Understanding God’s Plan for Families Amid Today’s Declining Birth Rates
Editor’s Note: Richard Eyre’s 12-article series last year gave added perspective to the Gospel and its Restoration by viewing both through a familycentric lens. He is now adding a half dozen additional family-focused essays, of which this is the third (to see all of the earlier articles in the series, click here.)
Author’s Note: Last week I posed a long list of demographic, cultural, economic, and spiritual questions about declining fertility rates both in the Church and in the world–and their ramifications. Many readers responded with further questions and observations. Today’s essay offers some personal commentary. Feel free to comment at the end of this article to keep this discussion going, or email me privately at my pen name Dr*******@gm***.com.
Brief, Personal Introduction and Reference back to Last Week’s Questions
Part I was the questions, big and small, about fertility and birthrates. (Read those questions and your many comments on them here.) I wish I could say that Part II is the answers. But the answers to the more intimate questions are personal and individual, and the answers to the big-picture questions are complicated; so all I can hope to do here is to help point us all in the right directions and hope that we can be in touch with the Spirit on the answers we seek.
Let me begin by saying that one reason I love to write for Meridian is that I know I am speaking to Church members—to believers and embracers of the Restoration—most of whom are faithful and covenant-keeping; and thus I can say things that would be impossible to say elsewhere. Our eternal paradigm is so expanded from that of the world, and we can expect of ourselves a higher and more spiritual perspective which informs how we approach our decisions and our priorities. Many of the questions posed last week would have completely different answers (or complete non-answers) without the Restoration’s insights.
I don’t think most of us in the Church want to follow the same trend-lines as the world at large. I think we need to draw on revealed truth as our main source as we look for answers to both the macro (societal) and micro (personal) questions asked last week about babies and families and God’s plan.
Thank you for your many insightful responses and reactions to the societal, economic, and spiritual questions posed last week regarding population shifts, and the reasons for and ramifications of declining birth rates throughout the developed world; and thanks also for your comments on the more personal questions about bringing children into our own families.
Among those responses were some for which I feel great empathy, from readers who very much want to have children but have not been able to. For example, one response was (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Life is not fair. Some people have all those opportunities to be married and have children, but it doesn’t look very good for those of us who don’t have those chances…and BTW don’t give me that old ‘you’ll have your chance in the Spirit World or Millennium thing,’ because that’s not very comforting at all.”
I feel the pain in comments like this. But all we can do is remind ourselves that it is our Heavenly Father who, through His prophets, gives us the “Spirit World and Millennium thing” and we can have faith that there will come a phase in our eternity when time, and timing, which bind us so completely on this earth, will mean little… and we will realize then that it really does not matter when or where or in which sequence these family opportunities will come. And while it may not be very comforting now, God’s promise may help us to be patient.
In a way, it is ironic that we say “its not fair” because the whole core of the Restoration is to show us and reassure us that eternity is fair, that justice and mercy go together, and that everyone—all of God’s children—will have the opportunities of marriage and children; none of our Heavenly Parent’s offspring will be short-changed or miss any of these chances. It all comes down to our agency (and maybe our patience) and it is comforting but also challenging to know that it is only we ourselves, through our choices, that can deny us the things God wants to give to us all.
And that is the very worry that I have—and the reason for this article. My long-term concern is not for those who wish to be married and to have children but have not yet had these chances, because I deeply believe that in the ultimate and complete fairness of our Heavenly Parents, they will. My concern is for those, both in the Church and out, who make a conscious, if ill-informed, choice to forgo the privilege of commitments, of covenants, and of participating in the God-like and glorious opportunity to take on the responsibility of marriage and the stewardship of children—thus denying themselves the matchless blessing of having our spiritual siblings come into our homes and raising them, and of experiencing the incomparable learning curve of parenthood—learning to love others more than ourselves, learning to care for and plan for and take joy in our posterity.
That resonating phrase, which occurs so often in scripture and temple—find joy in our posterity—should stir us to both hope and action, whether we find it here on this earth or in the Spirit World or in the Resurrection.
I view these questions not through rose-colored glasses but through a reality lens. We have a son who, in his fifties, has not yet married; and another son who, with his wife went through multiple IVF procedures, finally having one child. We and our children have experienced ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, and we have adult grandchildren, some single and some married, for whom many of last week’s questions are still very much unresolved.
I didn’t promise answers to those questions of last week, but I did say I would suggest some inputs and perhaps some clarifying commentary. Let me try to do that in two sections—first on the “micro”…about questions we can answer for ourselves, for our families and in the Church; and then on the “macro”…about the global and societal questions and uncertainties surrounding fertility rates and population shifts that we have little control over but on which we may wish to have firmer opinions and more understanding.
The Micro: Decisions and Directions for ourselves, our families and the Church
Our Story
About half-way through our Mission Presidency in London many years ago, we kept feeling a prompting to attempt to have another child. It seemed an unlikely and counter-intuitive prompt because we already had five small children and were completely consumed with the stewardship of more than 200 young missionaries. But we set out one Fast Sunday to prayerfully seek to know the Lord’s will. We asked our oldest daughter Saren to take her four siblings upstairs and try to keep them quiet while we “prayed about a very serious question.”
There, on that leafy green Sunday afternoon, Linda and I felt the warm blanket of clear spiritual assurance that answered our prayer and put to rest all of our “practical” worries. This was God’s child, and this was the time He wanted to send him down to us, and this baby would boost rather than detract from the missionary tasks ahead.
It wasn’t long before Saren came down with five small sheets of paper, each marked with a big “X”. We had not told her what we were praying about, but she announced, “We prayed too, Mom and Dad, and then we voted, and it was unanimous that we should have another baby.” (she must have had the proxy vote for her youngest brother who was only a year old and who had been born, with massive complications, in the first year of our mission.)
The clear answer we received made it a sweet time, and the baby that came a year later was the calmest, easiest child we ever had, and his five natural siblings and 200 missionary big brothers and sisters were united and motivated by his birth and his presence in the mission home. Far from becoming a distraction or a disruption or a divider, little Talmadge united our family and united the mission. New babies often tend to do that for all of us.
Now, that kind of answer and that kind of outcome are not always a predictable result. These are difficult and very personal decisions, and this is the kind of prayer that committed couples offer not once but every time the question of a child (or another child) comes into view. And prayer is the first point to be made here, the point that says you want to do God’s will, not your will. Our Heavenly Parents know our hearts, and our needs, and our individual foreordinations. These are individually crafted prayers that lead to personalized answers, and we should never generalize or be critical of the very different answers that others may receive.
In the Church we know so much that should influence and drive these prayers. We know that we are all children of God and that we are asking about bringing one of our spiritual siblings from premortal life into mortality as our child. We know that our Heavenly Parents have a finite number of children, all known and loved by Them and that they want the best home and family possible for the particular needs and progression-possibilities of every single one. We know this orbiting school called earth holds the keys to our progression and that the “hard” is as important as the “happy” and that both are part of the joy. We know the importance of mortal procreation in the fulfillment of God’s plan and purpose—and in His work and glory. We have some grasp of the character lessons and love-capacities learned and brought about by parenthood, and how much having children can affect and impact our human capacity to love, to sacrifice, and to accept responsibility. And we can’t tune out, nor should we, statements like that of President Oaks, “Our theology begins with Heavenly Parents, and our greatest aspiration is to be like them.”
But down here—down in the realities and messiness of earthlife, it seems that the “grass is always greener”… those with children often admire the freedom and options of those without kids…and those without envy the warmth and pleasures of babies and parents. It’s hard to know what to do and what to want and when, and couples wonder if the default-switch should be set at “off” until the Spirit tells us to try to conceive or if it should it be set to “on” except when the Spirit tells us to pause for a time. Certainly, there are couples who have too many children, and some who should probably not have children at all. Every decision is individual and unique and the compelling reason for prayer is that “God only knows.”
Six False notions that should not factor into our decisions
As we each work and wrestle to make out own individual-couple decisions on the if and when and where of babies, perhaps the thing we should be most cautious of is basing those decisions on false notions. And there are a lot of false notions out there. Here are six of them:
It costs a half million dollars to raise a child. This kind of nonsense, which we see often in “news stories” is based on assumptions like a new room for each child, an ivy league education, and on the premise that kids can’t do anything or earn anything for themselves. It also leaves out “economies of scale”—a second child doesn’t double the costs of the first. And prudent living and debt avoidance may help a family more than fewer children—and may teach the children by our example to be frugal and provident themselves—instead of the lavish examples some children see (the average US family has five credit cards and credit card debt of more than ten thousand dollars.)
Kids and responsibility are a tradeoff with adventure and freedom. Once you have the former, you lose the latter. In fact, kids are the greatest adventure of all, and they free us in marvelous ways—and who says things aren’t more fun with kids along. Linda and I are an example of that—we have visited more than 100 countries, but looking back, the trips we remember most were the ones when we had kids with us.
Career and parenting can’t co-exist. This is old, tired, outdated thinking. In today’s world the two can often enhance each other, particularly where there are two parents, both creatively finding ways to make it work. And new models are emerging, not only for balancing family and career, but for alternative sequencing. We know women who choose to have children while young, raise them while working part time or flexibly, and then worked in full time careers during the twenty or more remaining empty-nest and grandparent years.
Having too many siblings pits kids against each other and robs them of part of the parental attention they need. Most parents know that love is not some finite quality that has to be subdivided. We have the capacity to love each child to the max. And children with siblings tend to be healthier, happier and more well-rounded.
The best thing for a child is to be born into a situation where he has all the benefits and ease and convenience of financial advantage. Actually, children can be part of, and learn from some parental financial struggle, and excessive material things can distract from the priority of close parent-child relationships.
The best thing you can do for the planet is not to have kids. This one, as mentioned last week, is severely outdated in the western world where maintaining population and workforce is the biggest challenge. The “over-crowded world” paradigm is voiced by people living in big cities that are overcrowded. The earth is vast, and what we may need is the opposite of today’s trend of moving from the rural to the urban, and the reverse is more likely among families than among single or non-parent people.
Reasons
If we know these notions of the broader world are false or flawed, then why is it that trends within the Church regarding no kids or fewer kids or later kids mirror the trends of the world. Why does our broader perspective not send us in opposite directions?
A friend of mine had a blunt answer. He said, “Most of the reasons Church couples give for not having children are primarily a coverup for the real motivation of selfishness, they want certain lifestyles and don’t want restrictive responsibility. What young couples fail to realize when they are making these very important decisions is that children are a tremendous blessing and DO bring great joy to one’s life even though it is not easy.”
If that is true, I don’t think it is knowingly true. I think we, as we “live in the world but try not to be part of the world” are still influenced by many of the false notions listed above, and perhaps we do not pray hard enough or intentionally enough to know the Lords will regarding our stewardship for others of His children.
So here, for what it is worth, is my hope and suggestion for all of us in the Church: Let’s very intentionally NOT follow the trends of the world with regard to not having or limiting or delaying children; let’s go the opposite direction and stand out as those who still honor that first commandment and who want to be part of God’s ongoing, growing, progressing family. Let’s seek His will and let it overwhelm whatever we may have thought of as our will. And let’s consider having our mental default-switch position be “on” except during periods—long or short—when our circumstances and our prayer-answers prompt us to turn it “off.”
In the Church and in the World
Linda and I have felt in recent years, an increasing openness to the possibility of more rather than less children, and we have felt it not only in the Church, but in the broader world.
,There is an interesting new national book called Hannah’s Children by Catherien Pakaluk. Amazon describes the book with these two paragraphs:
In the midst of a historic “birth dearth,” why do some 5 percent of American women choose to defy the demographic norm by bearing five or more children? Hannah’s Children is a compelling portrait of these overlooked but fascinating mothers who, like the biblical Hannah, see their children as their purpose, their contribution, and their greatest blessing.
The social scientist Catherine Pakaluk, herself the mother of eight, traveled across the United States and interviewed fifty-five college-educated women who were raising five or more children. Through open-ended questions, she sought to understand who these women are, why and when they chose to have a large family, and what this choice means for them, their families, and the nation.
In an interview, Pakaluk said,
“A lot of women in my study wish they had started earlier, since they didn’t realize how great it (parenthood) could be. I would definitely count myself as one of those people—I was excited to have my first child, but I didn’t know until he was born how great it would be. I thought, gosh, this has been undersold! It was hard and I was expecting the hardship to be more neck and neck with the joy, but the joy was so much greater.”
The Macro: Where is Low Fertility and Population Shift taking our World?
Should we take hope in the fact that polls show that American women under 30 when asked if they want children and how many—say that they want an average of 2.5 kids (more than replacement) but that they just want them later in life; or should we worry about how many are waiting too long and then finding that they can’t have more than one—or even one?
Or should we not think about polls at all and just look at the reality that all “rich and educated developed countries” have declining birth rates while virtually all “poor and uneducated developing countries” continue to have much higher birth rates—sometimes five to eight times as high as rich countries?
To most people these trends seem to spell upheaval and disaster—more elderly people needing support and care with declining workforces to support them. Incentives and financial bonuses designed to get people to have more children have largely failed, and the only way to keep economies going, let alone growing, is to “import” immigrants to fill the jobs—which will continue to stoke tension and prejudice and nationalism which will lead to greater and greater division. It all seems pretty bleak.
But what if it turns out not to be that bleak? What if there are a couple of possible and plausible paradigm shifts that will make the macro future look brighter?
Perhaps the declining fertility rate is a pendulum that has just swung too far in one direction and is starting to swing back. There may not be much real evidence to support that hope yet, but Linda and I are seeing, in our speaking to business and community leaders across the world, a growing desire for more children. Twenty years ago, when we would poll our audiences, made up of affluent, educated professionals, most thirty-something couples had 2 children and were considering a third. Today, many people in this same kind of audience have three and are considering a fourth. Maybe the “looking out for number one” mentality has grown a little stale, and the next generation will opt for more rather than less kids. And if the educated, leadership class is swinging the pendulum back a bit, perhaps it will influence the blue-collar working class (where higher percentages are not marrying or having children) to follow the same growing counter-trend.
But what if that doesn’t happen? What if current patterns continue, and fewer kids, lower fertility, and the necessity of more in-migration in developed countries continues?
Are we sure the results of these patterns, over time, will all be negative, adversarial, tension-filled, prejudice-producing and divisive?
What if it breaks the other way?
We live in an ever increasingly global and interdependent world, and perhaps the future of one poorer country having an excess of workers who go to fill an inventory of jobs in a richer country may become no more threatening or divisive than New Jersey having workers who go to New York for the jobs and opportunities that exist there.
What if the racial and cultural and economic mixing that would take place with people from poorer, less-educated, high fertility, developing southern-hemisphere countries immigrating to richer, more-educated, low-fertility, developed northern-hemisphere countries turns out to be a GOOD thing in many ways? What if that kind of societal blending created stronger rather than weaker nations? What if the diversity and the inter-marriage and culture-sharing over time produced a richer tapestry of life and of perspective and of opportunity—even to the extent that race or ethnicity were less distinct and divisive? What if it even made us wonder if there is a misprint in our elegant hymn If You Could Hie to Kolob in the last verse where it says “there is no end to race” and was supposed to say “there is no end to grace?” And if “race” in the song refers instead to a contest or competition, doesn’t it still need “grace” substituted for it?
I know, I know, I’m back to asking questions and I’m not giving many answers. But this is worth thinking about, and it is worth being optimistic about, because, as President Hinckley liked to say, quoting a Portuguese author named Fernando Sabino, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
May we all have faith in that mantra as we hope and observe and pray regarding the macro.
And may we use our agency and the inspiration of the Spirit to make the right micro decisions in our families and within the Church.
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Join me here next weekend for another look through the familycentric lens, this time at the question of knowing things with our heart rather than our head—and teaching the discernment of truth to our children and grandchildren who are growing up in the most deceptive era the world has ever known.
Richard Eyre is a New York Times #1 Bestselling Author who lectures throughout the world on matters of family, life-balance, and the spirit.
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