How come I didn’t get invited to the party?

My whole life, people have been afraid of overpopulation. So much so that as recently as five years ago, I was asked to justify why I was willing to do something as terrible to the planet as have a third kid. (More than replacement rate.  The assumption was that moral people had two children, or one, or none at all.)

So, it was a great shock to me to learn that suddenly a switch has been thrown, and the population is too small. Europe and Japan are said to be “dying from within” because of not enough population — babies are not being born quickly enough to replace the current population and support the older folks. America has only escaped this dire fate do to immigration. (Europe had immigration, too, but they are not integrating, so, apparently, it doesn’t “count.”)

So, my question is: If the population used to be too high and now it is too low…what was the date when it was just perfect? Was it in the 90s? The 70s? May 16th, 2003?

Why wasn’ t I informed? Was there a party I missed — A “Hey, the earth is perfect today!” party?

If not, can we hold one now, in retrospect?

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94 thoughts on “How come I didn’t get invited to the party?

  1. I’m all for throwing that party now.

    Lemme dig around and find the anthropology hat I donned for a short period in college…

    I’m not sure when it happened, but it’s a symptom of a post industrial culture.

    Erm. Actually: It would the generation that grew up in the 80s, most likely.

    Immigration without integration is a scary thing; Sharia Law’s major foothold in Europe is gonna be due to a lack of integration.

    Sorry this is disjointed, but I just worked my second sixteen hour day and I have a third one to do tomorrow. The framerate in my head is dragging a bit. Well, more than a bit.

    • I know exactly what you mean. Quite a few people have wanted to ask me how we can even think of adopting when we have the Cherubim. They hint, but no one has actually done it.

      • Um…what, are they doing that old joke about “if your adopted family has X hereditary problem, you might, too”?

        If you can support more kids, and you *will*, God bless you!

      • I would think if anything proved your abilities to mother and father a quite possibly distressed (if only by having been abandoned) child into a state of happiness, it would be the smiles on the Cherubim’s face.

      • Then there were the ones who declared how lucky we were that the second one was normal. I would smile icily (these are blood relatives, sorry, no left hooks possible) and say that yes, this was just an average child. Nothing special about him.

        Until, of course, like his sister, he started to develop his “special” abilities around age 2. Well, they’re normal to each other at any rate.

        • Excellent!!!!

          I left for AK long before you had your son. Congratulations! I am very happy for you that your family grows in wisdom and in grace. The only thing I would find noteworthy about raising deaf children is the temptation they may face as they mature to isolate themselves within the deaf community and exclude other friendships, but with the parents they have I doubt they would be so timid, stubborn or judgemental.

          • Re: Excellent!!!!

            Yup, exactly the reason we chose cued speech over sign. More contact with the outside world. They can learn to sign later if they wish.

            All the culturally deaf people I know are really, really angry and seem to hate their families or at least separate from them after a certain age (which is to say, after they find themselves sent off to the state schools). Not so here.
            They can be quite stubborn, but so are their parents!

        • Ugh. My sister’s boy was born with club feet.

          At one point the mother in law told her son that it “must be from her side, we have nothing like that on ours.”

          Do folks not THINK?

          I can see it slipping out in a high stress situation if your first had some horrific defect– like those poor kids who are born and then their nerves kind of burn up, and they die a week or so later.

          But…for healthy kids? Who are just different? (looks at her desktop, with her adorable little nephew using his foot-bar like a skateboarder mid-jump)

          *hug*

          • By the way, the gentleman who was president of our church last year (I mean of our entirel church, worldwide) had been born with a club foot. For years he prayed about this, to no avail. Then, one day, he was healed, entirely healed.

            When his daughter was born, he looked and saw that she seemed to have the same problem. He covered her legs and prayed, remembering what he had learned about God during his many years of praying for himself. Sure enough, when her leg was uncovered again, she had two perfect feet.

            I love hearing him tell this story. I’ve heard him speak a couple of times.

          • *sly grin*
            My sister has the baby in braces, and he had a surgury to help correct it.

            A great old saying…. “Trust in God, but keep rowing for shore.”

          • Many ways to the same goal. ;-) But it’s good to know that problems thought incurable can be healed by prayer, as there are always incurable problems, even as others become not a burden any more. ;-)

  2. We’re breeding and you’re not! At least now, it looks like the people who love life and families are having them and the rest are not…Oops, I guess I should explain that I have several young conservative Catholic friends that intend to eventually win the debate on how the world should be run by outnumbering those who disagree. Many of my friends and colleagues have or come from families of six or more children. I actually caught myself saying: “Wait, M— might only have seven siblings, now that I think about it…”

      • oops

        while not being Catholic yourself, I considered most of the family oriented folks ’round here as part of the “we.”

        I realize now that I was very unclear. Oh my, it is getting late and I am not as thorough with my compositions as I ought to be.

        People did laugh at me for saying someone had ONLY seven siblings.

        • Re: oops

          Ah, sorry…I didn’t make my point clear.

          That was “so…” as in “so…, when are you guys having kids?” but I was trying to be polite, so I was just hinting at it.

          ;-)

          • Re: oops

            Don’t be polite! I’m thick in the skull and slow on the uptake. :-) As for babies of our own, ev dew xaipw…(unfortunately, I don’t know how to switch to the Greek alphabet here.) At this point I have resigned to leave it in God’s hands. Things are working toward sooner with recent events.

            I just got a merit-based raise; so starting in Sept, I will be making $30,000.00 per year. We’ll see how much that helps. My past job hopping has put a ten year dent in our economic stability.

            I did just become a godmother last Saturday. James Anthony is under my protection. His parents are two of our closest friends here in AK and Will and I are very proud. The guys have taken to calling will ‘Da Gahdfadda’ while I am hoping for something a little more benign like ‘faery godmother.’ ;-)

            James is adorable. His mother and I can’t help but laugh out loud over the way his face scrinches up when he cries. He already has a low voice, (for a baby,) which should stay that way given how long he is. The day he was born he somehow acquired the pet name Peapod.

            I have also started working on his 1st birthday present, (sewing projects take me so much time that I am giving myself the whole year,) I am going to make him a giant peach stuffy. ;-P

          • Re: oops

            >I just got a merit-based raise; so starting in Sept, I will be making $30,000.00 per year. We’ll see how much that helps. My past job hopping has put a ten year dent in our economic stability.

            That happened to us, too. John often comments that we are where we should have been ten years ago. — I, on the other hand, feel that if I end up making any money at all on Corruption Camppaign books, it will have been worth it!

            How cute James sounds. It reminds me of when Juss was born, every time he went to cry, he pouted and looked just like his older brothers when they pouted, so I loved him all the more. But mom’s should not laugh when their children are about to cry. ;-)

    • Go, Catholics!

      I asked my wordsmith husband when I was in a particular pet to come up with an equivalent term for those childless and proud idiots who smirkingly call us breeders. He smiled and gave his answer: ghosts.

      They wander the earth making much noise and leave nothing of significance behind.

  3. I’m all for throwing that party now.

    Lemme dig around and find the anthropology hat I donned for a short period in college…

    I’m not sure when it happened, but it’s a symptom of a post industrial culture.

    Erm. Actually: It would the generation that grew up in the 80s, most likely.

    Immigration without integration is a scary thing; Sharia Law’s major foothold in Europe is gonna be due to a lack of integration.

    Sorry this is disjointed, but I just worked my second sixteen hour day and I have a third one to do tomorrow. The framerate in my head is dragging a bit. Well, more than a bit.

  4. Oh, those same folks who yelled at you for having a third– which is closer to replacement than two, by the way– are still yelling.

    Just the rest of the folks have noticed that most of the civilized areas are at way *below* replacement– because folks still die before having even one kid, by choice or by accident.

    • My answer, by the way, was that I have both a brother and a close friend who are not planning to reproduce, so I was covering them, too.

      It was only more recently that I realized I didn’t need to justify myself. ;-)

    • And some of us may live our full spans but be unable to have children due to medical reasons that also foreclose the possibility of adopting.

      I’m the eldest of four, but as of yet my folks have only two grandchildren, and both of them have health issues that may greatly reduce their chance of marrying and having children (we’re hoping the intensive therapy they’re getting as little kids will enable them to become fully functional members of society when they grow up). My spouse and I have been trying fruitlessly for eight years, and we’re getting to the age that we’re pretty much figuring it’s Just Not In the Hand We’ve Drawn. My other two brothers remain single, and neither of them have girlfriends, although there’s always the possibility that could change. A guy doesn’t have a hard limit on his fertility the way a gal does.

      • Half of my dad’s brothers can’t seem to manage to have kids, and both of their wives are just too stubborn to think about adopting. (I’d like to get about ten minutes alone with the idiot who started the “trash babies” thing for adopting American kids)

        I have deep sympathy for *anyone* who is trying hard to have kids and just can’t.

        On the other hand– wasn’t Stephen Hawkings supposed to be dead at 21? And doesn’t he have a couple of kids?

      • Not just an urban legend

        A good friend of mine thought she had exhausted all the possibilities–including most medical ones–and went with international adoption.
        Before the process was even completed, she conceived. Now she has 2 adorable kids.

        • Re: Not just an urban legend

          Reminds me of the folks down the hill from my folks– they spent many thousands having their first boy, and then kind of ignored it– because they couldn’t have children, so why worry?

          They have added an adorable little blond diva and a djinn brat to their total. ;^p

  5. We’re breeding and you’re not! At least now, it looks like the people who love life and families are having them and the rest are not…Oops, I guess I should explain that I have several young conservative Catholic friends that intend to eventually win the debate on how the world should be run by outnumbering those who disagree. Many of my friends and colleagues have or come from families of six or more children. I actually caught myself saying: “Wait, M— might only have seven siblings, now that I think about it…”

  6. I know exactly what you mean. Quite a few people have wanted to ask me how we can even think of adopting when we have the Cherubim. They hint, but no one has actually done it.

  7. Oh, those same folks who yelled at you for having a third– which is closer to replacement than two, by the way– are still yelling.

    Just the rest of the folks have noticed that most of the civilized areas are at way *below* replacement– because folks still die before having even one kid, by choice or by accident.

  8. Um…what, are they doing that old joke about “if your adopted family has X hereditary problem, you might, too”?

    If you can support more kids, and you *will*, God bless you!

  9. oops

    while not being Catholic yourself, I considered most of the family oriented folks ’round here as part of the “we.”

    I realize now that I was very unclear. Oh my, it is getting late and I am not as thorough with my compositions as I ought to be.

    People did laugh at me for saying someone had ONLY seven siblings.

  10. I would think if anything proved your abilities to mother and father a quite possibly distressed (if only by having been abandoned) child into a state of happiness, it would be the smiles on the Cherubim’s face.

  11. Then there were the ones who declared how lucky we were that the second one was normal. I would smile icily (these are blood relatives, sorry, no left hooks possible) and say that yes, this was just an average child. Nothing special about him.

    Until, of course, like his sister, he started to develop his “special” abilities around age 2. Well, they’re normal to each other at any rate.

  12. Go, Catholics!

    I asked my wordsmith husband when I was in a particular pet to come up with an equivalent term for those childless and proud idiots who smirkingly call us breeders. He smiled and gave his answer: ghosts.

    They wander the earth making much noise and leave nothing of significance behind.

  13. Re: oops

    Ah, sorry…I didn’t make my point clear.

    That was “so…” as in “so…, when are you guys having kids?” but I was trying to be polite, so I was just hinting at it.

    ;-)

  14. My answer, by the way, was that I have both a brother and a close friend who are not planning to reproduce, so I was covering them, too.

    It was only more recently that I realized I didn’t need to justify myself. ;-)

  15. And some of us may live our full spans but be unable to have children due to medical reasons that also foreclose the possibility of adopting.

    I’m the eldest of four, but as of yet my folks have only two grandchildren, and both of them have health issues that may greatly reduce their chance of marrying and having children (we’re hoping the intensive therapy they’re getting as little kids will enable them to become fully functional members of society when they grow up). My spouse and I have been trying fruitlessly for eight years, and we’re getting to the age that we’re pretty much figuring it’s Just Not In the Hand We’ve Drawn. My other two brothers remain single, and neither of them have girlfriends, although there’s always the possibility that could change. A guy doesn’t have a hard limit on his fertility the way a gal does.

  16. Excellent!!!!

    I left for AK long before you had your son. Congratulations! I am very happy for you that your family grows in wisdom and in grace. The only thing I would find noteworthy about raising deaf children is the temptation they may face as they mature to isolate themselves within the deaf community and exclude other friendships, but with the parents they have I doubt they would be so timid, stubborn or judgemental.

  17. Re: oops

    Don’t be polite! I’m thick in the skull and slow on the uptake. :-) As for babies of our own, ev dew xaipw…(unfortunately, I don’t know how to switch to the Greek alphabet here.) At this point I have resigned to leave it in God’s hands. Things are working toward sooner with recent events.

    I just got a merit-based raise; so starting in Sept, I will be making $30,000.00 per year. We’ll see how much that helps. My past job hopping has put a ten year dent in our economic stability.

    I did just become a godmother last Saturday. James Anthony is under my protection. His parents are two of our closest friends here in AK and Will and I are very proud. The guys have taken to calling will ‘Da Gahdfadda’ while I am hoping for something a little more benign like ‘faery godmother.’ ;-)

    James is adorable. His mother and I can’t help but laugh out loud over the way his face scrinches up when he cries. He already has a low voice, (for a baby,) which should stay that way given how long he is. The day he was born he somehow acquired the pet name Peapod.

    I have also started working on his 1st birthday present, (sewing projects take me so much time that I am giving myself the whole year,) I am going to make him a giant peach stuffy. ;-P

  18. Ugh. My sister’s boy was born with club feet.

    At one point the mother in law told her son that it “must be from her side, we have nothing like that on ours.”

    Do folks not THINK?

    I can see it slipping out in a high stress situation if your first had some horrific defect– like those poor kids who are born and then their nerves kind of burn up, and they die a week or so later.

    But…for healthy kids? Who are just different? (looks at her desktop, with her adorable little nephew using his foot-bar like a skateboarder mid-jump)

    *hug*

  19. Half of my dad’s brothers can’t seem to manage to have kids, and both of their wives are just too stubborn to think about adopting. (I’d like to get about ten minutes alone with the idiot who started the “trash babies” thing for adopting American kids)

    I have deep sympathy for *anyone* who is trying hard to have kids and just can’t.

    On the other hand– wasn’t Stephen Hawkings supposed to be dead at 21? And doesn’t he have a couple of kids?

  20. I think people used to think that with fewer people, we would have more resources per person. Now we are finding out that breeding at less than replacement causes more economic and cultural problems, at least in the short run.

    I probably fit that description of a Catholic outbreeding the anti-family types. My fourth child in 6 years is due in a couple weeks and I still have 12-15 years or so of fertility left, during which I don’t plan to stop having kids. :)

  21. I think people used to think that with fewer people, we would have more resources per person. Now we are finding out that breeding at less than replacement causes more economic and cultural problems, at least in the short run.

    I probably fit that description of a Catholic outbreeding the anti-family types. My fourth child in 6 years is due in a couple weeks and I still have 12-15 years or so of fertility left, during which I don’t plan to stop having kids. :)

  22. Oh, that sounds like fun. We could have a “The Day the Earth Was Right” party.

    I don’t drink, but I do snack. I’m looking forward to this already. ;-)

    I wonder if my novel will be out by then, sigh.

  23. Re: oops

    >I just got a merit-based raise; so starting in Sept, I will be making $30,000.00 per year. We’ll see how much that helps. My past job hopping has put a ten year dent in our economic stability.

    That happened to us, too. John often comments that we are where we should have been ten years ago. — I, on the other hand, feel that if I end up making any money at all on Corruption Camppaign books, it will have been worth it!

    How cute James sounds. It reminds me of when Juss was born, every time he went to cry, he pouted and looked just like his older brothers when they pouted, so I loved him all the more. But mom’s should not laugh when their children are about to cry. ;-)

  24. Re: Excellent!!!!

    Yup, exactly the reason we chose cued speech over sign. More contact with the outside world. They can learn to sign later if they wish.

    All the culturally deaf people I know are really, really angry and seem to hate their families or at least separate from them after a certain age (which is to say, after they find themselves sent off to the state schools). Not so here.
    They can be quite stubborn, but so are their parents!

  25. Not just an urban legend

    A good friend of mine thought she had exhausted all the possibilities–including most medical ones–and went with international adoption.
    Before the process was even completed, she conceived. Now she has 2 adorable kids.

  26. Just finished watching Yours, Mine, and Ours…classic comedy starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. I think given our discussion, it should be shown in conjunction with the party. A widow and a widower combine families to have 18 kids total. Then they top it off with a 19th.

  27. By the way, the gentleman who was president of our church last year (I mean of our entirel church, worldwide) had been born with a club foot. For years he prayed about this, to no avail. Then, one day, he was healed, entirely healed.

    When his daughter was born, he looked and saw that she seemed to have the same problem. He covered her legs and prayed, remembering what he had learned about God during his many years of praying for himself. Sure enough, when her leg was uncovered again, she had two perfect feet.

    I love hearing him tell this story. I’ve heard him speak a couple of times.

  28. *sly grin*
    My sister has the baby in braces, and he had a surgury to help correct it.

    A great old saying…. “Trust in God, but keep rowing for shore.”

  29. Re: Not just an urban legend

    Reminds me of the folks down the hill from my folks– they spent many thousands having their first boy, and then kind of ignored it– because they couldn’t have children, so why worry?

    They have added an adorable little blond diva and a djinn brat to their total. ;^p

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