I was watching the first part of the second Republican debate tonight and Lindsey Graham said something like this in response to questions about American concerns about illegal immigrants taking American jobs, driving down wages and affecting the culture at large:
“I am against illegal immigration, but I am for more legal immigration. We used to have seven people to every one retiree, soon we will only have 2 people to every retiree and system will not function. We need more workers and people from other countries to help support our system.”
There is an ugly truth behind what he was saying that he would never say nor will any other politician have the courage to say.
We as a nation are not having enough children.
The reason we are not having enough children is not because of a bad economy. American has had many economic down turns and still had a much higher fertility rate than we have now. We have had a declining fertility rate for decades.
The reason we are having less children is because of two things – feminism and materialism. We look at children as burden from a financial standpoint and as holding women back from their careers pursuits.
We need to bring back a culture that looks at families(big families) as an honor, not something to be mocked. Our tax system should encourage marriage and larger families(at least 4 children per family, as opposed to the average of 2 that we have now.) We need to encourage stay at home motherhood with massive tax incentives for married stay at home moms and tax penalties on woman who are married with children and work.
If we do this we will no longer need to import other countries children to keep our system from failing, but we will stand on our own and keep our culture in the process.
“Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” – Psalm 127:3
Biblical Gender Roles 
We are a nation of men controlled by women who are controlled by children. Maybe enough of a tax break could incentivize men to have large families like the days when kids contributed to families’ bottom line, but I doubt it.
A modern man doesn’t need an army of unpaid labor to work his field and “every one else’s kids” will pay for him in old age rather than his own children. Kids have become a luxury and a liability that cost a lot of money and control households by controlling their mothers, who believe they aren’t good moms unless they are slaves to their kids.
So kids should work in order to give incentives to men to breed?
Or maybe they should just breed because it’s a commandment.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no feminist. I know many women who don’t want children and I think that’s disgusting. But there are an equal, if not greater, amount of men who don’t even want to commit to marriage, let alone have children. So I don’t think we can blame it just on feminism.
The point is that there used to be more to having children than “experiencing the joy of providing for them” or “seeing their beautiful smiles.” We have socialized all the benefits of children (work and long term care, etc.) and kept the costs on parents (minus an annual tax break and public schools).
Since I’m on incentives, why should men commit to marriage anymore? Legally, it’s become a perverted liability of what it was intended to be. Children, women, and society used to respect men with status and large families. Tribes have always known that respecting this type of man will keep them fighting and dying for the tribe.
Bottom line: If you want to see more men committing and having larger families, save the tax incentives and show the most respect to men like that or moving in that direction. Then, try to talk the young single girls you know into respecting that man as well.
Emily,
If you look at what I said I said there were two main causes “feminism and materialism”. Materialism does affect men because there are men who would rather work and keep all their money to by fancy cars and other things than have to support a wife and children. So I agree it does not all fall on women.
However I do think if I we divide blame it does fall more on feminism than materialism. Many woman don’t want to have a lot of kids because it will interfere with their career which for many is a higher priority than being a help meet to their husband and a mother their children.
Another issue where I agree with Tab is that many men don’t want to get married because women do not respect men anymore. Why would a man want to get married to half the women out there who think their husband is supposed to be their help meet, rather then them being their husband’s help meet?
Also since divorce is now about as easy buying a car many men are afraid to commit because they afraid of marry a woman and when she feels like they are not romantic enough anymore she is going to run and take their kids and half of everything they have.
Lindsey Graham is part of the problem, he has never married and never had any children. Far too many adults of his generation have not felt that having children is a priority.
There have been rumors for years that Lindsey Graham is a closet homosexual. I would not be shocked one bit if he ever switch to be a democrat if he came out and admitted he was gay. I am not saying every guy who does not choose to marry must be gay, but he would definitely set off many people’s “gadar”.
I think he is gay, and if he feels that way, then that’s fine as long as he opposes gay marriage (and he does) and even better if he doesn’t act on his homosexuality (I know a homosexual who feels attracted to men but h is abstaining from all sex.)
Tab,
I stick w my opinion that as Christians you shouldn’t need any other incentive other than God says so.
I do agree that traditional marriage roles should be taught (wife and children are husbands property, submission and other stuff on this blog) and that might lead to more marriages.
Larry, from what I’ve gathered from my parents and grandparents – materialism came first. Modern feminism is a product of materialism. In the 1960s society became more materialistic, more obsessed with sex, so much so that most young single women had plenty of affairs, and most married men were adulterous and that was common and accepted (though not female adultery.) Feminism came out of that, if you hear stories about women raised in the 60s they hated it.
And regardless, there are (I think) faaar more women who want to get married and have children than there are men who think that way. So you can’t really blame women, you can blame the feminists at the top (many who are men) that have made marriage so disadvantageous. My mom had almost no income and she still got custody of me when my parents had their divorce.
Many people in Western nations have lost the desire to have children. Many more do not want to have more than one or two. Homosexuality is just one part of this change in attitude; it is much more widespread than homosexuality. Other contributing factors appear to be materialism (concern about the cost of raising children – exacerbated by the false idea that each child needs 4 years of college completely paid for by the parents), selfishness, a lack of hope for a good future, concerns about “over-population”, not believing that most Christians are supposed to try to have large families (believing that, “be fruitful and multiply does not apply today”), a demonic spirit that is encouraging the suicide of the West. Spengler and Toynbee both wrote about the, “Suicide of the West.”
Churches I have attended never taught or encouraged us to get married and grow the church/kingdom by having large families.