Spring and the Purim Moon
Thursday gratefuls: Fire in the fireplace last night. Talking and laughing with Ruth and Gabe. Mac Nation. Indian Hills. Mountain town funky. The drive back through Kittridge, Evergreen, up Brook Forest and Black Mountain Drive. All the years of visits and sleepovers with these two. Ruth’s college plans. Kate and Jon also present. Family.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Generations
One brief shining: Mac Nation has an upstairs reached by outside wood stairs, crossing a balcony, and entering through a blue door which opens into two rooms one with large industrial tables on wheels and a smaller one with two wooden tables, one overlooking the curve outside which is the one Ruth, Gabe, and I chose for our macaroni and cheese midday meal.
Easy to forget the biological imperative involved in families. What with all the drama, the highs and lows, the tears and laughter. But there is one and from an evolutionary perspective it’s their raison d’etre. Human beings as a species must reproduce and that’s what families are for at their most basic reality.
Yes, Ruth and Gabe will place some parts of Jon and Kate, genetic parts, into the future, but what they are at the biological level is the next generation of humankind. The species needs them to find partners and reproduce as well. And so on until that Great Sol red giant moment which will end all evolution on this planet.
You may think this an obvious point, unnecessary to note, yet it isn’t. Ask policy makers in South Korean, Japan, and China. South Korea, at its current birth rate, will cease to exist at all, it’s population halved by 2100 and accelerating toward national extinction.
South Korea’s birth rate is .72. The replacement rate for any generation of humans is 2.1 births per woman. China is at 1.09 and Japan 1.26. The U.S.? 1.6.
Much handwringing has ensued. Who will care for the elders? Who will work in the factories and businesses? But most chillingly, who will ensure the survival of the species.
An odd problem to emerge as past generations of humanity fuel a rocket sled ride to a much warmer future, one with higher sea levels, and more extreme weather.
Also odd. One of the main factors in the decline of birth rates lies in women’s empowerment. An educated and workplace integrated status for women serves much better than birth control or even government policy to restrict birth rates.
What we may be seeing is a transition to a world that will be forced to embrace a totally new paradigm for child rearing and family structures, one that takes full advantage of the gifts and talents of women while encouraging more births.
What would this look like? Not sure, but some sort of communal child care, education and health care and housing provided by the government would probably be required. It just might be that a population crisis finally forces humans to take care of each other.
