In a previous entry, a reader named Joel complained that it isn’t possible for young hard-working professionals in their twenties to form families without some dramatic changes in social policy. To this, readers and I responded that young couples would be wise to accept relative poverty for the sake of having children while they are young. This, we argued, is the best way to save the West from further decline and to achieve personal happiness.

But, let’s be honest about what this advice means. It means that people such as Joel must step outside the world they live in and go it alone. The fact is, they will lose friends and status for the sake of a less materialistic way of life.

More than a hundred years ago, Thorsten Veblen, in his Theory of the Leisure Class, described our situation, a society in which large numbers of people would choose conspicuous consumption over family contentment and a higher birthrate.

He wrote:

The accepted standard of expenditure in the community or in the class to which a person belongs largely determines what his standard of living will be. It does this directly by commending itself to his common sense as right and good, through his habitually contemplating it and assimilating the scheme of life in which it belongs; but it does so also indirectly through popular insistence on conformity to the accepted scale of expenditure as a matter of propriety, under pain of disesteem and ostracism.

To accept and practice the standard of living which is in vogue is both agreeable and expedient, commonly to the point of being indispensable to personal comfort and to success in life. The standard of living of any class, so far as concerns the element of conspicuous waste, is commonly as high as the earning capacity of the class will permit – with a constant tendency to go higher….

Through this discrimination in favour of visible consumption it has come about that the domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, as compared to the éclat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on before the eyes of observers… The low birthrate of the classes upon whom the requirements of reputable expenditure fall with great urgency is likewise traceable to the exigencies of a standard of living based on conspicuous waste.

                                                                                       —— Comments —-

Karen I. writes:

As a housewife, I would like to comment on the “Conspicuous Consumption” post. Your observation that anyone who chooses to live outside that mindset will lose friends and status is completely correct. After I left an exciting job and had my first baby, people, including family members, started being too “busy” to bother with us. They were passive-aggressive in expressing their disapproval of my choice to be a housewife, so it took me awhile to realize what was going on. For a long time, it bothered me and it still does at times. I think it always will, at least a little. I am still reminded of the disapproval from time to time, in a sly put-down, a rude question about what I do all day, or a “helpful” suggestion about a job opening that might interest me. I am sure you know what I mean. 

Despite this, I do not regret the path I have chosen. As I get older and my children do too, I am starting to see the payoff as well as the downside of the other way of doing things. So many people who had exciting, fun lives while I was changing diapers are now changing diapers ten years later and they resent it. They are trying to fit children into fine homes with fine furniture never intended for messy little ones. They lean heavily on aging parents for help so they can maintain the careers that pay for all the material goods they are accustomed to having and still owe a lot for. Some had children with less than ideal partners they did not love enough to marry because time was running out. Some suffered infertility and went through years of horrific treatments that damaged their marriages. One childless acquaintance in her early 30s contracted HPV which progressed to a cancerous condition. She required surgery that may have impaired her ability to ever carry a child to term. 

It takes years to see the payoff of getting married and having children on the young side. But, if you hang in there, it happens.

Laura writes:

I know the put-downs Karen speaks of only too well. I never thought of it as “passive-aggressive,” but that’s exactly what it is.

We are often told that the great thing about contemporary life is the freedom of choices it offers. This is a lie. Young people never truly have freedom of choice. They always follow models provided for them and they must follow models provided for them because they are inexperienced and unwise. Today, many follow a model that is utterly removed from the realities of family formation. Many experience the unexpected unhappiness Karen describes. But regardless of what unhappiness this unworkable model causes to individuals, it is harmful to society at large. We cannot sustain our culture this way in the long term.

Is it possible to reverse things given the ostracism experienced by those who go against the current? It takes strength of character. I don’t know if there are enough who possess it. 

 A female reader writes:

I am a new reader via VFR. While I don’t always agree with you, it’s extraordinarily refreshing to read a traditionalist woman’s blog. While my husband and I did not marry young (we didn’t meet each other young), we did agree at the outset on a “traditional” marriage and NO daycare. Now, at almost the 20 year mark, one of our biggest regrets is that our foolish concern over affordability (of good schools, college, etc.) led us to have only two children. I also have lost pseudo-friends and endured snarky comments from relatives about my waste of my high intellect and expensive education. We have managed on one income (and admittedly generous assistance from some relatives when necessary) and have never suffered privation, but still lived in a manner now popularized as the new frugality. We have always clipped coupons, driven older cars, and cooked at home. We almost never go out to see movies or eat at restaurants, and we haven’t ever had a family vacation. Our children didn’t have the latest toys or see movies (and those carefully selected by us) until they came to the $1.00 theater. They did have a Christian education and family meals and a unified family home to return to after the bustle and stress of a school day. I suppose it is un-Christian (or at the very least uncharitable) of me, but I don’t care any more to prop up failing friendships or family relationships when our fundamental world views are so different (and hostile, in their case). An old friend with whom I had successively less contact over the years (she had one child after three abortions and then fertility treatments) worked hard to get Obama elected. My silly sister (who sent me a nasty missive when I had my first child, because I didn’t write her often enough for her taste) also drank the Kool-aid last year. I wonder now how she and her self-absorbed spouse feel about their entitlement cuts and the looming government-run health care.

I fear your suggestions for a more modest lifestyle in order to have a family with children will fall on mostly deaf ears. Most people are just too selfish and too immature (and too sceptical to consider God). I’ve known people who moved heaven and earth to adopt children – and then left them with a foreign maid while they happily returned to work. Others may have found Kay Bailey Hutchison’s decision to adopt (in her advanced 50s) a generous gesture; I find it incredibly self indulgent – children as lifestyle accessories or to fulfill one’s own selfish desires.

Oh, and as a stay-at-home mom, I’ve never once watched Oprah! My recent glimpses on the gym TV haven’t enticed me to tune in now, either.

Laura writes:

There is some ground for hope. Feminism has had a disastrous effect on many lives. Many of those who are now adults had haphazard, lonely and unhappy childhoods.  Some of these people, I believe, are ready to embrace radical change, which is what a return to traditional roles entails. They want something they have never experienced in their private lives: normalcy.

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