"Natalists": Kids First

I have to say that N.Y. Times columnist David Brooks has been doing quite well by his readers lately. His latest column, "The New Red-Diaper Babies" (Dec. 7, 2004), makes the point that in the fastest growing areas of the country families are having more kids and making kids central to their lifestyle.

These areas are also the "reddest" areas, that is, the areas that are most pro-Bush. Brooks' observations bolster the view that the pull of traditional moral values exerted a major influence on the 2004 election, even though some, on the same op-ed page, have voiced doubts about that theory.

Brooks points out what many of us have experienced: once we start having kids, we tend to move out of disorderly neighborhoods with graffiti, loitering, loud cursing by after school crowds of students trudging home in packs, unacceptable noise levels, and, of course, crime. It is almost an instinctive reaction. I recall, like a lightning bolt, moving out of a declining New Orleans neighborhood--that up to that point seemed quite tolerable--upon the birth of my first child.

Leaving my hometown was also motivated in part by not wanting to raise children in a city that glorifies vulgar hedonism and excess as its major tourist attractions. I wanted a serious place for the serious and important business of life that I was now embarking on.

Brooks' observations are a welcome sign that maybe the contraceptive mentality is slipping. Just maybe, we are seeing the first signs that more and more people are realizing that procreation is probably the most significant thing any of us will ever do. Children focus the mind on what really matters and on the quality of one's surroundings. After a certain point, the variety of restaurants and bars available in a locale steeply falls in importance as a measure of livability, while safety and order zoom to the top of the list.

But, of course, many are not able to flee unpleasant surroundings. That's why police, courts, schools, and even libraries in urban areas have to stop looking the other way in the face of disorderly and anti-social behavior. That's why school vouchers to parochial schools that instill orderly behavior are a boon to urban neighborhoods.

Yet, the so-called champions of social justice--some of whom live quite comfortably in far-off, safe neighborhoods-- self-assuredly deny these solutions to those stuck in declining neighborhoods. You'll find many Kerry supporters among those blind "champions of social justice."