reduces one’s likelihood to commit crimes.
Non-parents are better off when surrounded by children and parents, too.
I’ll go a step further: Children are happier when they have siblings, and parents can relieve some of their stress by giving their children more siblings.
I wrote an op-ed about this last week in the Washington Post, flowing out of the data and arguments in my new book. Here’s a relevant part of this op-ed:
In 2018, when “Today” commissioned a survey of 7,000 U.S. mothers, it found that while mothers of three were more stressed than moms of one or two, mothers of four were less stressed….
The long-term impact of [having many siblings] is born out in a Norwegian study of 114,500 children that found that those in larger households had better mental health. And there’s nothing better for socializing kids than giving them roommates with whom to play, argue, plot, fight and make up. “Siblings smooth our rough edges,” as psychologist and mother of 13 Anne Perrottet puts it.
My original headline on this op-ed was “Make Your Life Easier, Have Four Kids.”
I wrote this piece and made this argument because I believe our culture harms adults and children by discouraging family and discouraging big families.
Jeff Jarvis is a former journalist who has since become a perennially online journalism professor. Here’s how he responded on Twitter to my Washington Post op-ed.
First, consider the nature of his objection: He is angry at the Washington Post for even running my argument. He doesn’t allege a factual error or anything even offensive. It’s simply censoriousness on his part.
This is pretty common among left-wing media critics these days: They don’t argue about facts being left out or misrepresented; they object that mainstream publications ever carry a viewpoint they dislike. And remember, this censorious left-wing guy is teaching our future reporters and editors in journalism school at the City University of New York.
Second, Jarvis’s mention of eugenics is positively deranged. Read my piece. You will not see anything that any sane person could say touches on eugenics. The same is true of my book, where I dedicate one section to attacking eugenics. Eugenics is an evil and repulsive ideology and practice, and so accusing someone of peddling eugenics is a serious charge. Yet Jarvis just tosses that out there. That’s unhinged and despicable behavior.
In doing this, he’s following a weird trend in the liberal media.
On the one hand, I’m baffled. On the other hand, it’s the most typical thing in the world: Don’t like someone’s argument, just call them racist.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Finally, I think I established above, in my Washington Post op-ed and in my book, many non-creepy reasons to encourage people to have children and have more of them.
Given that Jarvis’s accusations all are totally baseless, we have to ask why he and Krugman among others get so upset by folks who promote family and love babies.