Trends in the Family
This week during class, we talked about the trends of society in marriages and families. Most things that are trending today are not so surprising to me because I can see it happening all around me. People are having less children. Women are more likely to work outside of the home. Divorce and cohabitation rates are rising. People are much more likely to get married later(around 26-28 years old), rather than sooner(around 22-24 years old). These are just a few of those trends.
What really interested me from our class, though, was the 2 part documentary that we watched about the population and the decline in fertility. Here is a link if you would like to watch it, Part 1 and Part 2. I did not realize that, even though our population is at an increase right now, that is mostly because people are living much longer now than they used to, not because people are having too many children like a lot of people tend to believe. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich had his book, The Population Bomb, published, which talked about how our population was growing too quickly and that eventually there would not be enough resources available for the ever-growing population of people across the world. Because of this, we should all choose to have less and less children to compensate for the over population. This became sort of "common knowledge," but it was not actually accurate.
In fact, we are not having enough children, almost worldwide, to keep up the population, and, in not too many years, it will begin to decline. This will affect all of us in many ways, specifically economically. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have always felt that it is important to bring children into this world and raise them well, but I never realized how much impact it could have on me and the world around me in more temporal ways. I love learning new statistics and scientific facts because it always confirms things that I have learned as a member of this Church.
God promises us that when we keep His commandments, we will be blessed, sometimes in ways we could not understand and may not understand until much later. One of these commandments we are given is to "multiply and replenish the Earth"(Genesis 1:28). I learned throughout this week in class that there are more blessings to this commandment than I would have originally guessed. We are blessed as a society as a whole by choosing to have more children. It builds the Human Capital because more people means more ideas to build off of and create new things. It makes taking care of each other easier. As we get older, we need younger people to be working so we can receive things like social security and Medicare. That will not be possible for all of the elderly people if there are less and less young people in the workforce. These are just a few of the things that could be different if we choose to bring more children into the world, but I do know that God will bless us for doing what He asks. I have witnessed that many times over throughout my life and in my own experiences. There is much that can be gained from following this one simple command.
What really interested me from our class, though, was the 2 part documentary that we watched about the population and the decline in fertility. Here is a link if you would like to watch it, Part 1 and Part 2. I did not realize that, even though our population is at an increase right now, that is mostly because people are living much longer now than they used to, not because people are having too many children like a lot of people tend to believe. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich had his book, The Population Bomb, published, which talked about how our population was growing too quickly and that eventually there would not be enough resources available for the ever-growing population of people across the world. Because of this, we should all choose to have less and less children to compensate for the over population. This became sort of "common knowledge," but it was not actually accurate.
In fact, we are not having enough children, almost worldwide, to keep up the population, and, in not too many years, it will begin to decline. This will affect all of us in many ways, specifically economically. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have always felt that it is important to bring children into this world and raise them well, but I never realized how much impact it could have on me and the world around me in more temporal ways. I love learning new statistics and scientific facts because it always confirms things that I have learned as a member of this Church.
God promises us that when we keep His commandments, we will be blessed, sometimes in ways we could not understand and may not understand until much later. One of these commandments we are given is to "multiply and replenish the Earth"(Genesis 1:28). I learned throughout this week in class that there are more blessings to this commandment than I would have originally guessed. We are blessed as a society as a whole by choosing to have more children. It builds the Human Capital because more people means more ideas to build off of and create new things. It makes taking care of each other easier. As we get older, we need younger people to be working so we can receive things like social security and Medicare. That will not be possible for all of the elderly people if there are less and less young people in the workforce. These are just a few of the things that could be different if we choose to bring more children into the world, but I do know that God will bless us for doing what He asks. I have witnessed that many times over throughout my life and in my own experiences. There is much that can be gained from following this one simple command.
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