Bookends for Living a Meaningful and Moral Life

In her novel Middlemarch, George Eliot writes, "The young ones have always a claim on the old to help them forward." She also rhetorically asks, "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"

As bookends for living a meaningful and moral life, you could do worse.

We all begin as helpless newborns, completely dependent upon the adults who have brought us into the world. Without them, we roll over and die, and so too the future of our species. From an evolutionary perspective, of course, we need our offspring to not just survive, but to also thrive, which is why caring for children must be the chief project of every civilization. 

On Mother's Day, The White House launched an initiative to encourage certain of us to have more babies. They say there is a population crisis. They seem to think women just need more positive motherhood vibes. 

In the rest of nature when birthrates drop it's because the world has become inhospitable for babies. It's a response to the individual and collective assessment of their offspring's prospects. When species are under stress, they often shift their energy away from reproduction toward survival. In many species breeding is skipped or delayed, or fertility may decline due to hormonal suppression. Mammals may stop ovulating, birds may not lay eggs, embryos are reabsorbed. We know that under extreme conditions like famines, war, or chronic stress, humans are known to shut down reproduction. When survival is uncertain, reproduction generally becomes more conservative.

There are exceptions. Some species, like insects and rodents produce more offspring when conditions are unpredictable, employing a kind of "boom-or-bust" strategy. That seems to be this administration's approach. They're obviously banking on "rah-rah" patriotism and motherhood to encourage more babies, instead of doing those things that might create a more hopeful future like childcare, nutritional assistance, tax credits, parental leave, healthcare, and climate action. 

Instead, they're aggressively working to take away abortion rights, contraception, and bodily autonomy, all of which are attempts to deny women the right to choose what is best for both themselves, their prospective offspring, and the species' future.

Families increasingly find themselves under financial stress, which in our world is a genuine threat to survival. It means that basics like food, shelter, and healthcare are beyond the reach of too many. It only makes sense to avoid having more babies. Economists are forecasting, for the first time in modern history, that today's young will live less prosperous lives than the generations before them, not to mention the fact that we live in a world that is increasingly hostile to children and families. Under these conditions, the choice to not reproduce is a valid one.

"More babies" should never be our goal, but in a world in which free women have the right to choose, increasing birthrates are a leading indicator of a hopeful future. A declining birthrate should sound alarm bells, not about reproduction, but about the world we are creating.

"The young ones have always a claim on the old to help them forward." "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?" It's between these simple ideas that we create a future in which humans thrive.

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