Where are the grandchildren?

It’s probably the birth of three granddaughters in the last 10 months that helped me notice. And what I noticed is there appears to be fewer grandparents than there used to be. I don’t have an authoritative study to cite, but I’m coming across a lot of people my age who tell me they have no grandchildren, and a few who say that they have only one, and they don’t expect any more.

These are literate, educated people. They are not necessarily liberal politically, but they do tend to say, “I raised my children to pursue their dreams.” Apparently, those dreams didn’t include children. They put the best face on it, highlighting the accomplishments of their children, especially the girls. But I can tell by the look in their eyes, and the tone of their voices, they’re disappointed.

This is the place where I’m supposed to add the caveats about infertility, or a lack of “good men,” or opioids, or even the celibacy of the Apostle Paul. But I’m bone-weary of hearing those, and they strike me as anodyne. We all know what is going on in most cases. People, statistically speaking, are choosing childless lives.

When we look at the age distribution for most countries, they look more like tops beginning to wobble than the pyramids of Giza. But since most of the consequences are approaching at glacial speed, we can wipe our foreheads and like Hezekiah say, “Thank goodness I won’t live to see it.” But it’s not true. The consequences have begun to arrive.

I posted something to this effect on X (formerly Twitter), and among the responses was the predictable, “No one is owed grandchildren.” As I noted before, some people I spoke with were not politically liberal, but they were liberal in another sense. They raised their children to pursue their dreams without any thought of giving their parents a heritage.

Notice, I didn’t place the word, heritage in “scare quotes.” That’s because the heritage I’m speaking of is the natural line, as in the natural family. That isn’t a “social construct,” unlike the term, “social construct.” Predictably, when something natural is deconstructed, it dies. And for many families, this is happening. People without grandchildren can see the end of the line, a line that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve but is ending with their children because there are no grandchildren. And they’ve been told to get over it because, “No one is owed grandchildren.”

Psalm 128 ends with, “May you see your children’s children!” They’re a blessing you can hope for, but you can also prepare for, and one of the ways to do that is by teaching your children that it is a blessing to have children. It’s a blessing that other things should be sacrificed for because little images of God are more valuable than boats, exotic vacations, or corner offices—and any other idol we make for ourselves.

But the lack of grandchildren also has a practical consequence. If we do not recover a sense of duty to God and our parents to carry on the burden of the natural family, many of the things that we assume make children unnecessary will collapse. Do you truly believe your 401K will continue to rise when the number of young people sinks? Or that Social Security will keep its promises when fewer people are paying into it than are drawing on it? The value of the stock market and the solvency of our social welfare schemes are supported by the productive energies of the young.

Without a rising generation those things will fall in value, or into insolvency. Half measures won’t save them. Immigration can mitigate the effects for a time, but sooner or later you run out of other people’s children. Robots can help the supply side, but not the demand side, and wealth creation depends on both. And if you imagine we can mass produce children in the lab, can you also imagine that there would undoubtedly be negative consequences that we can’t even imagine?

Grandchildren are a part of God’s plan. The alternative is disaster.