Rector’s Ramblings – March 20, 2025

My, how quickly…and slowly…things change! For much of my life, one of the existential concerns of our world was the prospect of population explosion. We were asked to consider a world in which we could not sustain the development to create housing and resources for all those human beings. Experts predicted struggles to find the clean water and food necessary to put into all those mouths. We also heard about how countries like China instituted rigid (unethical and unpopular) policies to control their birthrate or at least bring it down. Demographers aren’t warning about those potentialities anymore – and haven’t for a while. Now, they are sounding the alarm about the opposite – population collapse!

In another moment that makes me think my technology is listening to what those around me and I say or talk about, my news app suggested a long-form article on this topic. This is within a week of having a conversation in a small group about the declining birth rate among young people, and in particular, the segment of that group who does not want children because they have little hope for their future. Fast forward a few days, and I suddenly have reporting on research and statistics to back that up, and to challenge it a bit at the same time. Although demographics is an area of macro-analysis, the individual reasons and influences driving birth rate change are many and varied.

In trying to express a unifying theory looking at cultures facing population decline around the world, one sentence in the article stood out to me, “The only overarching explanation for the global fertility decline is that once childbearing is no longer seen as something special – as an obligation to God, to one’s ancestors, or the future – people will do less of it.”[i] Holy cow! A lot is packed into the layers below those words, some of which certainly resonate with the Church’s role and teaching. As is often the case, dangers are untold in those words. We tend to look for blame when things aren’t going in our desired direction, and this new reality is no different.

For example, across the globe, women are, no surprisingly, center stage in questions of fertility and birth rates. After all, women are biologically responsible for birthing babies until we figure out how to mirror science fiction stories and grow them in labs. But this isn’t the fault of women. In almost every culture, women are in a no-win position when it comes to childbirth and raising children. Earlier in the same article, the author noted that women who have wanted to pursue life outside the home having careers of their own have a lot of expectations placed on them by a world that still orients towards mothers as the default primary parent in raising children. The rise in women’s shared role in the professional world is not yet fully matched by a corresponding role in the work men do “at home” or their role in raising children. And to make it worse, because of the changes in how we raise children, modern working women still spend more time actively raising children than in previous eras and their non-working counterparts!

Some of this is shifting cultural norms. Kids aren’t given the freedom to roam and self-regulate the way they were in my generation and those before mine. Parents didn’t spend as much time on homework or projects or shuttling kids to activities and enrichment. Raising kids has gotten harder, not easier, in so many ways. In many cultures, including our own, the effectiveness of advertising and influencers has led some younger adults to choose lifestyles that include nicer homes, fancier things, and travel over the investment of time and resources in children. Having said that, it is also true that some folks simply do not have the vocational calling to parenthood, in the same way that some folks aren’t called to be in a marital relationship. Declining fertility isn’t their fault either. It’s a complex set of issues, all playing off one another simultaneously. The vital reminder is not to place blame for an unproven future on people today, lest we do additional unintended damage.

The matter of an unproven future is really what stands out to me. The reality that the trends can shift so much in such a short period of time means we have to be careful with some of our predictions for and assumptions about the future. It also does not mean we don’t need to try to understand the future or the consequences of today’s decisions. Some short and mid-term trends do, in fact, lead to the outcome they once portended. Taken together, it means that we might strive to be thoughtful and faithful in making the best decisions we can at the moment while also being flexible and responsive when our assumptions and initial pronouncements don’t hold up.

The earlier quote regarding what happens when we no longer see childbearing as special, not something that passes on the ancestry we value, not God-given, and not important to the future, is an invitation to be thoughtful about precisely what parenthood is and isn’t all about. I don’t say that as though couples and parents aren’t individually thoughtful about their choices around pregnancy and child-rearing, but in terms of how “we” as a Church and a people think about the process of conceiving and raising children. After decades of assumptions about fertility and its impacts, assumptions that shaped us, our thinking, and our theology (let alone the world) may not hold up. It’s an issue worthy of thoughtful reflection in conversation with one another, theologians, and anyone interested.

What is it that we value about children? What is it that we think is worth trying to pass on? What does God intend or hope for from God’s children? What future do we envision for ourselves and those who come after us, whether they are our offspring or not? Does this matter, or will it swing back the other way eventually? The answers to those and other questions we might ask may not change anything and certainly won’t change things overnight. That doesn’t mean they won’t change things, either. In my experience, we haven’t spoken about such things with great intention.

I would also add that fertility is only one such topic worthy of reflection and introspection. We take many things for granted regarding our assumptions about the future – things we say we value but are also declining and may one day cease to be. We operate on certain assumptions that tell us that our ideas and ideals will replicate generationally because they always have. History contradicts those assumptions. We might also benefit from some introspection, study, and dialogue. What do we value? What does God expect of us? How do we see the future? Again, the answers to the questions that follow prayerful discernment may not change much, but they might make all the difference in the world.

Tom+

Almighty God, heavenly Father, you have blessed us with the
joy and care of children: Give us calm strength and patient
wisdom as we bring them up, that we may teach them to love
whatever is just and true and good, following the example of
our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

[i] “The End of Children: Birth Rates Are Crashing Around the World. Should We Be Worried”, The New Yorker, by Gideon Lewis-Kraus, February 24, 2025.