In the End, We Win

[james03]

The important thing for Trads to do is to get married and have a lot of kids.  Gen-X showed up at the Trad Chapels, and got busy making babies.  Their kids are now getting married and we are having another baby boom.  There's a respectable sized cohort of millennials, however Gen-Z is a bigger cohort.

As fresh data emerges, the outlook is getting only worse. An analysis by the higher education consulting firm Ruffalo Noel Levitz using the latest available census figures now projects another drop in the number of 18-year-olds beginning in 2033, after a brief uptick. By 2039, this estimate shows, there will likely be 650,000, or 15 percent, fewer of them per year than there are now.

Brief uptick in 18 yr. olds.  Means there were more Gen Z than Millennials.  This shows that fertility is actually increasing in certain cohorts.  On average, fertility is probably going to level out, and I agree that by 2033, the 18-yr old cohort (children of Millennials) will drop, but what happens after that?  It's going to climb. 

Over time Trads will replace the population as the atheists, commies, prots, and neo-Catholics contracept themselves to death.  Perhaps the US population declines a little, but then it is going to grow again, and it will be very conservative with a larger and larger proportion of Trad Catholics.

While making babies is the primary goal, converting neo-Catholics to the Trad Catholic Faith is also important.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/number-18-olds-drop-sharply-193000659.html

[drummerboy]

I didn't know making babies is the primary goal of being Catholic. Guess I'm out of luck since we can't pump put babies.

[Michael Wilson]

Trad Caths have large families, on average; that doesn't mean that all trad Cath couples have a lot of children. James didn't mean anything personal. I know that the Cath population boom is happening without my help.

[james03]

Obviously I didn't mean anything personal.  I hate the What About? game and refuse to list caveats.

If we want to win, we just need to make babies.  And since we don't use birth control,  and because our women are very feminine and very marriageable, the win is built in.  It was meant as an optimistic post, look at the subject.

[Greg]

The current church I attend is the most fertile I've ever witnessed in Tradom.  Loads of Millennial mums and dads, families of 5 and 6 and more.  One of the ladies there is American from Michigan married to a Brit.  I'm going to make a second changing table with my favourite line from Corinthians emblazoned on it, since there are often two babies having their diapers changed at the same time.  Before the mums and dads would change them on the carpet of the tea room, or one of the sofas, which is not ideal if the baby has fluid poop.  I buy the gold lettering from eBay or AliExpress and monogram them with.

"We shall not sleep but we will all be changed".  Corinthians 1

I'm finding old wooden veneered writing bureaus, which are cheap as chips, and converting them into Tradcat changing stations using leather from the backs of old leather sofas as the padded changing bed.  I'm sure they'll catch on, if only for the pithy quote.  All the priests I have shown it to have thought it was very droll.  You gut the central section of the bureau and leave the extreme right and left shelf pockets for nappy rash cream and cotton wool, baby oil, wipes etc.  In the draws below there are diapers of every size in case parents are caught short.  They make ideal changing stations for a church where generally speaking the furniture is Victoria or Edwardian and oak or other darker wood.

[drummerboy]

I'm just tired of hearing about babies all the time.  I go to work and guys talk about what they do with their kids. Then I go to Mass and see families parading around with their kids, and my wife looking longingly at them.  And of course there's supposedly a loving God somewhere who seems completely deaf and absent. Everyday is already one long guilt trip for something I can't even help so forgive me for being bitter and pessimistic.

[james03]

God is God, and I am not.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Sometimes you pray, and sometimes God doesn't grant your prayer.  It's not that you didn't say the right novena, or the right number of Ave's.  It's because it is not according to His plan.

God is God, and I am not.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.

I type this as a widower.

[Michael Wilson]

I'm just tired of hearing about babies all the time.  I go to work and guys talk about what they do with their kids. Then I go to Mass and see families parading around with their kids, and my wife looking longingly at them.  And of course there's supposedly a loving God somewhere who seems completely deaf and absent. Everyday is already one long guilt trip for something I can't even help so forgive me for being bitter and pessimistic.

Its very tough to be in that situation; I feel very sad for you and your wife.
There are also a couple of members here who would dearly love to get married, but are pretty much resigned that God doesn't have marriage in His plans for them.

[Greg]

I'm just tired of hearing about babies all the time.  I go to work and guys talk about what they do with their kids. Then I go to Mass and see families parading around with their kids, and my wife looking longingly at them.  And of course there's supposedly a loving God somewhere who seems completely deaf and absent. Everyday is already one long guilt trip for something I can't even help so forgive me for being bitter and pessimistic.

In my experience many people are crappy parents.  Even some Trads.  I read books to children (not my own) and it's obvious they have never been read to with any passion.  They know no nursery rhymes other than a few learned at school.

There are loads of opportunities to help and interact with children.  Just one example.  Every third week I make coffee for the adults after church.  Really good drip coffee that I then add frothy milk and always need to make extra for the children who just want frothy milk.  Every 3 months I skip the coffee for the adults and just make frothy milk for the kids and give them cookies so they have a little table in the tea room that only they go to to get served.  The adults just have tea that day. 

Why not spend 1000 dollars on 12 Gel Blaster guns and organise a parents and children's picnic where children of a certain age can interact with each other and, wearing safety googles, have a gel blaster war?

Or organise a paper chase or treasure hunt or talent show.  You can do so many things that people with children almost never do because they are 'busy'.

How many boys have never lit a firework or shot a gun or skinned a rabbit or blown up an aerosol can (or a Microwave oven) because they don't have a mad uncle?

[Miriam_M]

I'm just tired of hearing about babies all the time.  I go to work and guys talk about what they do with their kids. Then I go to Mass and see families parading around with their kids, and my wife looking longingly at them.  And of course there's supposedly a loving God somewhere who seems completely deaf and absent. Everyday is already one long guilt trip for something I can't even help so forgive me for being bitter and pessimistic.

I certainly sympathize with what your experience is, even though I was fortunate to have two of my own before my husband died -- obviously, preventing any more from being born. If I were childless, what would frustrate me would be what Greg correctly notices as bad parenting. Every week -- I teach high school students -- I am disillusioned by the horrible results of parenting I see in too many of my students, who, by the way, come from ridiculously privileged homes -- certainly within the top 10% of income. 

Just in the last two weeks we've had a serious incident when one such child of the rich sent me a threatening email while also acknowledging that he stole an item from another student because he resented the student. "Because he resented the student?"  !!!  There would have been practically no end to my punishment from my own parents had I ever done such a thing and it reached their ears.

But returning to drummerboy and childless married couples in general, there must be some Catholic organizations where single, married men can play a fatherly role to boys and young men.  I'll PM you, drummerboy, for one suggestion.  Spiritual motherhood is something I deeply respect, and something that many single and childless married women do participate in.  Unfortunately, the Church spends less energy encouraging spiritual fatherhood than spiritual motherhood.

[diaduit]

I'm just tired of hearing about babies all the time.  I go to work and guys talk about what they do with their kids. Then I go to Mass and see families parading around with their kids, and my wife looking longingly at them.  And of course there's supposedly a loving God somewhere who seems completely deaf and absent. Everyday is already one long guilt trip for something I can't even help so forgive me for being bitter and pessimistic.

Just a quick note and ignore if you want to but I know a trad couple who for years were trying for children and none appeared. Until they adopted a boy and then like lightening, adopted a girl then another girl then 2 more boys (from Guadalupe) 2 daughters are now nuns, 1 boy is a seminarian and 2 boys are young single men now.  Please God someone someday will be posting this about you and your lovely wife 

[The Curt Jester]

Something I do is organize altar boy outings. Bowling, go-karts, etc. Yes, I have children who go to those events, too, but I don't see why someone who doesn't have any couldn't try helping out.

[Heinrich]

A pious acquaintance of mine(I believe he and his wife are godparents to three separate children/families)has just registered for fatherhood, after 15 years of marriage.Keep your head up, Drummerboy.