Catherine Ruth Pakaluk from the Catholic University of America addressed the BYU community in a forum on Oct. 28.
As a Harvard educated economist, professor and woman of faith, she shared insights about why children are becoming less of a priority and why that trend must be corrected.
This message was particularly timely in the wake of the October General Conference sessions, where the family and its value as a divine structure were foundational themes.
Pakaluk began her message with several telling statistics about the changes the family model has undergone in recent decades.
According to her figures, over half of American households are now childless. An astonishingly small 10% of households have an infant or toddler.
She clarified that this decrease in births is not just a national issue.
“The population of the world is also collapsing,” Pakaluk said. “Single-child families, ‘#oneanddone’s,’ are the most common type of Canadian family with kids.”
In summary, she painted the falling birth rates across the globe as a means for future disaster — she foresees economic stagnation and less revenue generation, even an increase in nationalism as peoples’ communities change.
Pakaluk clarified that mental health difficulties will be the result of “accidental isolation," where people no longer feel connected to their communities.
Why are birth rates trending downward? She expounded on several factors.
The most prominent reason why Pakaluk said the rates are falling is that children are becoming an obsolete commodity.
“The reason birth rates are really falling is because no one needs a kid — and fewer and fewer people want one,” she said.
To illustrate her point, she referenced the Ford Model T, which was introduced at the turn of the twentieth century.
Pakaluk explained that while the Model T was being sold to the masses, the horse population in the United States was on rapid decline because they were no longer needed.
Horses were useful, but inconvenient. In comparison, vehicles were faster, didn’t need to be fed, didn’t need to be given elaborate shelter and were mess-free.
She then outlined three needs that children used to fill in society. First, to provide additional labor and help. Second, to support their parents later in life. Third, children were a natural product of sexual union between couples.
After hitting fast-forward to the present day, Pakaluk explained that each of these needs can effectively be circumvented.
From her point of view, automation and a generational shift in how work is done, as well as increased social programs like social security, are doing their part to reduce the need for children.
A final major factor in the decline of children is the advent of birth control, which Pakaluk says “obliterated” the need to have children.
However, she says there is still one basic need that children still satisfy: the need to be a parent. Here, she introduced a new idea, that having children isn’t just about fulfilling physical needs.
“Marriage and childbearing belong to the domain of the spirit, the rational part of the rational animal,” she said.
To that end, Pakaluk expressed the need to restore the importance of children. Not just as a necessity for a functional society in coming days, but because it is part of what it means to be Heavenly Father’s children.
How does she think this can be accomplished? She didn’t lay out a scheme of new public policy or a social media campaign. Rather, Pakaluk believes it will come by strengthening the faith of people all over the world.
“By the fire of faith our hearts are softened and our selfishness burned away,” she said. “By its light, we seek children when the world seeks comfort; we live for the eternal and not for the present…”
Pakaluk finished her remarks by remind the audience that lighting the fire of faith is the way to restore children as a valuable, crucial part of society.