America\u2019s declining birthrate has given me pause.<\/p>\n
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of babies born in the United States in 2018 was the lowest in 32 years, continuing what NBC News calls \u201ca decades-long trend toward fewer and fewer babies being born each year.\u201d<\/p>\n
That means fewer young people to support an increasingly aging population. Hey, young people! We need you to have kids who\u2019ll pick up our Social Security and Medicare bills 15 or 20 years from now!<\/p>\n
But it also means today\u2019s children won\u2019t know what growing up was like as part of America\u2019s baby boom \u2014 in families packed with kids, filling neighborhoods with unending liveliness.<\/p>\n
The post-World-War-II economic boom fueled Americans\u2019 optimism and hope. The future looked brighter than ever.<\/p>\n
Adults married younger and started families sooner. Like my parents, many wanted big families \u2014 even with all the craziness and conflicts that happen when you pack many siblings into a modest-sized home. And with a little scrimping and saving, parents were able to afford a big family on a single income back then.<\/p>\n
I was born in 1962, at the baby boom\u2019s tail end. My childhood was a blast.<\/p>\n
Unlike today\u2019s kids, I was free to roam, play and discover on my own with my siblings and friends. Parents didn\u2019t micromanage our every moment. They weren\u2019t terrified when we weren\u2019t in their sight. They MADE US go play outside \u2014 but woe to the kid who was late for dinner!<\/p>\n
Millions of us \u2014 the luckier ones \u2014 lived in new homes in the suburbs. We had dozens of friends. We built shacks and forts with wood commandeered from sites where still more homes were being built. We rode our bikes miles farther than we ever admitted to our mothers.<\/p>\n
We dammed creeks to make swimming holes, built our own go-karts and skateboards, and played games of our own making until the streetlights came on \u2014 our signal to get home right away.<\/p>\n
Many of today\u2019s children won\u2019t ever know such freedom \u2014 in part because many of today\u2019s parents don\u2019t share baby-boom parents\u2019 optimism and hopefulness.<\/p>\n
Despite a strong economic outlook, accounting firm Deloitte\u2019s 2019 Millennial Survey finds young people \u201care pessimistic about the economy, business and their own progress,\u201d The Economist reports.<\/p>\n
Deloitte says the No. 1 cause of millennials\u2019 pessimism is climate change.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019re also burdened by college-loan debt that makes marrying, buying a home and starting a family more difficult than it was for prior generations.<\/p>\n
My parents started their family young and broke in 1957, but at least they weren\u2019t saddled with thousands in debt.<\/p>\n
My parents were excited and eager for a future that \u2014 with six kids, 17 grandkids and nine great-grandkids \u2014 sure has turned out bright.<\/p>\n
The truth \u2014 according to Forbes, based on a study by University of Oxford economist Max Roser \u2014 is that \u201con virtually all of the key dimensions of human material well-being \u2014 poverty, literacy, health, freedom and education \u2014 the world is an extraordinarily better place than it was just a couple of centuries ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, now is as good a time as any in human history \u2014 and better than most \u2014 to have children. And we sure could use another baby boom to help pay for our aging population\u2019s mounting financial obligations.<\/p>\n
Besides, having a lot of siblings is great fun.<\/p>\n
An only boy, I was forever getting on my five sisters\u2019 nerves. They reported my shortcomings to our parents \u2014 until I devised a scheme to stop them.<\/p>\n
I threatened to use their toothbrushes!<\/p>\n
Copyright 2019 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of \u201cMisadventures of a 1970\u2019s Childhood,\u201d a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact Sales@cagle.com<\/a> or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n