Five Children or More - Catherine Pakaluk | Maiden Mother Matriarch 62
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- Опубліковано 22 чер 2024
- My guest today is Catherine Pakaluk, Director of Social Research and Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America, and the author of a new book titled 'Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth.'
'Hannah's Children' is based around interviews with 55 American women who have both been to university, and have also had five or more children. Catherine's project in writing the book was to work out why these women had made such an unusual decision. Her conclusion was that the decision to have a big family doesn't come down to economics, but to values - which means (as we discussed in the extended version of the episode) that economic policy tweaks are not going to have much impact on falling birth rates.
02:30 What united big family women?
17:43 Politics and feminism of big family mums
22:14 What do men want?
25:32 Tolerance for trade offs
33:41 Is being a stay-at-home mum the more difficult route?
37:02 Pregnancies
41:28 The normalisation of big families
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There was a long-term experiment in Australia in which high-school girls were given artificial babies to look after. It ended up increasing, rather than decreasing teenage pregnancies. To quote the study's authors: "This is not what we were hoping for."
That's amazing and so funny
29 and pregnant with my third. I have a masters degree and paused a career to raise my growing family.
I can always continue a career during menopause, but my window for bearing children will close in about a decade.
Prioritize wisely, ladies!
Good for you. Take care anyway I can help
Yes, we need to encourage not only natalism but also anti-ageism!
I left a prestigious PhD program in literature to have and raise my children. I'm currently pregnant with #3 and would like to have four. Even though my life superficially looks very different than it did, I still feel like my priorities are essentially the same: I'm still interested in what's at the heart of life and human experience. I also like that both the grad student life and stay-at-home motherhood allow me a lot of autonomy over my time.
That’s great if you have someone to pay the bills
@@ellenmchugh1992 Yes, it is. I'm very blessed
I am more than happy to pay your student loans back for you thru the student loan debt forgiveness program.
@@bensanderson7144 I don't live in the US. I also didn't take out loans for grad school. I worked as a research and teaching assistant and had a large scholarship that I gave up when I left my program.
Thank you for this interview. I’m now 52 with 8 children ranging from 27 down to 13 years of age. When we met, my husband wanted 6 children. I said 2 (1 if it hurts 😅). We ended up with 6+2. I often say that I’m not an “economic unit.” I think it’s important to value and nurture people.
I wouldn't brag about having 6 kids. The planet does have limited resources. Your choice is greedy.
@@marwar819I have great news for you. The population is going to fall off a cliff, and the only societies that make it in the next 100 years will be the ones that have multiple children per woman. For every 100 North Koreans alive today, there will be 4 great-grandchildren, if rates continue. It sounds good on paper until you consider that the economies will all collapse and there will be no younger generation supplying labour or power for anything. I don't know what the world will look like, but it will have way less people.
@@marwar819 That's not true. Most countries are actually below replacement rate, and I'd advise you to carry out your own research on this so you can verify my statement and learn the truth.
@@user-nl4fp4iv8y You are correct. The consequences of a rapidly shrinking population are not good. My parents had two, my wife's parents had two, my wife's sister had one, my brother had two. None of that is sufficient to stem the tide. We had five. Ours are all good and responsible citizens, which we need more of. I don't feel we were irresponsible in having five. Average those five families and you get 2.4, just above what's needed. Lack of resources is not the problem. If there were only 100 people on the planet, someone would be starving because of greed. That's the problem.
Having 8 nieces and nephews made wanting children a very easy thing for me. I loved holding each one of them just after they were born and seeing them grow up.
"The right things to give your kids" are emotional attunement, unconditional love, mentorship, psychological and physical safety and a basic level of financial security and material possessions.
Thank you for having this guest on. It's important for women to realize that they can be a mother, highly educated, and pursue fulfilling careers later on down the road. And it is so important to see children as inherently valuable and something to desire in our lives. However, most Biblical women didn't want to have children just for the sake of a child, but because it made them of a lower social status to be childless. Hannah was mocked taunted by her husband's other wife for not being able to have children. So she wasn't desperate for a child just because she thought children themselves were inherently special.
Good point. And in some ways a reversal to today’s norms. Today, a childless woman is thought of as smart, because everyone knows that if you don’t have a lot of money, time and resources - and you have kids … you’re screwed.
I agree that the low social status that we assign to SAHMs, mothers and motherhood in general is a huge component of the low fertility rates. I think there's a slight misinterpretation of the story of Hanna. You're spot on that having more children was a social boon in biblical times and a big driver of large families, but we can't forget the key part of the story is that Hanna gives up her son Samuel as an offering to the Lord, so from the moment Samuel is 1 years old he is living with the priests and being trained to be a priest in Jerusalem and Hanna only sees him once a year. It's ultimately a story of Hanna sacrificing the social boon and security of having a son in order to fulfill her promise to God, and through her great sacrifice, Israel receives one of its greatest prophets.
Such a sweet, thoughtful guest -- I LOVE this countercultural narrative
Some of the reasons why people have fewer children are simple things like house size (it being normal to give each child their own room) and car seats (only so many fit in a car and they are mandated until over 6 years old now). I think many people have fewer children then they ideally would have wanted due to very practical realities like this.
I think those are two very inconsequential reasons to not have kids. Kids can share bedrooms just fine and you can buy a larger second hand car...
I agree with you, not important reasoning overall, but I do think small things factor in to people who are not really committed to overcoming these lifestyle issues@@susieare
@@susieare Look up "Car Seats as Contraception." Incredibly, someone analyzed the data and found that car seat laws actually make a statistically significant dent in birth rates!
@@susieare Look up "Car Seats as Contraception." Incredibly, someone analyzed the data and found that car seat laws actually make a statistically significant dent in the birth rate!
@@shannonhacker30 I see if everywhere and I find it really frustrating trying to explain to people that once you have a child (in the UK most women under 30 don't have any) you won't care about having the fancy car anymore and you'll realise that the atmosphere in your home is what's important, not the amount of space ... well that's my experience anyway!
37:54 That point about nurture is very true in my experience. I've known a number of women who swore they didn't want children who changed their minds after spending time around other people's children. I remember watching my sister-in-law playing with a little cousin at a family gathering and knowing it was only a matter of time. Sure enough.
I think not researching the ease of pregnancy and lack of birth complications is an oversight. In the UK at least, 1 in 3 births are via c-section for a variety of reasons perhaps age, more sedentary lifestyles, but subsequent births after a c-section can come with complications. Worth considering I think within this conversation.
Some blame a lack of Darwin Awards. If there were no C-sections, mutations that interfere with birth would go extinct.
That’s interesting. I’m someone who’s life and the life of my baby were no doubt saved because of an emergency c-section so I’m not opposed and went on to have a VBAC for my second but I was shocked at how high the rates are and if that might be contributing to lower birth rates?
Thank you for your podcast and work! I really enjoy it and view it as the most valuable podcast and the most important word to be spread at this point of our development! I want to share my experience. I live in Latvia, which generally feels like a more pro-family society than the UK. I've a Bachelor of Science from Glasgow uni and I lived in Glasgow for 6 years altogether, so I've seen the urban Scottish moods children-wise, or, rather, career-wise. I then moved back home to Latvia, started a family and had my 1st child at 26. Which actually gives you ENOUGH time to graduate and have several years of working experience. I had two more kids at 29 and 31 which I'm most happy about. But even in Latvia, where people did not look at me as if I was crazily stupid to become a mother at 26, once I had my 3rd child, even when I come to, say, children activity centres or even school, where only peops who have kids come, I often get asked with pure compassion by other both women and men "Oh but how do You cope?" And with genuine surprise: "Are all these kids Yours????". People seem to have an issue with having 3+ kids psychologycally even in a society who generally welcomes kids.
And my answer to the questions above is that I ONLY have 3 kids. And then I see people boggle since they expected to hear some kind of whine. But I truly live with a feeling/conviction that I ONLY have 3 kids, since this is the highest value, not the burden. At the end of the day, if you pass the value of having kids onto your kids and they also do so to their kids, you can last another hundreds of thousands of years. No other thing that is valued by our society is able to provide that (unless you are Marie Curie, which vast majority of even highly educated women aren't). Your successful business will most likely die with you or at best several decades later. So will your PhD. So will your neverending travelling experiences.
I've got a Bachelor's degree, I have almost earned my Master's, I've had 5 children and I now have 3 grandchildren. I tried to have more children but they were lost. 😢 I homeschooled over 16 years and I'm now becoming a special education teacher. My very young daughter in law has two AA degrees, and runs her own in home daycare so she can be home and homeschool her children, and I couldn't be prouder of her. Yes, children for their own sake! ❤❤❤❤❤
Edited to add ages: 30, 22, 18, 16, and 13. Grandkids 6, 2, and 1 month.
Wow, how is it having a child obviously older but somewhat close to a grandchilds age?
Like normal human experience until the last few generations.
@@PanopticonMind It's been really great, actually. My two youngest are girls and they love to play with their niece and nephew, and in some ways they are like siblings. We didn't plan it this way, but my husband's siblings and cousins are similar with a boy and girl set and a second boy/girl set separated by more than a decade... The younger kids are very much like older siblings to the grand kids and they did all the growing up things at the same time so have many happy memories of the crazy things they did.
A downside is that I have a hard time being grandma as I'm still raising kids, although I'm finding more time for it as everyone gets older.
My wife went University. She's a stay at home mum
We have four children three daughters and a son. We've been happily married for 29 years.
23 pregnant with my first. I want a simple life. I want to please my future husband. I want to experience life as nature/God intended me to experience it. I wanted my boyfriend’s children. That’s how simple it was. I want as many as we can handle. I want us to be happy as a family together. Thanks for the video! It’s really nice to hear women talking about these topics.
Wow , I'm ur age n hve never dated. So sounds unreal to me on some level. On some level I totally understand
I was 23 in the same situation as you. Happily married now with three home school kids. No regrets. Not how I thought my life would look, but I wouldn't change a thing!
You got pregnant … unmarried? 😮
@@bensanderson7144 where are you from, Ben? :) in the UK it's a very common occurrence. Not always a good thing, but not a problem for me. My husband and I were always going to get married and have kids, it just accelerated things a lot which I'm grateful for.
@@bensanderson7144 i didnt even notice that
Thank you for the episode, very good one as always. There just must be more incentives and societal acceptance for families to have more children. I was born in a very conservative country, but now, 10-15 yrs later, it is almost a stigma to be a stay-at-home mum or a traditional wife. In my country, after a very hard period, economically, when birthrates went down drastically, Catholicos The Patriarch of Georgia came up with an incentive, which he implements to this day, to be a Godfather of every third , fourth, fifth and so on child in the family and birthrates uncreased so much, even without statistics one could see so much more babies and kids in the society, communities, streets, everywhere. It was such a joy to witness this! He is called the Godfather of the century, he has godchildren in thousands. God bless children and families everywhere 🙏✨
@46:00 She is so right that giving your children siblings is like giving them a gift! I can't imagine my life without my brother.
- Doctors are among the people with higher education who usually have many children. They’re definitely an exception to other people with higher education.
I'm just 1 minute in, so I don't know if they talked about this. I have resently being thinking about better health care, as the biggest reason for why women are having fewer kids. It looks to me that having the certainty that your first kid is going to reach adulthood, is the main reason why women delay pregnancy.
In the past, women had to start having kids as young as possible and as many as they could, so at least one of them could make it to adulthood.
Lol. That's post hoc materialist story telling. It's not at all how people thought.
You're overthinking this. People had more kids, and at younger ages, because sex leads to pregnancy. With better education and more accessible contraception, people now have a choice as to if/when and how many kids to have.
@@danielaparcel2647 I used to think that, before I learned that birth rates is Japan started going down before the pill was even legal there. We've gotten so good at keeping babies alive, maybe too good for women's liking, that now women demand access to abortion.
I think contraception and education are not enough of a reason for itself. Because to waste your more fertile years in education and recreational sex, is only possible if you trust that, once you get pregnant, your firstborn has a 99% of not dying and reach adulthood.
@@rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr1 That's exactly how people thought. Only people who has lived after the discovery of penicillin and soap can take the risk of not having a lot of kids.
@@fobosydeimos LOL. Just, LOL.
36:47 This is exactly why I like the people who opt into parenthood if it is right for them and support those who opt out. If that "Actually wants to make and raise kids" gene takes over, CPS cases could be in ancient history books.
Moving somewhere cheaper, also in many cases means living somewhere where crime rates are higher, there’s more uneducated people etc. And raising kids in that kind of environment isn’t exactly ideal, is it?
Not really, inner cities are both more expensive and have higher crime rates. Inner cities even have higher crime rates per capita, so it's not just due to the concentration of people that there is more crime.
"women with rich husbands"
I'm sure tons of people would be more keen to have multiple children but the amount of men who can afford it is tiny now. it feels miserable not being able to have 3 kids and give them the life my dad gave us. i am not less capable or competent than him, i just live in a different time..
Have three kids and give them a different upbringing. I think it's unrealistic for our generation to try and match what our parents could manage - times have changed, but the joy of having a family is still the same!
"frugal wives"
@susieare we determine our destiny for the most part. Both my grandparents had 4 children, my parents had 7, and i have 9 (ages 13 to 1 year).
Thank you so much for this interview. I'm curious as to why it wouldn't be obvious that children are the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to you (as long as you're reasonably healthy and not miserably poor) without the need for a religious foundation?
Some people ask "Why should I pay to change diapers when I could spend money anywhere else?" Also, it isn't obvious, because for a certain number of people, having children are their biggest regret.
I remember there was a Math professor at my uni, not mine, but I've seen her once with a young boy at lectures, so I've asked my friends about her, being already curious how do you have kids and teach Math to university students. It turned out she had 5 kids, another business as well, if I remember correctly. I was totally "Wow!" Still don't know how it's possible ))
I had 4 and then my husband did a predictable move of leaving me for a younger woman, but i would have had 10+. ❤
I grew up in the 40s and 50s. I was the last of 8 children. My brothers had children and my neighbors had multiple children. I grew up with a lot of babies. I have three, missing four because my wife lost one because of the Hong Kong Flu. I have always loved babies.
Catherine looks like Laura linney
lol every question Louise raised about her research she was like "uhhh... noo... i didn't ask/think of that". whoopsie
It's okay to not have all the answers, even experts seek second opinions.
That is sort of the point of critical debate
What kind of bird are you? I'm a 3-eyed, mutated, post-apocalypse crow, I think.
I keep thinking about how everyone that i know who came from a big family (4+ kids) opted to have smaller families or went childfree.
Often someone ended up as an unpaid babysitter.
@@skylinefever yup if you spend your childhood changing diapers you crave an adulthood without that responsibility.
Wow I'm here early.
It would be nice to think it's not as dire as that just because ppl are more educated means there will be unsustainable growth
I want to have several children but life is so expensive now I just can't do it yet 😔
You can do it, friend. Don't wait!
Smart ppl have 1 more
than the typical...
Smarter ppl have half
as many as they could
... SMARTEST ppl have
as many as possible
If that was the case, Mike Judge would have no interest in making Idiocracy.
@@skylinefever
everyone who ends up
doing well $$-wise will
tell you they wish they'd
had more kids... They
cheaped out on their
greatest treasure bcs
they swallowed the
anti-family scam
My two sons share a bedroom, ehen everyone around is, you don't even think there are alternatives 😅
Probably depends on individual case for everyone, I was only child, but now understand psychology that 2 kids 2 parents is pretty much the minimum for an optimally healthy family unit. Therefore, 2 min 3 max would be probably right for me, but my life's ridiculous atm (I'm Louise's age) so guess I'll most likely have to wait a few more yrs then hook up with a Gen Z girl, even though I don't get their references or speak their neologistic dialect of English.
Edit: or if it doesn't work out I'll have to become one of these new secular, childless priests, who just constructively trolls forever for the betterment of the species, a topic that was covered on this channel several episodes ago.
You'll find someone. Or save all your money, wait 20 more years for artificial wombs, and buy an embryo to develop
The way I see it, we either have kids or become a cautionary tale. A worthwhile path either way even if one is more painful than the other. Have to find positives in everything or else you just roll over and die.
@@_BirdOfGoodOmen Confucius say, the only meaning in life is babies. Without babies, you are required to join the nihilist club, where at least you get cool matching jackets. Order my new bestseller, Breeding the Human Herd.
I really hate this reliance on the "revealed preference" idea among dissident thinkers. It boils down the core tenets of the overculture's ideology to a very strong tincture. Stop drinking it!
I think, I um...disagree...?
The Amish hipsters from Based Camp are starting a trad commune in my area, and are working on a paperclip maximizing algorithm, but for babies. Myself, I'm probably moving to urban Amish country soon to become an electrician, because I appreciate irony. I'm heavily procrastinating my life, because I rly belong in ye olde academia (RIP). I'm holding out hope that the institution will spontaneously reappear online, and that's part of LP's girlboss project, but so far due to format limitations, the main output is lol's.
❤🔥💋❤🔥💋
"Once in a while, you got to burn your lips, keep your feelings alive...got to burn down your house, keep your dreaming alive" ~TK
Mortality salience + rural suburbia = more babies (TM).
Blonde lady has severe issues. The timid character she portrays is annoyingly manipulative. The brunette validates her every move and you can see on her face that she's also aware of the situation.
Could also be autism. The higher education combined with having many children, could be a part of a special interest.
"Just 1 or 2" makes you
WAY TOO VULNERABLE
to getting ZERO of
the unsurpassed
life reward of GRANDS
by the time you realize
you want them (and
its too late for you to
improve your odds)
36:30 this is why projecting forward at least a couple generations, we might end up swinging from population decline, to dangerous Malthusian overpopulation. Also IQ's declining unless embryo selection saves us, and LP mentions selecting for extreme religiosity, so too many ppl won't be smart enough to innovate their way out of food shortages while perpetually engaged in internecine conflict. (If we're not careful). If this discussion sounds Heretical, yet oddly Jolly, then you can guess where I heard it.
I think genetic engineering will save us when it comes to IQ and EQ, and other tech will save us from a malthusian future, which seems EXTREMELY unlikely anyhow. There's loads of food overproduction.
@@PanopticonMind Yeah actually, the main concern would just be if we continue doing everything wrong, that we're doing wrong right now.
Gutting Christianity and removing it's strictures is what turned the West into a plague of locusts, genius.
The Enlightenment's gutting of Christianity and removal of it's strictures is what turned the West into a locust plague, not the light footprint and modest desires of the devoutly religious. You need a better story. Yours is played out.
I do enjoy a good Jolley Heretic Dutton reference. What a wonderful future with so many spiteful mutants in it.
If MEN could
have babies theyd
have MORE THAN 2X
as many as women
settle for... just as
they do more savings
and on the paid job
... MORE INVESTED
Youth Feminist Promiscuity sustainability suppresses realized male fertility as a consequences of historic STDs infections of their partner.