A story that was published in The Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago was brought to my attention. It said, “The number of babies born in America last year was the lowest in more than four decades.” “The total fertility rate,” the story continued, “fell to 1.64 … the lowest rate on record,” adding that “Total births were the lowest since 1979.” If you consider the huge number of migrants pouring into the US each year, with birth rates far higher than that of American women, and that maintaining the size of the population (replacement level) requires a birth rate of 2.1, it is clear that things are changing in the US.
In many ways, the US has been in decline for several decades. As for its fertility rate, I believe that 1.6 is not the bottom. In a generation where parents do not enjoy their children, it is no surprise that they do not want to have them.
The natural structure of a family is long gone. Families where both parents are at home, and for both of whom it is their first marriage are almost obsolete. As a result, today’s children do not even expect a traditional, organic family structure. People grow up alone, live in their own rooms from an early age, and often keep to themselves even in social settings such as school.
Why would people in such a state want to have children? They do not feel connected to anyone and have no desire to have children of their own, whom they would have to raise only to become alienated from them as they are from their own parents.
Therefore, instead of having children, people prefer to spend their time following their own whims and focusing on their own dreams, and raising a family is rarely one of them. If you add to it the fact that raising children costs a lot of money, then the whole idea seems wholly unappealing. The only thing that seems appealing to today’s young people, and even those who are not so young anymore, is the motto: Take care of yourself; nothing else matters.
Additionally, the current rate of migration is well over 200,000 people crossing the southern border each month. With a fertility rate much higher than that of American women, the influx is creating a fundamental transformation. The ethnic balance is shifting.
This process would not be so significant if it were only a shift in the balance of ethnicities. The point is that immigrants are coming to the US from a completely different background and with a completely different set of values from that of most Americans.
The America of forty or fifty years ago is gone. Already, the psychology of many Americans, their values and approach to life are very different from those that dominated the country just a few decades ago, and the changes are continuing.
Eventually, a new society will form in America and a cohesive society will emerge in America. What remains to be seen is how soon, and more importantly, at what cost America will arrive at that point.
#america #population #children
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