I recently watched a broadcast
called The New Economic Reality: A Demographic Winter. It talks about the
worldwide drop in fertility rates and the effects of a declining population on
the family, society, and even the economy. It was very interesting to see the
affects of the current world trend to have smaller families.
We’ve all heard the saying that
family is the fundamental unit of society. The word fundamental means serving
as, or being an essential part of, a foundation
or basis; basic; underlying. It also means of, pertaining to, or affecting the foundation. Therefore, the
family is the foundation of society. The pyramid of society goes like this:
first, family is at the foundation. The families create cultures which creates
a society which creates a nation (see picture right). If you take out the foundation
or the families from a society or nation it all comes crumbling down.
People have many different reasons
for not marrying and having children. The 2 most common reasons are that
children are too expensive in today’s economy and that they don't want a child
to get in the way of their career. It is true that to have a child or children
is expensive, but it is better in the long run to have children than to opt
out. We can look to Japan
and Italy
for an example. Their fertility rates are below what is needed to at least
replace their current populations. Their economies have “tanked” and they are
struggling to survive because of their declining populations. The economy
decline comes as a direct result of fewer children being born because there are
fewer people contributing to the economy. This is also why the housing market
is so bad because there is no one to buy existing houses. As for people who
choose to have a career over having children, I’ll just say this; women have
forgotten their role as women as they have tried to complete with men. You can
have children and still have a career. People do it all the time! Having the
opportunity to have and raise children is the most important career that
someone can have, in my opinion, because they are literally giving back to
society by making sure there is a future generation to carry on the society. I
think C.S. Lewis puts it all in perspective:
“The
homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose
only…to support the ultimate career.”
From a gospel viewpoint, the Lord
has said that the family is central to His plan (see The Proclamation attached
to previous post). God’s eternal plan is built around families. We are literally
the spirit sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father and there are more of His
children that want to have the opportunity to come to earth just like us.
President Brigham Young said this about our duty to provide tabernacles (bodies)
for those spirit children:
“There are multitudes of pure and holy
spirits waiting to take tabernacles, now what is our duty?—To prepare
tabernacles for them; to take a course that will not tend to drive those spirits
into the families of the wicked, where they will be trained in wickedness,
debauchery, and every species of crime. It is the duty of every righteous man
and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can.”
The world we live in today has lost
all concept of family and what it means to be a family. Elder Boyd K. Packer, of the quorum of the twelve apostles, has
said “True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior.” If people
understood the doctrine behind families and the importance of them they would
stop delaying marriage and have a desire to have a family and children. They
would understand the relationship between having children and their own overall
well being. So what is the doctrine behind family? Here it is in a non-religious
way.
Doctrine (Why): Family is the
fundamental unit of society.
Principle (What): Have a family –
get married and have babies!
Application (How): Stop delaying
marriage and postponing having children.
If you remember anything from this post I hope it is this:
If we fail to create
a future generation our quality of life will surely decline.
