Why Should Couples Have More Babies?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the foundational causes of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (or life, liberty, and the opportunity to own property.) Life begins at birth – but birth rates have fallen for America and for nations worldwide.

To save our nation, we must reject the culture of comfort and embrace the growth of families, according to the Blaze Staff. This simple fact is shown by data compiled by the Financial Times, which “reveals birth rates among progressives and conservatives over the past nearly 50 years,” something that does not look good for the left. 

Conservative birth rates have fallen, but conservatives are still reproducing at replacement rates, while progressives are barely reproducing at all.

“What we need is … a turning point, if you will, where we are not just going the same rate of speed as the doctrines of demons, but we are going in the opposite direction,” Blaze TV host Steve Deace says on the “Steve Deace Show.”

“And I think the enemy feared that leaders like Charlie were putting us on such a trend line, especially with their effectiveness towards the youth, and that’s why ‘they’ – demons like to call themselves that – that’s why they murdered him,” he continues.

“And now our hope is that like we’ve seen in the past with martyrs, strike one down and an entire movement comes up behind them,” he adds.

While the left, Deace says, has jumped on the “highway to hell and it’s ‘YOLO,’” conservatives are simply in the slow lane, still heading down the same road.

“We’re traveling the exact same direction. That has to stop. And I think in the younger generations, they sense that. The younger generations on our side…. The hope is we can last long enough to hand it off to them to prove it to us one way or the other,” he tells producer Todd Erzen.

“I mean, if you will not have babies and consecrate them to the Lord, we’re just not serious about the faith we claim to have. This is my lament about the people on the cul de sac and you really just can’t tell in any way a difference between, quite frankly, the families that are happy with the grooming going on and those who claim to believe otherwise,” Erzen says.

“You see all the time: Christian families talk about how expensive kids are. Well, all these families, if you’re paying attention, they’re going on vacation. They have their hobbies. They’re certainly not working, you know, three jobs, man. It’s a choice,” he continues.

“Our excuse-making factories for why our comfort as Christians is going to come before having children and having that be our primary legacy. Giving to the Lord human beings who will worship Him and carry the next generation forward in His name. I mean, it’s a choice,” he adds, “but good luck with that.”

Pollsters are not the only people looking at the decline in the birth rate. In May 2023, President Dallin H. Oaks, then-First Counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spoke about making more babies to a global gathering of young single adults between age 18 and 30. The Salt Lake Tribune reported his comments as follows. 

Oaks, the 90-year-old first counselor in the faith’s governing First Presidency and next in line to lead the worldwide faith of 17 million, said church leaders are concerned about the tendency of U.S. citizens, including some young Latter-day Saint men and women, to postpone entering committed relationships.

“Marriage is central to the purpose of mortal life and what follows,” said Oaks. “We are children of a loving Heavenly Father who created us with the capacity to follow his commandment to multiply and replenish the earth.”

The power of creation is “one of the most precious gifts we have in mortal life,” he said, but “central to that gift is the law of chastity, the commandment that our powers of procreation be expressed only within marriage between a man and a woman.”

Delaying childbearing, he said, “means fewer children born to grow up with the blessings of the gospel.” …

“Our concern includes the causes, such as the shortage of homes young marrieds can afford to buy and the growing amounts of student debt,” said Oaks, still recommending that such families go “forward with faith, and do the best you can in housing market circumstances less favorable than I and your grandparents encountered in our early years. And, especially, work to minimize student debt.”

Sister Kristen Oaks echoed the words of her husband in saying that marriage “is a gift. Not only does marriage give us the opportunity for children, it gives us the opportunity and incentive to begin a journey of growing with one another.”

Both President and Sister Oaks encouraged young adults to date more and develop better dating skills. “For many years, the church has counseled our youth not to date before age 16… Perhaps some young adults, especially men, have carried that wise counsel to excess and determined not to date before 26 or maybe even 36.” Sister Oaks waited until she was 53 and then married then-apostle Oaks after his first wife, June, died of cancer in 1998 at age 65. However, most people will not be marrying apostles.

My husband and I are the parents of six children, a large family for young parents at that time. However, it is a small family compared to my parents’ twelve children. Only one of our children has six children, the other five have fewer children: zero, four, four, four, one, and six. Fewer children in the case of many families is not a matter of choice. For instance, our oldest daughter had difficulty carrying pregnancies, and the wife of our youngest son was diagnosed with brain cancer when their only child was one year old. I do not know the reasons for the other smaller families.

Among my siblings, none of us had twelve children, although some came close. I have an average number of children: three, nine, eight, five, three, four, one (adopted), six, nine, seven, ten, and five. From my experience as a daughter and then as a mother, I can see that families are becoming smaller.

My only grandchild who is a parent may have only one child due to problems with the birth of my only great-grandchild. My other two married grandchildren have been married for less than two years. If the trend continues, my grandchildren will have families with two or three – or fewer – children.

For both national security and eternal families, America needs couples who will have more children.