What's up with Everyone Wanting People to have Babies?
I'm not getting up in the middle of the night. Sorry.
One could argue, I suppose, that the purpose of all life on this planet, one of them, anyway, is to reproduce. The ecosystem of the planet must continue and all living creatures, from a single-celled organism to the tallest tree, must take part in that. If you believe that, then you believe that all life on this planet finds a balance with the earth so that life continues on in a symbiotic way. It’s not hard to understand that human beings don’t fit in that ideal. Humans ruin every ecosystem that it touches. We overuse and pollute or resources, causing physical harm to other creatures and ourselves. Human beings do not fit in the planets ecosystem. Even though we came from the Earth, we no longer really contribute to the Earth’s longevity. In fact, we are causing irreparable harm.
I bring all this up because the issue of children and having babies has been a focus this election. Former President Trump has a ton of kids. Vice President Harris has two step kids. And, for some reason, the idea that Vice President Harris has never pushed a person out of her body has some conservatives upset. Here are some quotes from good ol’ JD Vance:
During Vance’s bid for the Senate in Ohio, he said in a Fox News interview that “we are effectively run in this country via the Democrats,” and referred to them as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He said that included Harris, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat. “How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?” asked Vance, who is now Donald Trump’s running mate.
Here's another one from the Governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
Reigniting the “childless cat lady” discourse surrounding Donald Trump’s campaign, a key ally of his went after Kamala Harris on Tuesday for not having biological children. During a town hall she moderated for Trump in Flint, Michigan, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders talked about her daughter innocently criticizing Sanders’ appearance, saying “my kids keep me humble.”
“Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble,” Sanders said.
And here’s anther one from a dude on Twitter (I’m not calling it “X”):
"Really simple, underdiscussed reason why Kamala Harris shouldn't be President[:] No children," he said in a post that was liked more than 8,800 times and shared almost 3,000 times. "And no, becoming a step-parent to older teenagers doesn't count," he added in a follow-up post. "The concerns of parents and families will always be abstract to her."
Let’s not forget for a second that millions of women can’t have kids for a host of reasons. And let’s not forget that men can’t have children, which, I guess, means men have no value? And finally, Exactly why do people need to have more children, when there are almost 8 billion people on the planet, straining the resources of said planet already? What’s this thing about having children that get people all crazy? I have a couple of ideas.
1. Money. Less people means less workers means less money. The United States population has been steadily dropping for years. If you are money-loving capitalist, then you might be concerned with running out of cogs for your machine. I’m not sure how much this is driving our cultural divisions about having children, but it is practical concern, unless you’re a Marxist like me.
2. Immigration. This sort of feels like what’s really going on. With less babies comes an aging population. That means Americans will need more people to come here to work, which means more immigrants. We are seeing that in places like Springfield, Ohio. Immigrants come here to work. I like it, but a lot of Americans, particularly Conservative Americans, don’t like that. The comments against Kamala Harris are probably a nice little recipe of “Replacement Theory” bullshit mixed with some classic misogyny and racism. It’s a combo Conservatives sort of mastered, and trying to shame people for not having babies is probably just a new, more stupid front on the battle field of the Culture War.
3. Modernity. What I think is happening is what’s been happening since probably the 1970s. Around the 1950s, after World War II, America settle into the modern society. The war was over, GIs had college degrees. There were plenty of factories and tons of work to do. A person could easily get a job, get married, buy a house, have a few kids, send them to college and then retire, all with just one job. Those days didn’t last very long, and that’s not the society we have anymore. But, it is a society that people, somehow, want to get back to. We have a clash between the Modern era and the Postmodern era. The idea that a woman could live her life and not even think about having a child is Postmodern. We have one group of people, about 40% of us, that want a modern world like we had in the 1950s. We have another 40% that don’t. And, as long as that split stays like it is, we will continue to have the political and cultural fights that never seem to end. All that being said, I find it pretty horrible that we are moving from, “women should have babies” to “we should somehow MAKE women have babies.” We don’t want to live in a society where a woman has to be a cow, pumping out other humans. If you want to have children, great. God bless. But, if you don’t want to have children, that’s your right too. Most people understand that. A few politicians still want to push a narrative though, which won’t change. I’m just not sure how persuasive it is to make fun of childless women when one candidate really, really needs women to vote for him. But whatever.
What’s interesting is that, no matter how you feel, the population of the planet will dip by 2100. More people will have less babies. We should talk about what that looks like in a logical, smart manner, and stop using mean rhetoric that serves no purpose and solves no problem.