Childless leaders. . .

A mention in First Things (print edition) brought to light the fact that with the election of President Macron of France, the leaders of Europe's biggest members of the G7 are childless.  Angela Merkel (Germany), Theresa May (Britain), Paolo Gentiloni (Italy), Leo Varadkar (Ireland), and now Macron join the Dutch Mark Rutte and Luxembourg Xavier Bettel.  Should we be concerned?  Is this something significant?  The larger meaning in all of this is that the leaders reflect something of the constituencies they serve.  Add this to a recent Canadian Broadcasting System's recent public service announcement in which a woman texting is interrupted by an impetuous little girl, a red head no less. The announcement ends with the warning:  Don't let yourself get sucked into the dead end of motherhood.

But that is the issue, isn't it?  How we view children has changed.  God's command to be fruitful and multiply has become a burden on women, indeed, on us all.  Children are not helpful to careers, they are not friendly to the environment, and they cost too much of us (dreams, money, time, and energy). Maybe it is simply a coincidence that the leaders of Europe are childless.  Maybe I am overreacting.  Maybe it is all a momentary phase, a fad, and a trend.  I doubt it.  I wish there was nothing to be concerned about.  But I think you and I know better.

The absence of children is telling.  Walk into any congregation where there is no child fidgeting in the pew or whimpering baby and you can feel the emptiness.  Look across the landscape at cities with empty school buildings and you can see the impact of a lack of children on any community.  Watch as people show intolerance and frustration with a child at a restaurant and you get the sense of how profound the impact of fewer children is upon us all.

Life has become only and always about the individual.  The freedom of the individual seems to triumph over all other things.  We do not produce but consume -- even when it comes to house, home, and family.  We have invested our future not in our children but in our technology.  Our hopes lie not in those who wear our name and carry on our faith and values but in silicon valley and its latest and greatest gadgets.  That is the poverty of our present day culture.  But it has not been thrust upon us.  We have fully embraced it ourselves -- much the way the forbidden fruit of Eden was gladly chosen and willingly eaten.  The struggle of the faith is not only for God the Redeemer of His people but for His creative will and intent.  Strangely, the fruit of sin is that we no longer even yearn to be creators or equals with God as did Adam and Even.  No, we are content to die as long as we can consume all we want before death comes.  Will there be anyone left to mourn our passing?