The following comes from a March 11 story in the Denver Post.
Demography suggests Earth is far more likely to become the “Orb of the Dogs,” as human fertility rates plummet for a slew of reasons, including canines substituting for kids in many households.
It’s not just Americans turning pets into “fuzzy, low-maintenance replacements for children,” says writer Jonathan Last. It’s happening in Italy, Japan and elsewhere.
American pets outnumbered children for the first time in 2006, said Last, a father who’s not kidding when he says people with only pets are happier and less stressed than parents of humans. That’s what surveys and studies find, he said in a telephone interview Thursday.
Colorado has more than 1.1 million dogs, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, and not quite 350,000 children under 5 years old, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In the U.S., there are 145 million dogs and cats, compared with 20.2 million kids under 5.
Yet more spoiled pooches is one of the least troublesome consequences of collapsing fertility rates, said Last, a writer with the conservative Weekly Standard and author of the new book “What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster.”
To those who think declining birth rates are a good thing for a crowded planet — and that “be fruitful and multiply” is so two millennia ago — Last says, “Think again.”
Pew Research Social & Demographic Trends reported in December that the overall birth rate in the U.S. fell to 63.2 births per 1,000 in 2011, the lowest level since records began in 1920. By contrast, in 1957 — the height of the baby boom — the overall birth rate was 122.7 .
“It isn’t the contraction in population that worries you so much,” Last said. “It’s that you end up with so many more old people than young people.”
Higher divorce rates, cohabitation outside marriage, effective birth control, legalization of abortion, women in the workplace, delayed marriage and motherhood and the exploding costs of raising children have pushed Americans into having fewer kids, Last said.
From stringent safety requirements for car seats to lost wages for stay-at-home parents and a 1,000 percent increase in college tuition in real dollars since 1960, Last said, having kids is a terrible financial investment.
It once made sense to have kids who would take care of you in your old age, Last wrote, but now there are government entitlements for that.
Yet, as the largest generation — 78 million baby boomers — progresses into retirement, paying higher medical costs and collecting Social Security payments, Pew analysts noted, the newest, smallest generation of workers will have to support it.
The Social Security Administration reports that in 1940, 159 workers supported each U.S. retiree. By 2010, just under three workers supported each retiree.
To read entire story, click here.
I love animals, but THEY are not gonna take care of us when we’re old.
Nor will they have jobs, pay taxes, and keep the country running.
This is why people need to listen to the teaching of the Church and embrace authentic family life, seeing their children as a BLESSING from God, not some annoyance, or some blockage to weazlty and luxury.
Exactly! Mackz. You really have given me encouragement to help take care of some of my grandchildren today and to make the gift another one wants. I cannot be in the pro life walks or demonstrations much any more nor make blankets for the pro-life clinics, but I can take good care of those who are going to be taking care of me and pray more for the pro life movement and give children’s clothing to them. Thank you, Mackz, for the reminder and the uplifting message that I needed.
False argument. Man has until the industrialization been surrounded by domestic animals. The dogs are not replacing the kids at all. Technology has long replaced kids, horses, cattle, sheep, chickens, goats, cats and dogs, not to mention mules, donkeys, burros. Technology has also replaced time.
Skai, I feel your pain about the loss of burros.
On the bright side, at least dogs might be faithful to dogma, dogmatic theology, and other important things.
Skai I think this article is correct in many ways…I remember a woman saying that she would rather help a homeless dog than a homeless person. Also some people have more compassion for animals that are hoarded in shelters, they don’t like them locked up in cages waiting to get adopted but many modern day families have no problem with hoarding their young infants, toddlers etc in big day care centers from early morning till early evening Monday through Friday.
The Mall near my house, it’s a nice mall, well we usually see people push their doggies in strollers. As I was walking through the mall, I passed by a stroller expecting to see a baby and instead there was little dog. No kids but dog yes in a baby stroller…good grief!
“The Social Security Administration reports that in 1940, 159 workers supported each U.S. retiree. By 2010, just under three workers supported each retiree.”
Wow!
Catholics are not much different than the unchurched in this nation. We put materialism ahead of serous pursuit of pleasing God. If we care for our fellow man a little here and a little there, then we easily convince ourselves we’ve done some great deeds and God will surely be pleased with our “generosity.” I feel pretty certain the vast majority of us Catholics are nowhere near Christian enough to our fellow man, me included. And I never owned a pet.
St. Thomas Aquinas said, “Be careful of how you treat God creatures lest they testify against you on the day of Judgement.”
More diabolical disorientation. Our society has and is rapidly removing people (abortion) while embracing the pets. Our creatures are a gift from God but God never intended animals to be superior than the gift of life and the right to life.
Genesis Chapter 9
“Indeed for your own lifeblood I will demand an accounting: from every animal I will demand it, and from a human being, each one for the blood of another, I will demand an accounting for human life. 6 Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed; For in the image of God have human beings been made.
“Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed; For in the image of God have human beings been made. Be fertile, then, and multiply; abound on earth and subdue it.”
Americans are adoring God’s gift of animal creatures while completely neglecting to adore Almighty God the Creator of these gifts first and the basic right to life. California is also becoming less family friendly.
Orange County Register
CALIFORNIA IS BECOMING LESS FAMILY-FRIENDLY
Published: Jan. 25, 2013 Updated: March 15, 2013 1:21 p.m.
Joel Kotkin: California becoming less family-friendly
State’s policies tend to discourage families with children, resulting in slower economic engine, widening gulf between workers, pensioners.
By JOEL KOTKIN / Register columnist
For all of human history, family has underpinned the rise, and decline, of nations. This may also prove true for the United States, as demographics, economics and policies divide the nation into what may be seen as child-friendly and increasingly child-free zones. Where California falls in this division also may tell us much about our state’s future. Indeed, in his semi-triumphalist budget statement, our 74-year-old governor acknowledged California’s rapid aging as one of the more looming threats for our still fiscally challenged state.
Gov. Jerry Brown, unsurprisingly, did not acknowledge or address the many factors driving the aging trend that include his own favored policy prescriptions. Whatever their intent, the usual “progressive” basket of policies have had regressive results: a tougher time for both the poor and middle class, and a set of density-oriented policies that are likely to drive up housing prices, particularly for the single-family houses largely preferred by people with children.
These policies have helped turn California into a state that looks less Sunbelt and more like the long-aging centers of the Northeast and the Midwest. It also mirrors declines in fertility and marriage rates in the most-rapidly aging parts of Europe and east Asia. These regions are shifting toward what Chapman University’s recent report, in cooperation with the Civil Service College of Singapore, characterized as post-familialism. Released this past fall in Singapore, the report will be presented in Orange County this week. We believe that the rapid decline of marriage and fertility rates in many advanced countries inevitably leads to economic decline, reduced workforces and, likely, an inevitable fiscal disaster. This may be becoming now more true in the United States, a country which once boasted the most vibrant demographics in the high-income world but since the 2007-09 recession has seen a rapid drop in both its marriage rate and fertility rates to well below 2.1 children per female, what is generally referred to as “the replacement rate.”
Equally critical, the state’s “enlightened” planning policies also work to discourage families. California’s new climate-change-mandated housing regime – preferring apartments over houses – does not specifically target families, but the case for greater density is often predicated on an ever-declining number of families and an undemonstrated growing preference for density. “Singles and childless couples are the emerging household type of the future,” suggests developer and smart growth guru Chris Leinberger. These post-familial trends have been incorporated into the influential report, “The New California Dream,” widely accepted as gospel by many in our state’s development community.
So what would a post-familial future mean for California? You don’t need a crystal ball to figure this one out. Just look at what is happening in other rapidly aging economies, especially Japan, but also much of Europe. Dense housing, high taxes and lack of space (such as back yards) tend to discourage family formation. Slower population and labor-force growth then slows the economic engine, which, in turn, creates a greater imbalance between workers and pensioners. The result, ultimately, could be a kind of fiscal Armageddon.
Fortunately, none of this is inevitable. States such as Utah, Texas and North Carolina continue to attract families, bringing with them new workers, companies and customers. As their economies grow, they can generate broadly based revenue, unlike California, which is increasingly reliant on housing or stock-price bubbles that benefit the already affluent and older populations.
It is not our karma, Gov. Brown, to submit to a Japanese-like demographic demise. But revitalizing California will require a radical reevaluation of priorities and reconsideration of policy impacts on families.
Good post, Catherine. I have already had relatives and friends who moved to Texas and North Carolina because they are more traditional family friendly and less expensive. The weather for the most part is not as good, but there are plenty of other advantages for families and small businesses to make it worth moving.
The stupid lovers of sodomy are enacting policies that are causing their supply of children to molest to dry up. They will have no choice but to move to states that have a lot of childen in order to satisfy their perverted appetites. I guess they will just repeat the cycle in the other states until there are no states left with an ample supply of children to molest.
I think of children like cancer. I do not want either one.