FRED OWENS writes:

Here is a look at the future for aging boomers. The cause of this problem is arguable, and possible solutions are worth discussing. But the numbers themselves are facts. We did not have enough children to give each one of us a nursemaid and blame who you will, the fact itself is rather stubborn.

It might be worthwhile to urge younger people in their child-bearing years to take heed.

But even so, we aging boomers will have to care for each other, one ancient cripple aiding another, and suffer through it.

Laura writes:

The cause is contraception and the widespread approval of it. America has danced the night away and the hangover has just begun.

Here is an interesting figure from the LA Times:

The ratio of potential caregivers to boomers needing care will sink from 7.2 to 1 in 2010 to 2.9 to 1 by 2050, according to the study.

Hello, Lauren Sandler. Where are you? Oh, here she is, on her couch, representing the joys of sterility.

The economy will also be stagnant in the years ahead because of the aging of the baby boomers, who will be consuming less. Economies rely on consumers. When there are fewer consumers, there are fewer robust businesses. That’s not to say that people should have children to serve as economic widgets, but simply that when people don’t have children, a culture necessarily declines and then dissolves, even though some, such as Ms. Sandler, are very, very happy.

— Comments —-

Mr. Owens writes:

A consequence of widespread contraception is fewer children to eventually serve as caregivers for the aged. I agree this is true, but my question is “What do we do now?”

Here’s an analogy: when the waters are rising we can debate what caused the flood, but it would be more useful to start filling sandbags.

We will soon have a large cohort of aged baby boomers and a shortage of caregivers. Christian compassion compels us to do our best. I will soon be a member of this cohort, having been born in 1946. My intention is to care for others of my own age as much as I am able for as long as I am able. But there is no guarantee, not from government and actually not from family either, that others will be able or willing to care for me when I need it.

My grandparents and great-grandparents had large families. My two maternal aunts and my two maternal great-aunts never married. They stayed home and took care of their parents and lived as spinsters (which should be an honorable title).

Social security was instituted to fill in some gaps because family members do not always show up with a dutiful response. You might argue that this gov’t program encourages irresponsibility, but still, under any regime, we will have people who fall through the gaps with no one to care for them.

With aging baby boomers who had few or no children — we can see this coming. There can be no pleasure in saying I told you so.

I’m not going to worry about this too much. We’re all in God’s hands.

Laura writes:

I’m not interested in a collective solution. 

James P. writes:

I have no doubt that the Boomers regard elder care as a despicable, low-class job. They would never encourage their children to work in elder care any more than they would encourage them to become nannies, maids, or tomato-pickers. So the prospect of a lack of elder care could never be enough to encourage them to breed. Who do they think will do this job? No doubt they think kindly foreign immigrants will be their elder-care providers in the future just as immigrants are their maids and nannies now. And they will expect the government to take up the slack and provide “affordable, high-quality elder care” in the future just as they have called for “affordable, high-quality child care” in the past. With enough immigrants and state intervention, who needs a family?

Laura writes:

Of course, of course, of course. I can just see some future Obama lecturing us on the need to provide government-funded elder care. Although the money probably won’t last until then.

Mr. Owens writes:

When my parents died — my father in 1974, my mother in 1996 — they went quickly. They were both in good health until a month or two at the end. With four of us children we took turns, but honestly it was a short time and no drain on anyone’s resources.

But years later, not with sense of guilt, but with a feeling that I may have missed out on something, I began to work as a nursing aide at the local hospital and also at a nursing home.

I spent a great deal of quality time with folks in their last days and weeks. I was incredibly impressed by the good spirits of most of my patients. Not much whining among these elders and I found them to be good company and the work was rewarding.

That’s what I did. So I don’t need to say anything, not to my own two children or to any other younger people. If someone thinks this kind of work is demeaning, that is their problem.

But my ambition, when I get very old — and I hope to get very old — is to be like those elders I tended. They were calm and forthright and they knew what was coming and they weren’t afraid. Many of them were religious, many of them were not — but you can’t really tell, can you?

Mrs. H. writes:

The lack of care for the elderly is such a small piece of what we’re losing by not having large families (when God grants such). So many Christian marriages (the far majority, in America) suffer unknowingly because the husband and wife are not fulfilling their vocation.

Raising many small children is very, very hard. (I have 4 under 7 and am happily expecting in January.) I understand why people decline the blessing of children–I really do. I would probably be a better housekeeper and “domestic engineer” without all these little people around to interrupt my goals and projects.

But my children are better off for having many siblings, my marriage is better off for trusting in God, my faith is better off for all the sanctification and denying of self taking place daily.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing.

Having many young children is very challenging. Just as an aside, however, I’d like to comment on one of your points. You write:

I would probably be a better housekeeper and “domestic engineer” without all these little people around to interrupt my goals and projects.

This will change when your children are older. My mother, who had seven children, did much less housework when her children were older than five or so than I do with two children. She had many hands to help her. She rarely did the dishes, vacuumed, chopped vegetables or put away laundry. I remember when she had guests for adult dinner parties, I would voluntarily do all the dishes while the adults were eating. That’s not to say she didn’t work very hard, but as far as housework, in the long run, more children is not necessarily more work for a mother.

R.J. writes:

I am from Generation X, and I don’t feel much sympathy for the baby boomers as they confront old age.  I have had to put up with these insufferable fools for my entire life.  As a group, they were selfish narcissists who bear significant responsibility for the ruination of this once great nation.  They provided a significant part of the political mass supporting the disastrous cultural changes in the 1960s and 1970s.

Let them live with the full consequences of deciding to live it up rather than to invest in the future generations.  Let them change their own Depends.

And let’s not bail them out by importing third world diaper changers to take care of them – which merely subsidizes their stupid venality at the expense of the future generations.

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