Only ignorant and poor women have children. . .

On message and in media, an underlying supposition of an educated worldview is that there are too many children, too many poor children, in particular, and that any educated intellect will come to the conclusion that this is true.  Hidden within this train of thought is eugenics -- the idea that the population of the world needs to be cleansed of the feeble in body or mind or at least the potentially feeble and only certain children deserve to live.  While the proponents of using contraception to prevent people, especially the wrong people, from having children deny this and insist it is about quality of life, it is difficult to remove the idea of a better race from those who believe only children who can expect a better life deserve to be born.

While one might think that such a point of view was the hallmark of fascism or some totalitarian state, and it has and is in some places, in the West the proponents are the educated elite and those who have positions of power which they exercise on behalf of liberal and progressive causes.  Like this.  So when French President Emmanuel Macron weighed in upon this very subject last fall, it was both predictable and consistent.  What was not predictable was that a backlash might come from, get this, educated women who have many children. 

Macron stated publicly that human fertility—especially on the African continent—reflects ignorance and oppression.  He was discussing African demographics at a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation event in New York City, Macron said, “Present me the woman who decided, being perfectly educated, to have seven, eight or nine children…This is just because a lot of girls were not properly educated, sometimes because these countries decided the rights of these girls were not exactly the same rights as the young man.”  I might be worth noting, to the surprise of none, that Macron has no children of his own.

The mantra of the Gates Foundation and Macron is that all across the world, including the United States, the poorest people tend to have more children than the rich. This is a global crisis in the making, according to this year’s “Goalkeepers” report (get that term, Goalkeepers -- one whose duty it is to keep something at bay!).  While these watchdogs ponder fertility, it is worth noting that birth rates have been cut in half since the 1960s, many places face an under population of people to work and contribute to the massive social programs that support not only the poor but the aging population of the West, and some governments have taken up incentives for folks to have children or more children.

The Gates Foundation, a big promoter of contraception and a supporter of programs to reduce fertility, has found an unlikely ally in prosperity, feminism, and the self-centered life.  In other words, people are having fewer children not because of those like Macron who are offended by children but because they fear children will steal away the resources of time and money they want to spend exclusively on themselves.  Children are more and more seen as an enemy of personal happiness and fulfillment, except by those who have achieved their dreams of happiness and fulfillment and who turn to having a child much as one might purchase an expensive toy they have always wanted but could not afford until now.

The stunning reality is that Christians routinely echoes this idea so abhorrent to the Scriptures, maybe not at first, but the liberal and progressive wing of Christianity finds it impossible to resist piling on board the efforts to make man the enemy of creation instead of its steward.  There is no reconciliation possible between the God who commanded mankind to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and exercise dominion over all creation in His name and the kind of aversion to children and the human imprint upon the earth.  That is not to say we are given license by God to rape and pillage His creation.  Not at all.  But neither are we to presume that we are enemies of God's purpose in making all things.  In addition to this, we have the example of the child, in the center of Jesus' teaching as well as in His presence to remind us that children are precious to the Lord and not some resource to be prevented or squandered.  It is surely by the way we treat our children and how we bring them up to know and love the Lord that we will be measured and not by the silliness of the things the educated elite foist upon us.