The EU’s under-population Catch-22
CatholicIreland.net published a commentary on August 10 focused on a July 11 press release by the European Union’s Commissioner of Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.
CI quoted Pope JP II as saying Europe’s present under-population crisis is directly related to Europe’s loss of its Christian identity.
This is clear in the EU press release, which identifies the need for more children but calls childbearing a “burden,” rather than what Scripture calls it, a “blessing.”
Until the EU changes its worldview, it will find no solution. See its quandary, which I have pulled verbatim from its press release, forced on it by its secular worldview:
To balance work and family life better, the European Social Model needs to be modernized and the EU’s economy needs to pick up. Europe’s demographic changes means it needs more children, a higher percentage of working women and care for the increasing number of elderly. The EU can tackle this ‘magic triangle’ if everyone helps share the burden, through new ways of balancing work/family life. But failure to do so would directly hit Europe’s future economic growth, as well as putting a potentially unbearable burden on women’s shoulders….
Placing the burden of having more children, working more and caring for the growing number of elderly at the door of women is neither practical nor fair – requiring therefore new policies, mentalities and attitudes to confront the EU’s demographic challenges.
I await the EU’s solution to its crisis of needing more children to save itself from extinction but not wanting to encourage women to have them.
We Don’t Want To Go There
Anyway, on to my main point. This is why conservatives are trying to warn our society about certain dangerous trends in our culture. Europe is about 50 years ahead of the United States in certain key areas: de-valuation of children, lack of traditional…
We Don’t Want To Go There
Anyway, on to my main point. This is why conservatives are trying to warn our society about certain dangerous trends in our culture. Europe is about 50 years ahead of the United States in certain key areas: de-valuation of children, lack of traditional…
We Don’t Want To Go There
Anyway, on to my main point. This is why conservatives are trying to warn our society about certain dangerous trends in our culture. Europe is about 50 years ahead of the United States in certain key areas: de-valuation of children, lack of traditional…
Aieee! Sorry about the multiple posting. :(
Anyway, great post!
I agree with you that fathers are what is missing in all these social formulas, predictions and analyses. Fathers are the missing link. Because men have been thrown out and deemed disposable in this society (and in the EU), we live in a feminized politicized world. Only women have reproduction rights (not their children, and certainly not the children’s fathers). The problem with the next generation not replacing the last generation is only going to get worse. Why? Because the male birth control pill will be out within the next 5 years. And our feminzed politized society really thinks that men are too obtuse or selfish to take it. They are dead wrong. It will be a bigger seller than the female pill. 35% of all live births today are from unmarried women who “oops” accidentally-on-purpose get pregnant to get free state and federal grants and to live off of free “child support.” Men understand that it is their tax dollars and their indentured service that allows this social trend to proliferate. Men have the most to lose if their girlfriend gets pregnant, not women. We need a paradign shift in values back to God, traditional family and “just say no” to divorce. Sadly, our nation and the EU is heading light speed in the other direction. Thankfully, some in power are starting to realize this colosal mistake and are speaking out. What the reporter in the EU is missing (typically) is that he believes it’s all up to what women want, when again, the invisible man has a say in it to. When it is too costly emotionally to have children (70% of all divorced or single fathers have their children forcibly taken away from them – not to mention the fathers with no say over the lives of their unborn children) and too costly to get married (financial ruin with easy divorce), men are loathe to to either. This is a large part of the birthrate crisis. The male birth control pill will cement it.