We went from a family of four to a family of five last June when Mabel Sage was born, joining Otis and Rosey in what friends now refer to as “the Francis Five.” With Mabel Sage’s birth, it seems we crossed a line. Having a third child puts us in the “large family” category, both statistically (the average American family has 2.9 people in it) and in the opinions of a fair number of friends, family members and complete strangers.
“You’re done, right?” seems less a question than a direct order at times. My wife is friends with a mom whose family includes six kids; the comments they and other megafamilies hear can be downright painful.
When I was growing up, the politically and ecologically correct approach to family size was to consider (and conceive) kids as replacements for the parents. Two was in, and, given concerns over the “population bomb,” as it was called at the time, fewer was better.
As a childless bachelor for most of my adult life, I thought I was doing my part to limit growth in an increasingly crowded California. And I’ll admit to at times looking askance at young mothers with huge families, letting the darker side of prejudice be my judgmental guide.
But it turns out I’m doing the state more good as a father of three than I was as a bachelor, and we’d all be doing our fellow Californians a favor by having more kids.
Everyone knows we’re in a drought, but did you realize we’re in an increasingly dangerous baby deficit too? At the end of the baby boom, around 1964, some 33.4 percent of the state’s population was made up of kids. In 2010, it had declined to 25 percent, and by 2030, children are expected to make up only 20.9 percent of the state’s population. The census statistics were analyzed by Dowell Myers, a professor and demographer at the University of Southern California and included in a report titled “California’s Diminishing Resource: Children.”
The problem, as the report points out, is that at the same time we’re having fewer children, the aging population is, well, booming.
We’ll soon have too many old people and not enough kids to infuse tax dollars into the system that supports them – or us, depending on where one lands along the baby boomer/Gen X/millennials continuum.
Baby boomers are retiring in increasing numbers, placing pressure on programs for an aging population. As they become adults, the children of today and tomorrow will be called upon to finance the needs, wants and demands of we cranky older folk.
Anyone who has been to a Ruby’s Diner, Disneyland or the Irvine Spectrum on a weekend may find it hard to believe we’re in a child-scarcity crisis. But the state’s overall birth rate is below the parental replacement level (1.94), and that’s true for every racial and ethnic group except one: Latinos, whose birth rate in 2010 (2.27) was only slightly above replacement level.
As Myers’ report points out: “Without the contributions of Latinas, California’s birth rate would be even lower – 1.68. However, Latina birth rates are experiencing the steepest declines of any group and +++expected to fall to the replacement level in 2020. At that time, the state’s total birth rate is expected to be depressed to 1.89, even further below replacement than today’s rate.”
The decrease in California kids is due to declining birth rates, but also to limited or nonexistent migration from other states and countries. This reverses a pattern that’s existed since the Gold Rush: Much of the labor that built the state has been done by those who arrived from elsewhere, like Japan, China, Germany, Texas, Iowa, Mexico and Central America. Now, most of the children in the state are born here instead of migrating here with parents.
And because of all of that, as of 2015, each newborn child will carry twice the weight of social and economic responsibility as a child born in 1985, according to the USC report.
That’s a lot for baby Mabel to bear. So for her sake, and for the good of the Golden State, young families with two kids or fewer should start doing their fair share and get busy breeding. Because you’re not really done yet, are you?
And the next time you see a family with a lot of kids, don’t judge them; thank them. Those children are our future.
Contact the writer: kedric@coastmagazine.com
