Go Forth and Breed, for the British are Dying Out

The incalculable misfortune of two whole generations without a world war has led to a slothful and self-centred culture in which, according to a Guardian/ICM poll, "Britain's low birthrate is being driven by a generation of potential parents who would rather get rich and have fun than start a family". Note the healthy, family-oriented perspective: there is no such thing as a working, fun-loving adult; there are only potential parents whose irrational urges to earn a living and amuse themselves occasionally are letting the side down. The Guardian's leader page fumbles the point home with characteristic dexterity. "Just as the sunny, spring air is laden with testosterone and the nesting instinct reaches all the way to the unpromising window ledge of the Guardian's London offices, ICM finds that parenthood is held in pitiful esteem", it mourns. "From our poll emerges a picture of a material culture where having babies comes second to almost anything else. It is seen as less important than a good job, an enjoyable career, and 'enough' money". This is certainly distressing. The idea that potential parents should let dead-end employment, lousy wages, brutal working hours or borderline poverty stand in the way of the moronic urge towards genetic self-perpetuation is almost too awful to contemplate. The Guardian also deplores the poll's finding that "most people think a woman's status rests on how she earns her living", which seems a little odd. Since most people presumably think a man's status also rests on how he earns his living, surely this is a sign of healthy progress in gender attitudes. The idea that anyone's status should rest on how many brats they have in tow belongs in a society with too few people, not too many. The Guardian observes that "Maybe the French have a point with their baby bounties for second and subsequent children. They certainly underline the positive message that children count", at least so long as they are being turned out in sufficient numbers. In a world on which humanity writhes like a barrel of maggots while half the biosphere is poised for disintegration over the next century, it should be self-evident that "the English race" (as designated by the official number-one Briton and superdad, Winston Churchill) must continue its historically ordained expansion. Precisely how "the qualities that sustain wider society in good health - tolerance, forgiveness, loyalty, riding out the bad times as well as enjoying the good" can be sustained by turning parenthood into some kind of government-subsidised cottage industry is, however, evidently more apparent to the Guardian's leader writer than to me.