Observed

Just now, on the street on Park Slope, I saw a boy of indeterminate post-toddler age walking with his father. The boy had on his back two pieces of tape, one with his name (which I shall not reveal) and the other that read, "No Nuts." There has to be a better way to indicate that a child has food allergies.

2.1

Alas, the structure of our politics makes it increasingly difficult to address the plight of those for whom race and poverty have become inexorably intertwined. For example, even though we know that children of married parents are significantly less likely to have trouble in school or to wind up poor or in prison, politicians on the left continue to oppose programs to encourage marriage. -Stephen L. Carter

The developed world is experiencing a wave of pro-natalist sentiment that threatens to bully the childless, tax the single, and reorient states toward the production rather than the protection of citizens. In most developed nations with below-replacement fertility, governments are attempting to align incentives so that women will use their bodies for the purpose of childbirth. [....] Modern fertility panic stems from a desire to reshape polyglot cultures, to regain control over women’s reproductive choices, and to locate a single, easy-to-understand culprit for disparate social problems. As they have for hundreds of years, societies are projecting their deepest anxieties onto empty wombs. -Kerry Howley, via

Technically, marriage and childbirth are two separate issues. That said, in reality, there's a connection between the movement to encourage marriage and the push for asking women, ever so gently, to push out 2.1 or more. If you disagree with that statement, then don't read on, since that's the assumption on which the rest of the post is based.

I'm incapable of discussing this issue as articulately as I'd like, so above, you have two quotes that roughly sum up the two sides. (See also this debate.) On the one hand, there's the idea that, all things equal, marriage is better than all other arrangements, children (within the context of marriage) are a positive good for society, the more the better. What's ignored is whether, once you look at society family by family, where all things are not equal, individuals might have good reasons not to be married, not to have kids. What's also ignored is whether, good reason or not, there's any inherent, unquantifiable value in letting people make their own decisions. Take the clichéd single woman of a certain ago who wishes she'd married and reproduced two decades earlier. Social conservatives point to this and say, aha, we should encourage women to do what they will later come to wish they'd done. Social liberals (well, this one, at any rate) would say, a woman has many over-18 years to decide these matters for herself, and that it's better to be childless and regretful as the result of one's own choices than living with children you may love and a husband you may not who've been hoisted upon you by the government.

For social liberals, the point is not to say, all studies that say marriage is good for kids, kids are good for society, etc. have no validity. Rather, it's important to keep in mind the drawbacks--for all involved--to unwanted marriage and unwanted children, as well as the positive good that is letting people sort their personal lives out without government encouragement one way or the other. Just because name-the-social-ill might be fixed by encouraging marriage does not mean that encouraging marriage is the only way to address a given problem; it's certainly got to be among the most intrusive. The micro-example I've already addressed--natalism in American Judaism--is clear enough. If the goal is more Jews, this can be accomplished either through urging Jews to inmarry and have tons of babies, or through improving Jewish education, making it easier to convert in, or any number of measures that do not ask anything special of women in general and uteri in particular. On a broader scale, one can debate American pro-natalism with similar arguments.

What I have yet to see addressed is the new, or newly popular, social conservative argument: promoting marriage-and-kids is not about Christianity or tradition or patriarchy, or even about, in some generic sense, what's best for our children. Rather, promoting traditional values just happens to be our best way of helping the poor and the lower classes. One can find this argument in Grand New Party and elsewhere (via). The idea is, social liberalism disproportionately hurts all but middle and upper-middle-class families. This is, I would say, social conservatism's strongest argument. It's not one I find convincing, but it's one social liberals (especially those who are also all-around liberals) will have the toughest time addressing. It's conservatives, not liberals, who, traditionally, feel comfortable saying Thing A is superior to Thing B, and that's that. So while there will always be those who declare that traditional family life is better because it's traditional, and now there are those why say traditional arrangements are better for reasons having to do with statistics and social justice, there's no one out there arguing that birth control and reproductive choice are superior to the alternatives, and that's that. Or, such people exist, but they are either libertarians or conflicted, unconvincing liberals. Which is to say, conservatives are free to defend 'tradition' whether or not it can be shown that doing so helps the poor, whereas liberals, that is, those who are defending the Sexual Revolution, now have a tougher, but important, case to make.

Why we can't all just get along

"Isn’t it long past time for all countries to reject citizenship based on race or religion?"

This, needless to say, from a letter protesting Israel's continued existence as a Jewish state. Statements like the one above are quite similar to those that go, 'Shouldn't war be a thing of the past?' As in, if everyone worldwide could agree, it would work, but as long as it doesn't, the world's nations might want to consider holding onto their militaries. The great thing about this letter-writer's demand is that it can be countered with an equally utopian and over-simplistic remark: 'Hasn't the time come for all oppressed minority groups to gain (and maintain) national independence if they so choose?' Don't we also like national independence for groups that have been discriminated against on the basis of race or religion? If anyone can live in these newly independent nations, what's to prevent the white man from staying put? What do we do?

As long as Jews--whether defined as a race or a religion--cannot live openly in many countries, there is a necessity for Israel to define itself as a Jewish state, which, however defined, will be in terms that are off-putting to someone with politically-correct impulses, to those who feel you can look at Israel in isolation from the rest of the Middle East, expecting Park Slope niceties from one country and tolerating all manner of exclusion from the others. The way for Israel to be a Jewish state should not be as convoluted as it is in the current state of things (screwed-up marriage and conversion regulations), but there's a reason Israel's founders saw it necessary to define the nation based on those rejected by other nations, and that reason becomes clear in the letter that follows the 'why can't we all just get along?' one.

Park Slope is for lovers, II

There was supposed to be a point to the post below, but it appears I fell asleep before making it. The point is/was that NYC, or even a certain socioeconomic slice of the city, is not following the cult of Baby, just a whole lot of people in Park Slope. There seem to be many more wealthy and often white people moving to the now-safe, now-wealthy city post-college, and of that group, only this one segment has put aside the Pill.

Why Park Slope? Probably because it's been filled with gentry for a long time. Visiting friends in the area during high school, I remember being somewhat jealous of these classmates who could claim to be hardcore (BrookLYN!), which was important at Stuyvesant, and yet lived on their own floor in massive houses on tree-and-cafe-lined streets. Those coming from far smaller abodes in posh parts of Manhattan had neither entire wings of the family manor, nor any claims on street cred. People worked with what they had. Coming from the West 80s or 90s, for some, was proof of toughness, but never as convincing as an outer borough address. This was the late 1990s, and these were among my wealthier classmates, so assuming these houses were not purchased the day I saw them, there has been an alternate-UWS going on for some time. I'd imagine some not-so-anecdotal evidence backs this up.

Those looking to babify are not necessarily looking to gentrify. If a few upscale shops and restaurants open to greet these new arrivals, so be it, but this is not a group set on opening the first independent coffee shop in 10 square miles.

Park Slope is for lovers

Rita wants to know why Park Slope is filled with babies. Since I trip over on average 15 strollers each day on the way to the train, I will make a guess.

Park Slope has many things. Between panhandlers, clipboard holders demanding "a minute for gay rights," and Hasids asking passersby if they are Jewish, roughly two-thirds of the people you see on the street here want something, but do not necessarily live in the neighborhood. But unless people come from far and wide to promenade with their strollers (a distinct possibility, now that I think of it), the babies and their parents do indeed live nearby.

What you rarely see in Park Slope, but do see in other areas referred to as yuppie or bourgeois, are packs of women in tube tops, designer jeans, and uncomfortable-looking shoes. Nor do you see the male equivalent, hordes of hopefuls in striped shirts and hair gel. There are not the bars to support an urban heterosexual singles' scene in this neighborhood; just as likely, there aren't single straight folk to support the would-be bars.

Park Slope does not strike me as a symbol of a greater NYC trend, baby-wise. Manhattan neighborhoods like Yorkville, stretches of the Upper West Side, and Murray Hill cater to the not-yet-coupled-off 'recent college grad,' which doesn't have to mean all that recent. Single parents do not appear to be a large element of this demographic. But Park Slope is an awkward place to be neither a baby nor a parent. It would also not be the best place to be single and at the age when one's peers have spouses and toddlers. Everyone walking around is married or otherwise spoken for. Nor would Murray Hill be the best place to be in a couple. Why pay more for a smaller space in a culturally barren location just to be in Manhattan and near a bunch of bars you won't be going to anyway?

The strange thing is that the singles' areas are deemed too stuffy and conservative by those in the baby-having nook, and not vice versa. Park Slope may have fewer random hook-ups, but it is still considered the laid-back and dare I say cool place to live. Cool? Yes, compared to 89th and 1st. The question is really how did having babies become cool?