Begetting The Next Generation "Certainly Not Essential"

Maggie Gallagher reflects on a recent Newsweek cover story:

What lies "beyond babies"?

That's the question Newsweek raises in its latest cover story on the looming depopulation crisis in Europe and Asia. But Newsweek (I kid you not) says it means "good things for restaurants and real estate":

"Powerful social and religious taboos (in Greece) labeled childless women as barren spinsters, and cast suspicion on the sexual preferences of single, middle-aged men. No longer. In the space of a generation, that tight social corset has largely vanished, thanks to an array of factors, including better education and job options for women and Greece's entry into the cultural mainstream of the European Union. The result: a marriage rate below the EU average, and a birthrate among the world's lowest, at 1.3 per woman."

So Newsweek tries to stuff perhaps the biggest story of our time -- the sudden collapse of childbearing to below-replacement levels in virtually every free, democratic and affluent nation on this Earth -- into a happy tale of a new generation's lifestyle liberation from that old ugly "social corset" of marriage and family...

The Newsweek article may be read here.

It begins:

Sept. 4, 2006 issue - At the fashionable Da Capo cafe on bustling Kolonaki Square in downtown Athens, Greek professionals in their 30s and early 40s luxuriate over iced cappuccinos. Their favorite topic of conversation is, of course, relationships: men's reluctance to commit, women's independence, and when to have children—or, increasingly, whether to have them at all. "With the years passing my chances of having a child go down," says Eirini Petropoulou, a 37-year-old administrative assistant at the Associated Press news agency. "But I won't marry anyone just to have a child." She loves her work and gets her social sustenance from her parea, or close-knit group of like-minded friends, who increasingly play the role of family for young Greeks. "If at 45 I'm still childless, I'll consider having a child on my own," she says. But it's not as if her sense of personal fulfillment depends on it.

Just a few decades ago, Petropoulou and her friends might have been considered, well, odd. Greece was known as one of Europe's most traditional societies, where the Orthodox Church's strict commandment to marry and multiply held sway. Powerful social and religious taboos labeled childless women as barren spinsters, and cast suspicion on the sexual preferences of single, middle-aged men. No longer. In the space of a generation, that tight social corset has largely vanished, thanks to an array of factors, including better education and job options for women and Greece's entry into the cultural mainstream of the European Union. The result: a marriage rate below the EU average, and a birthrate among the world's lowest, at 1.3 per woman. To young Greeks like Petropoulou, babies are great—if the timing is right. But they're certainly not essential...

Well, it does sound good for restaurants and real estate. Even better, it means less people suffering under violently imposed Sharia law. And don't we owe that to our kids?