Refreshing the Cultural Lexicon
By Genevieve S. Kineke

Europe is suffering a demographic crisis. Even the New York Times has recently acknowledged this fact, noting that the birth rates there are so low that they cannot recover in time to salvage their economies. Readers are assured that Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book, The Population Bomb, which created a groundswell of panic about overpopulation, wasn’t wrong in its dire predictions. It’s just that things have, well, changed.

Changed, indeed. The widespread cultural acceptance of contraception has radically changed our thinking and made possible sexual liaisons that have no intention of establishing commitment or children. In fact, the link between sexual intimacy and children has been so effectively eradicated that the generation that has come of age since 1968 has an entirely new paradigm.

One honest young convert to the faith is Jennifer Fulwiler, who highlighted the mental landscape of her contemporaries in a recent article in America magazine. She notes, “the way I had always seen it, the generally accepted view was that babies were burdens, except for a few times in life when everything might be perfect enough for a couple to see new life as a good thing.”

The firm desire of her generation to avoid babies certainly didn’t lead to celibacy. She continues, “As a society, we had come to take it for granted that we are entitled to the pleasurable and bonding aspects of sex even when we are opposed to the new life it might produce. The option of abstaining from the act that creates babies if we see children as a burden had been removed from our cultural lexicon.”

The Times article backs up her personal experience with a broad array of statistics that indicate that the present generation in Europe has shed its commitment to family for the brighter pastures of individual freedoms. “The main reason seems to be a basic change in attitudes on the part of some women as to their ‘natural’ role. According to Nikolai Botev, population and development adviser at the United Nations Population Fund, many observers have been surprised to find that in recent years ‘childlessness emerges as an ideal lifestyle.’”

Ideal, perhaps in one sense of personal freedom, and yet this trend is proving disastrous for the future of Europe. Demographers are scrambling to find the reasons for the precipitous decline in births—blaming the economy, the reticence of fathers to share child-care responsibilities, lack of affordable housing for young families, limited access to health care, and other practical factors. But Jennifer’s generation has spoken quite clearly: young women no longer consider motherhood to be an integral part of the feminine vocation.

Feminists have succeeded in arranging the culture so that marriage and children are simply one option for women, and one that carries little prestige at present. Men often follow their lead, rejoicing in the lack of responsibility attached to uncommitted sex; and thus we commence the third millennium—dedicated to individual gratification, sterile intimacy, and a looming social catastrophe.

The genius of women is the influence they wield when they integrate their true best interest with that of the wider community. If they took the time to reflect more carefully, they would do well to consider motherhood. John Paul II wrote in Familiaris Consortio, “the true advancement of women requires that clear recognition be given to the value of their maternal and family role, by comparison with all other public roles and all other professions.”

The “cultural lexicon” now rests in the hands of women, who must see that “having it all” leaves the next generation with very little, if they exist at all.

Mrs. Kineke is the author of The Authentic Catholic Woman (Servant Books).