You wrote: “A major insight from all of them is that children are raised by a society, not by parents alone. Harris attributes only about 20% of personality formation to the parents, the bulk going to what children learn from peers and from school. By that reasoning just by choosing to raise them in Ukraine we have done them the greatest possible service.”
1. My understanding is that grandchildren were the ultimate goal of your move to Ukraine.
2. If children are raised by society, and if a society has a below replacement level fertility rate, then children raised in that society will have a below replacement level fertility rate. So your Ukrainian children will have a below replacement level fertility rate.
3. The US has a higher total fertility rate than Ukraine, 1.8 to 1.2 or 1.4. So Ukrainian society is more inimical to having children than that of the US.
4. But a parent can exert control over whether a child is exposed to the outer society at all, or what elements of that society the child is exposed to, and to what degree. American Mormons have a total fertility rate of 2.4, Orthodox Jews of 3.3, Amish of 6 to 7. All these fertility rates are higher than the American average, and they are higher because these sub-cultures put greater emphasis and pressure on having children, and the Orthodox and the Amish limit exposure to the outside culture. So if you are to have justified hope of grandchildren, you must emphasize the having of children, and you must be selective of the society your children are exposed to---e.g. finding a community of like-minded families, and limiting their friends to these. Otherwise, your children will succumb to the anti-natalist trends of Ukraine.
5. Fertility in women is inversely proportional to their education. The more your Ukrainian daughters are educated, and the more you prepare them for careers outside the home, the less likely they will give you grandchildren.
6. What are you doing about exposure to the internet and social media? Rod Dreher tells a story of a parent in Hungary whose daughter became trans through her access to Western social media via her iphone.
These are legitimate concerns. First, the USA replacement rate is not driven by people like me. The USA is a hodge-podge.
You are right about the Mormons. Wonderful people, well represented here as well. And equally fertile. We flirted with them for a while, but I ultimately decided that I could not bring myself to espouse scripture that they take very seriously but I cannot.
You wrote: “A major insight from all of them is that children are raised by a society, not by parents alone. Harris attributes only about 20% of personality formation to the parents, the bulk going to what children learn from peers and from school. By that reasoning just by choosing to raise them in Ukraine we have done them the greatest possible service.”
1. My understanding is that grandchildren were the ultimate goal of your move to Ukraine.
2. If children are raised by society, and if a society has a below replacement level fertility rate, then children raised in that society will have a below replacement level fertility rate. So your Ukrainian children will have a below replacement level fertility rate.
3. The US has a higher total fertility rate than Ukraine, 1.8 to 1.2 or 1.4. So Ukrainian society is more inimical to having children than that of the US.
4. But a parent can exert control over whether a child is exposed to the outer society at all, or what elements of that society the child is exposed to, and to what degree. American Mormons have a total fertility rate of 2.4, Orthodox Jews of 3.3, Amish of 6 to 7. All these fertility rates are higher than the American average, and they are higher because these sub-cultures put greater emphasis and pressure on having children, and the Orthodox and the Amish limit exposure to the outside culture. So if you are to have justified hope of grandchildren, you must emphasize the having of children, and you must be selective of the society your children are exposed to---e.g. finding a community of like-minded families, and limiting their friends to these. Otherwise, your children will succumb to the anti-natalist trends of Ukraine.
5. Fertility in women is inversely proportional to their education. The more your Ukrainian daughters are educated, and the more you prepare them for careers outside the home, the less likely they will give you grandchildren.
6. What are you doing about exposure to the internet and social media? Rod Dreher tells a story of a parent in Hungary whose daughter became trans through her access to Western social media via her iphone.
These are legitimate concerns. First, the USA replacement rate is not driven by people like me. The USA is a hodge-podge.
You are right about the Mormons. Wonderful people, well represented here as well. And equally fertile. We flirted with them for a while, but I ultimately decided that I could not bring myself to espouse scripture that they take very seriously but I cannot.