The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

How to Make Babies

Posted on | February 3, 2013 | 27 Comments

Do I really need to explain this, people? Apparently so, because Jonathan V. Last has written an entire column at the Wall Street Journal about the fact that people aren’t having babies and — as if that were not enough — has also written a book on the subject, What To Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster.

This is depressing. Why? Because no one’s paying me to write a book about how to fix the problem, despite the fact that I’ve got six children. Whatever the “demographic” problem is, I’m an expert on the solution. Not quite as much an expert as Jim Bob Duggar, I guess . . .

Penis + Vagina = Babies.

It’s not really complicated. What solution does Jonathan V. Last prescribe? I don’t know. Why should I read a book about a problem that I’ve already solved, insofar as it involves my own personal share of the reproductive burden? As far as childless people are concerned, they don’t need to be reading books, they need to be making babies.

There’s your solution in a nutshell: Stop reading books about demographics, and start making babies instead. Which is probably why nobody’s offering to pay me to write a whole book about it, because I’ve just solved the demographic crisis in a little over 200 words.

 

Comments

27 Responses to “How to Make Babies”

  1. Turkishsnowcone
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 12:59 am

    Some folks are laughing about Putin encouraging sex parties and the like, however it appears to be working. Russian fertility rate are up.

  2. BruceC
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 1:13 am

    Gee, I wonder how much “Hope and Change” has to do with people not having babies. I know that if I was considering having children right now I would definitely think twice about it.

  3. Cube
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 1:42 am

    We’ve wiped out an estimated 50M+ in the 40 years since Roe v Wade in what Rush Limbaugh called a liberal “sacrament” (I know, ugh). If all those people were still here and paying taxes, do you think that might help with the demographics as well as a few other problems?

    “The wages of sin is death” apparently applies to cultures as well as individuals.

  4. Danby
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 2:54 am

    6 kids?

    I have 11 you piker.

    Get back to work!

  5. JeffWeimer
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 3:03 am

    3 kids + 2 step w/ 2 grandkids.

    I’m doing my part.

  6. Thane_Eichenauer
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 7:04 am

    I think his point was “Less thinking, more doing”.

  7. McGehee
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 8:46 am

    The problem is not so much that people think too much before making babies, it’s that they don’t think enough before casting votes.

  8. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 10:10 am

    You left out the part about not killing them RSM. Apparently, given 1.2 abortions a year, that message is not getting through.

  9. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 10:17 am
  10. jakee308
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 10:21 am

    Insert tab A into slot B. that’s only if slot B says it’s okay.

    If there’s a problem about not enough babies, guess where the blame lies? Ladies?

    Birth control, abortion and the good old standby excuse to say no of “riding the cotton pony” is ALL under the control of women.

    Men still want to have sex. All the time. Whenever offered. So that’s not the problem.

    If men aren’t up to “capacity”, that too is a product of the neutralization and neutering of men by the feminization “by women” of just about every thing.

    The headlong race to see how much men can be marginalized and made to feel inadequate by the female imposed/assisted Nannyization of men’s every thought or deed continues apace even though women have reached parity and men have been denied assistance or special programs but been left to founder by themselves.

    Good job ladies. Good job.

  11. rosalie
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 10:52 am

    They’re thinking about those free phones they’re getting.

  12. McGehee
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 11:14 am

    Male-hating identity feminists are actually deep-cover human-extinction movement agents.

  13. Freddie Sykes
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 11:29 am

    Just more collateral damage from The War on Boys. We tend to self-segregate based on education level. The education establishment has been down on boys for decades. This helps to lead to a paucity of males on college campuses. Close to 60% of students are women and that number is much higher for minority women. These ratios follow college educated women throughout life as most do not consider less credentialed men suitable as partners.

    Add to that the fact that the government, by striving to make college more “affordable”, has made having children less affordable because of ever increasing college loan balances.

    The progressive strike again!

  14. Coulter76
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 11:35 am

    Count me in the camp that thinks it’s a GOOD thing people are having less kids. People are making financially responsible decisions, unless you want millions more kids being taken care of by the taxpayer.

    Explain to me how the average citizen that makes under $50k could possibly support a family of 4-5 kids without government assistance?

    Big government NEEDS lots of babies to take care of, no one is going to say no to a hungry child.

    If anything, our “demographics” problem means you’re going to see all sorts of government programs cut to the bone because the tax base is simply not there.

    Lots of babies means lots of expansion of government programs because it’s a larger tax base.

  15. McGehee
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 12:02 pm

    You’re assuming government can only spend what it takes in. The current crowd of politicians seems to believe otherwise.

  16. Rick Caird
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 12:08 pm

    Let me fix your equation:

    Penis + vagina – free contraceptives – abortion = babies

  17. Danby
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 2:00 pm

    That’s pure BS. My grandparents raised 9, my parents raised 9, my aunt Helen raised 10, I have raised 11. None of us are or were on the dole, Don’t tell me it’s because normal people can’t “afford” kids.

    And they “financially responsible decision” most people are making? “I’ll take what I want now and let other people’s kids pay for my retirement.”

    People won’t have kids because people are selfish. They want their time, they want their toys, they want their things, they want their options, they want their divorces.

    And of course we teach them to be selfish. We teach them that they have some sort of right to a new car, to a fancy house, and most importantly, to their own time and independence. We teach them that it’s more important to have money in the bank than to have treasures of the heart.

  18. Coulter76
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 2:12 pm

    Right, because what someone did 60 years ago is completely relevant today.

    Please show me a modern family of 9 that could survive on the average American salary of $45k and I’ll show you a family that’s getting government benefits up the wazoo.

    Just say it, you think birth control is immoral, but you don’t want to come right out and preach that message because 99% of Americans reject it, so instead you’ll lament things like Social Security funding. Sort of like Rick Santorum just wanted a national conversation about the “dangers” of birth control with married people.

    FYI, I don’t view someone who has 2 kids instead of 9 as being selfish, maybe you need to reevaluate your moral code.

  19. Danby
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 2:54 pm

    The “average American salary” is not what you’d apply to someone old enough to have 9 kids. It would be the average salary for persons 35-44, about $65K: http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Incomes-by-Age-Brackets.php

    Second, you’re telling me that what I have personally done can’t be done? That’s some kind of industrial-strength denial. In 1998 I had 9 kids, and I made $36K, which translates to about $48k in todays dollars. And not 1 dollar in taxpayer money.

    I suppose there is some small number of people whose health is so precarious that it would be dangerous to have children. And some people who are so mentally or emotionally defective enough that they oughtn’t have any kids. Outside of those small groups, yes, someone who chooses “more for me” over kids is selfish..

    Also, love the way you shove your religious bigotry into the conversation.

  20. Matthew W
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 3:54 pm

    “How to make babies”

    Get a prom date……………………………………

  21. Sandra’s really Fluked up logic « THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 4:00 pm

    […] suggest that it would be a far, far better thing for our country if Miss Fluke did not reproduce! However, Robert Stacey Stacy McCain noted that the problem is too much contraception, and that we re… I wonder if he’d make an exception in his argument in Miss Fluke’s case. […]

  22. GAHCindy
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 5:05 pm

    Well, since my family happens to have 5 kids on one average salary, I’d be happy to explain it. I already did, actually, at the following link. Kids are NOT expensive. They are actually money-makers, in the long run, because they bring their own minds and interests to the economy as they grow. I make innovative people. What’s your talent? My well-raised, productive kids will *be* the economy when they grow up. What makes you think our generation is so special that it’s the last one that really needs to show up?

    http://getalonghome.com/2012/09/large-families-afford-children/

  23. Bob Belvedere
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 5:18 pm

    Some of us wanted to have children, but were unable to for biological reasons.

  24. RichFader
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 5:40 pm

    Folks, you’re going to get screwed anyway for at least the next few years. Make sure it’s the fun, productive way.

  25. Cube
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 9:07 pm

    THIS!

  26. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 3rd, 2013 @ 11:05 pm
  27. Roxeanne de Luca
    February 4th, 2013 @ 11:44 am

    Um, except those babies do best in a married household, and America spent the last four decades waging war against the institution.

    White, college-educated people still want to be married before making babies, but they get married extraordinarily late (and often too late to make a baby, let alone 2.1; six would be laughable unless one wants to be Hexamom). So responsible people are doing what society tells them is responsible: wait to get married (lower risk of divorce!), use contraception when having sex (no illegitimate babies!), and have babies late (be financially stable and better provide!).

    What we really need to do is to change the definition of “responsible” and to change the circumstances that make young adults think that their 20s and 30s ought to be in school, not in parenthood.