A very interesting op-ed in today's Times from David Brooks. This is a concept I have not encountered before, but I definitely know people like this. I'm interested to hear what y'all think.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/opinion/07brooks.html

The New Red-Diaper Babies
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: December 7, 2004

There is a little-known movement sweeping across the United States. The movement is "natalism."

All across the industrialized world, birthrates are falling - in Western Europe, in Canada and in many regions of the United States. People are marrying later and having fewer kids. But spread around this country, and concentrated in certain areas, the natalists defy these trends.

They are having three, four or more kids. Their personal identity is defined by parenthood. They are more spiritually, emotionally and physically invested in their homes than in any other sphere of life, having concluded that parenthood is the most enriching and elevating thing they can do. Very often they have sacrificed pleasures like sophisticated movies, restaurant dining and foreign travel, let alone competitive careers and disposable income, for the sake of their parental calling.

In a world that often makes it hard to raise large families, many are willing to move to find places that are congenial to natalist values. The fastest-growing regions of the country tend to have the highest concentrations of children. Young families move away from what they perceive as disorder, vulgarity and danger and move to places like Douglas County in Colorado (which is the fastest-growing county in the country and has one of the highest concentrations of kids). Some people see these exurbs as sprawling, materialistic wastelands, but many natalists see them as clean, orderly and affordable places where they can nurture children.

If you wanted a one-sentence explanation for the explosive growth of far-flung suburbs, it would be that when people get money, one of the first things they do is use it to try to protect their children from bad influences.

So there are significant fertility inequalities across regions. People on the Great Plains and in the Southwest are much more fertile than people in New England or on the Pacific coast.

You can see surprising political correlations. As Steve Sailer pointed out in The American Conservative, George Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates, and 25 of the top 26. John Kerry won the 16 states with the lowest rates.

In The New Republic Online, Joel Kotkin and William Frey observe, "Democrats swept the largely childless cities - true blue locales like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boston and Manhattan have the lowest percentages of children in the nation - but generally had poor showings in those places where families are settling down, notably the Sun Belt cities, exurbs and outer suburbs of older metropolitan areas."

Politicians will try to pander to this group. They should know this is a spiritual movement, not a political one. The people who are having big families are explicitly rejecting materialistic incentives and hyperindividualism. It costs a middle-class family upward of $200,000 to raise a child. These people are saying money and ambition will not be their gods.

Natalists resist the declining fertility trends not because of income, education or other socioeconomic characteristics. It's attitudes. People with larger families tend to attend religious services more often, and tend to have more traditional gender roles.

I draw attention to natalists because they're an important feature of our national life. Because of them, the U.S. stands out in all sorts of demographic and cultural categories. But I do it also because when we talk about the divide on values in this country, caricatured in the red and blue maps, it's important that we understand the true motive forces behind it.

Natalists are associated with red America, but they're not launching a jihad. The differences between them and people on the other side of the cultural or political divide are differences of degree, not kind. Like most Americans, but perhaps more anxiously, they try to shepherd their kids through supermarket checkouts lined with screaming Cosmo or Maxim cover lines. Like most Americans, but maybe more so, they suspect that we won't solve our social problems or see improvements in our schools as long as many kids are growing up in barely functioning families.

Like most Americans, and maybe more so because they tend to marry earlier, they find themselves confronting the consequences of divorce. Like most Americans, they wonder how we can be tolerant of diverse lifestyles while still preserving the family institutions that are under threat.

What they cherish, like most Americans, is the self-sacrificial love shown by parents. People who have enough kids for a basketball team are too busy to fight a culture war.

interesting read and I really don't know what to make of it.

I find it interesting that so many people define who they are by their children. I plan on having kids and will probably live for my kids, but they won't define who I am.

I am sad for cities though. They offer our society so much. At some point we can't just keep running to "greener" pastures. If you want your neighborhood to be safe fight for it, don't run. I see it in this area as well. People leave an area so they can have a small square of grass to call their own and delude themselves into thinking their kids are safer.

It's really not a sustainable model to just keeping moving to suburbs further and further out.

I grew up in a zip code that was one of the fastest growing during the 90s (it didn't even exist when I moved there). It is, by all means, a natalist community. It is a stucco jungle. I do see it as being "safer" but there are certain cultural issues created by such a young area. I do see land overuse as the biggest issue, though.

Ah yes, if you don't like what's going on, just move away and pretend it doesn't exit. That'll do the trick.

I don't see it as that - I see it as "we have children and we'd prefer they were raised in the atmosphere of place X instead of place Y. Does that make these people bad people?

I never said it makes them bad people. I just don't agree with secluding yourself from the real world. But that's just me. Suffice it to say I'm not a natalist.

I completely disagree with his assertions as I percieve it as somewhat chauvanistic to assume that the women in these states are nothing more than child factories. Though I will grant you it is an "interesting" view. I'm glad you noted this was an opinion piece in the New York Times.

David Brooks is the New York Times's resident moderate conservative editorialist, DBF.

I actually thought he painted a pretty positive picture of these people and the choices they are making. I haven't formed my opinion yet.

--PunkDavid

This bothers me. How is respecting someone's right to live a different lifestyle from yours a threat to anything???

I think its funny that anything over 2 children seems to be defined as a large family!

I don't think he's saying you can't do both. I think he's talking about the balancing act between traditional families and diverse lifestyles. At least that's how I read it.

I found this part interesting:


Like most Americans, but maybe more so, they suspect that we won't solve our social problems or see improvements in our schools as long as many kids are growing up in barely functioning families.
Like most Americans, and maybe more so because they tend to marry earlier, they find themselves confronting the consequences of divorce. Like most Americans, they wonder how we can be tolerant of diverse lifestyles while still preserving the family institutions that are under threat.

And this is what I see as the ever growing problem for children and society. Divorce.

It is not going to solved by making gay marriage illegal, and it is really not going to be solved by going to church more. The highest divorce rate is amongst Evangelical Christians.

My guess is that 45% of these red diaper babies will end up unmarried, childless, and/or living in a "blue state" because of what the divorce of their parents did to their lives.

The lowest divorce rate is in Massachusetts. The bluest of the blue.

I am really not sure what my collection of stas, thoughts, and suppositions means, I only know that we have to get a handle on this divorce thing in our society before we ruin another generation of children.

I'm still torn on Brooks. Sometimes he'll write really good stuff, sometimes I'll have no clue what he's talking about and think that he's just the token conservative.

I don't have a comment on this article itself.

I really can't stand the holier than thou attitude of some people who choose to have kids. Oh look at what I sacrified to make something like me! And this from the article:

Very often they have sacrificed pleasures like sophisticated movies, restaurant dining and foreign travel, let alone competitive careers and disposable income, for the sake of their parental calling.

What? Because everyone who has doesn't have kids are selfish and just care about "sophisticated" movies, dining, "foreign" travel (interesting pick)...?

Please. I guess that everyone has their own interests, I don't know and I don't really care. I think I'm stressed out. Anyway, I personally don't ever want to live in a suburb. I'd love to raise kids in the city if I could afford to do so. There are many kids in my neighborhood and I think it's great. Screw the suburbs, they think they're so much "safer"? In the suburbs where I grew up, the kids would go to the city to get drugs. The city folk are the smart ones- selling to the suburbanites with money.

Anyway, I like what gogol said to.

This line kills me, just kills me:

Like most Americans, they wonder how we can be tolerant of diverse lifestyles while still preserving the family institutions that are under threat.

yeah that's basically code for gay marriage isn't it.

Yeah, among other things that don't equate to the "traditional" nuclear family lifestyle I'm sure. You know the vatican released a "report" outlining how homosexuals and feminists are to blame for the decline of the traditional family.

I think that speaks more for the Time's liberal stance than Mr. Brooks conservative leanings. To be sure I dont usually read his peices so there is little for me to use in comparison.

Brooks is a "New York Republican", if you know what I mean. America is very much divided geographically now even within political parties. It's like New Hampshire where the large majority of elected officials are Republicans, but as a state they'll vote for Kerry over Bush. Same as Louisiana is just the opposite. Who would think that North Dakota could elect a Democratic Senator like Byron Dorgan over and over again?

From Right to Left, the Times's regular op-ed contributors would be Safire, Brooks, Friedman, Krugman, and then Dowd and Herbert on the far left. I consider Friedman a centrist, many around here have called him a "liberal", but only after he stopped supporting Bush's war.

As for this piece in particular, I'd say it is pretty representaive of Brooks's writing. Conservative apologist writing to a liberal audience.

--PunkDavid

If your reading this article and getting upset about women deciding to have large families. That these women make sacrifices, blah, blah, blah. You've missed some key discussion points. I had the same initial reaction it's about women.

Then I read the Article's heading and reread the content and a whole different point came to light.