Babies! Babies! BABIES!

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.