Losing and Using Our Children
April 12, 2005
In 2003, 55% of all married couples in the US did not have any children of their own of less than eighteen years of age. John C. Caldwell at the Australian National University in Canberra says the phenomenal wealth generated by modern industrial economies is a prime reason why so many young people now delay or forgo child-bearing and child-rearing. Yet in response to financial remuneration for having a child, many Australian couples recently rose to the task put forth by their government as a patriotic duty. On the American situation, Duke Divinity School professor Amy Laura Hall writes:From requests for childfree restaurants to a preference for childfree worship, it seems that American society has a strange relationship toward the young. …Those with sufficient means may dine, fly, work, worship, and play without the cries and demands of dependent life. Adults may remain productive, preoccupied, focused and, in a dubious way, irresponsible.Of note: The Cyber-Church of Jesus Christ Childfree
A generation of adults in North America faces now the strange combination of purposeful neglect and systematic use. Complaints about ill-behaved, interrupting, unproductive children are gaining force at the same time that we propose the use of embryos, fetuses and children for medical research. While a medical industry becomes increasingly interested in the usability of incipient life, a generation coming of age declares its perpetual youth and independence from dependent life. A new generation of grown-ups tends toward unapologetic neglect. I fear that we are also becoming predatory.”
This is Losing and Using Our Children in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: Getting it Right on the Left | Next: On the Advantages of Civility and Goodness, Evil and Inhumanity | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)
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