Acknowledging and accepting this makes me selfish? Why is it wrong to stop while you are ahead, instead of pushing past your breaking point? Many of us grew up in families that might have been a little happier and more stable if there had been one or two less mouths to feed. Why repeat the cycle? Because they tell you to? You have to listen to your own heart and live your own life.

If they want to, mind you, I’m not saying that they shouldn’t. But can we also consider that those who choose to have few or no children may also be doing something for society?

Having a child is the most important personal decision someone can make - for you, for the people who make up your family, but most especially, for that tiny person you have. How is it in any way “narcissistic” to decide that you are unable for whatever reason - financially, physically, emotionally - to have a child, and then to stick with that decision? That decision is most often made by people who care about children, who know that having children is a 24-hour-a-day responsibility, and who also know they don’t have the 24 hours to give. It’s a heck of a lot more caring than the people who have children because they’re being pressured to produce grandchildren, or because it’s what everyone does, or because some nutball Rabbi is worried that the world is getting a little browner than it was. You know, closer to the colour of the original Semites.

Of course, even though he may strut and crow about HIS KIDS, he’s not the one who’s given birth nine times and been pregnant at least nine times, is he? She’s the one who’s done the work and taken the risks.

Speaking of which: Gemdiva, the answer to your question is, as far as I can tell, “Yes,” for the same reasons Class Factotum brings up: simply, that more women are becoming mothers later, in their 30s and 40s. It’s harder for them to get pregnant, and they tend to get pregnant less often. The flip side is that these days fewer of them are dying as a result of pregnancy or birth-related complications. Most people seem to forget that the human body undergoes a tremendous strain even with successful pregnancies, and it can undergo a lot of damage even if no child results. Those women who are having children, or trying to get pregnant in their 30s and 40s nowadays? Take a look at tombstones in old cemetaries: in those glorious olden days when women were bred relentlessly, they were dying in their 30s and 40s. Henriette-Anne Stuart died just before her 26th birthday; her body was battered by numerous miscarriages and the births of several children who died shortly thereafter. She was a princess, so it made her death notable; but there were plenty of other ordinary women who had similar experiences. One of the women in my wedding party never knew her grandmother, who died at 16. No, the grandmother didn’t die when my friend was 16; the grandmother died at the age of 16. But she’d already left behind the child who was my friend’s mother.

I think more credit needs to go to the people who’ve truly thought about parenthood, and decided it isn’t for them - or it is; but who’ve actually thought about whether or not they have the resources, financially and emotionally, to care for another person. And I think more appreciation needs to be shown for the human beings who are actually alive now, and a little less “in theory.” The Rabbi’s busy wringing his hands over children not born, and scolding the people who aren’t having them; how much is he contributing to making life better for people who are already here? I would love to see women being appreciated for more than their breeding capabilities. People like the Rabbi make me want to look for the “Tupperware” stamp on my backside. We’re not containers, we’re not broodmares, we’re not Xerox machines; we’re 50% of the human race. People like the Rabbi make it clear that we don’t matter, it’s all about the babies. The subtext, of course, is that there’s at least a chance that some of those babies will be male, and therefore important - as opposed to the mother, who is already here, but female, and therefore less.

What raised my hackles about the rabbi’s article was the large focus on how it is so tragic that European and North American cultures have such a low birthrate.

The world’s population is still increasing, though. So why is the good rabbi so upset about declining birthrates in Europe and North America, if those losses are offset in other cultures/countries? That question is leading me down a road of inquiry that I prefer not to pursue, but I really do have to suspect his motives.

Before, you got married by 25 (there are stats re: avg marriage age, which I believe has been increasing), then started having kids if you were fertile. Now, women wait, either on purpose or through circumstance, until their 30s or 40s to start a family. At that age, fertility is much lower.

Glinda, I am so with you on the sharing. I did not share a bedroom because I wanted to. I did not share my toys because I wanted to. I was forced at gunpoint — kind of like the Cubans and the N. Koreans — into a collectivist lifestyle by my parents. If I’d had any say in it, I would have been an only child.

Far more troubling to me is the number of couples these days who desperately want children, but are unable to conceive. Is it just me, or has this number really exploded in recent years. Maybe childlessness is just better publicized now, but it sure seems like an epidemic. I’d be interested to see comparative numbers from previous years/generations, if anyone has them.