Incredibly on point. I distinctly remember the birth of my first son. Something...happened. Something clicked, and I knew, instantly, in a non-conceptual but incontrovertible way that "Oh. Huh. This is it. This is what it's all about." It was kind of like the last tumbler in a lock falling into place and simultaneously experiencing the miracle of being unlocked while also feeling the weight of gravity that ultimately caused the tumbler to fall. I was complete but also completed. To lack this experience is to experience lack in its most visceral form, in the deepest pit of your stomach, and the drive to fill it is the essence of desperation. People driven by desperation are dangerous.
Very thought-provoking. I've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about the sub-replacement fertility state that we are in. (People call it a crisis, but crises are acute and temporary.) As you say, there has been a torrent of words on the topic. But very little thinking, it seems to me: more rehearsal of prejudices and platitudes than actual thought.
I have a slight acquaintance with Māori culture, in which whakapapa ("fa-ka-pa-pa", all short unstressed syllables, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whakapapa) is front and centre. Whakapapa is your personal genealogy, your links back to foundational ancestors. When people meet for the first time in formal situations, and on extra-formal occasions thereafter, the representatives of each group recite their whakapapa as part of their introduction, linking it to the whakapapa of people in other groups that are present as they go.
In NZ, pākehā (people of European descent) have pretty much the same fertility as white people do elsewhere, but Māori fertility is well above replacement. Seventy-odd years ago the Māori population was estimated to be under 100,000, and now it is over a million. (To be sure, some of that is likely pākehā cosplaying as Māori, but not all that much.)
I recently watched a youtube video about "The Booming Demographics of Kazakhstan" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxgfCH83XZI). In the comments there, I learned that Kazakhs are as much into whakapapa as Māori, knowing the names of their ancestors back seven generations.*
Icelanders too: they have a genealogy website called the Íslendingabók, after the old book of the same name. Apparently young Icelanders consult it after meeting potential partners before things get serious. Although Iceland's TFR is standard European issue, so perhaps tracking your ancestry on-line is not the same thing as reciting it every day, whenever you meet new people.
So you are onto something with your "synoptic view" of life. But seemingly it needs to be an everyday thing.
In our deracinated state, I had thought that the only way to increase fertility would be by increasing the social prestige that parenthood confers. If being a parent of four conferred the same social status as being a doctor, or a professor of sociology, then perhaps more people would try it. As things are, though, "soccer mom" is a pejorative, not an honorific.
If I were a writer I would attempt to write the anti-"Children of Men", about a world in which children were fully integrated into adult life. So every office would have a creche and a playroom/classroom next door, every downtown street would have playgrounds and toilets every hundred yards, and so on.
Perhaps someone else has already attempted this; I don't know. It's hard to get my head around, that world.
---
* The Kazakhs are Islamic, but apparently in a pretty chill, once-a-week kind of way, and they differ from almost all other Islamic countries in being very strongly exogamous. That's part of the reason for knowing your genealogy back seven generations: to ensure you don't marry a cousin. Contrast with Pakistan, where marriage between first cousins runs at around 60% of all marriages.
"The temporarily above-ground part of a vast, superhuman entity" I'm keeping that phrase. Reminds me of my time in the Navy, where I felt like that sometimes. Some continuity would be nice; I feel like my life is drifting meaninglessly. On the other hand, most of the groups I have been part of ultimately didn't provide that, or the cost was too high.
Incredibly on point. I distinctly remember the birth of my first son. Something...happened. Something clicked, and I knew, instantly, in a non-conceptual but incontrovertible way that "Oh. Huh. This is it. This is what it's all about." It was kind of like the last tumbler in a lock falling into place and simultaneously experiencing the miracle of being unlocked while also feeling the weight of gravity that ultimately caused the tumbler to fall. I was complete but also completed. To lack this experience is to experience lack in its most visceral form, in the deepest pit of your stomach, and the drive to fill it is the essence of desperation. People driven by desperation are dangerous.
the beginning section was really lovely, thank you
Very thought-provoking. I've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about the sub-replacement fertility state that we are in. (People call it a crisis, but crises are acute and temporary.) As you say, there has been a torrent of words on the topic. But very little thinking, it seems to me: more rehearsal of prejudices and platitudes than actual thought.
I have a slight acquaintance with Māori culture, in which whakapapa ("fa-ka-pa-pa", all short unstressed syllables, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whakapapa) is front and centre. Whakapapa is your personal genealogy, your links back to foundational ancestors. When people meet for the first time in formal situations, and on extra-formal occasions thereafter, the representatives of each group recite their whakapapa as part of their introduction, linking it to the whakapapa of people in other groups that are present as they go.
In NZ, pākehā (people of European descent) have pretty much the same fertility as white people do elsewhere, but Māori fertility is well above replacement. Seventy-odd years ago the Māori population was estimated to be under 100,000, and now it is over a million. (To be sure, some of that is likely pākehā cosplaying as Māori, but not all that much.)
I recently watched a youtube video about "The Booming Demographics of Kazakhstan" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxgfCH83XZI). In the comments there, I learned that Kazakhs are as much into whakapapa as Māori, knowing the names of their ancestors back seven generations.*
Icelanders too: they have a genealogy website called the Íslendingabók, after the old book of the same name. Apparently young Icelanders consult it after meeting potential partners before things get serious. Although Iceland's TFR is standard European issue, so perhaps tracking your ancestry on-line is not the same thing as reciting it every day, whenever you meet new people.
So you are onto something with your "synoptic view" of life. But seemingly it needs to be an everyday thing.
In our deracinated state, I had thought that the only way to increase fertility would be by increasing the social prestige that parenthood confers. If being a parent of four conferred the same social status as being a doctor, or a professor of sociology, then perhaps more people would try it. As things are, though, "soccer mom" is a pejorative, not an honorific.
If I were a writer I would attempt to write the anti-"Children of Men", about a world in which children were fully integrated into adult life. So every office would have a creche and a playroom/classroom next door, every downtown street would have playgrounds and toilets every hundred yards, and so on.
Perhaps someone else has already attempted this; I don't know. It's hard to get my head around, that world.
---
* The Kazakhs are Islamic, but apparently in a pretty chill, once-a-week kind of way, and they differ from almost all other Islamic countries in being very strongly exogamous. That's part of the reason for knowing your genealogy back seven generations: to ensure you don't marry a cousin. Contrast with Pakistan, where marriage between first cousins runs at around 60% of all marriages.
"The temporarily above-ground part of a vast, superhuman entity" I'm keeping that phrase. Reminds me of my time in the Navy, where I felt like that sometimes. Some continuity would be nice; I feel like my life is drifting meaninglessly. On the other hand, most of the groups I have been part of ultimately didn't provide that, or the cost was too high.