I wish to touch on a theme carried over from the last post. In a specialized globalized economy there is a double incentive not to have kids. First each kid requires more care and attention to succeed in a specialist economy. Secondly the opportunity costs of each kid are greater as the parents are wealthier and have more opportunity as compared to a less specialized economy. I reject the notion that kids were money makers in agricultural society as it seems silly.

The incentives for having kids also decrease. Society will be less geared towards kids and less supportive. This manifests itself not only in direct support for the parents but in society itself presenting dangers to your children. Drugs come to mind, although any thing that causes a child to disdain family life and his own family is of equal import. How awful to spend your best years raising a child and then have to watch them get sucked into a lifestyle that permanently estranges them from you.

Yet parents labor on. I want to express appreciation to my own parents and especially my mother for what they did to raise me. As has been said, ‘No greater love hath any man than this that he lay down his life for his friend.’ this makes me think of mothers. I think there is no greater example of human love than those good mothers who care for their kids, worry about them and strive so they can have a good start in life. Even the sort of thing Mother Teresa did seems only to equal it.