The Great and Spacious Building

While doing Come Follow Me this week, I couldn't help but make connections to what we learn from Lehi's vision of the tree of life and how it associates to the world today. To be more specific, how the great and spacious building could be all of the lies we are told in our society and how if you don't agree with those views you are ‘mocked’ to the point of feeling ashamed for believing what you do. The example that I want to focus on right now is how having children, specifically more than one or two, is frowned upon. It has become so normal to want only one child, or even none at all. And how people don’t realize the importance of the family.

          Did you know that here in the U.S. fertility rates are at an all time low? There are many factors that go into this. The first is what people call the demographic revolution. What that is, is the fact that people are choosing material things in life to give them happiness over children and families. It is found that as economies become richer and prosper materially, that people choose to not have children.

         Another cause of decline in fertility rates is the fact that there is a change in the roles for women. Now there was a lot of good that came from women’s rights. Women were able to vote and seen as equals. They were able to gain an education, and be empowered to realize that they have potential and worth, but as women sought education, many choose to pursue a career over marriage and families. This causes problems later in life when they decide to seek marriage and family later in life, because as women get older, they are less likely to conceive and be able to have a healthy pregnancy. The world is telling us that we need to focus on our career and that choosing to get married and raise a family is stifling our growth as a person and not rising to our full potential and gratification that a successful career can give. We get so caught up in ourselves, that we don’t stop to think about others.

The biggest reason that we have a decline in fertility however, is because of how the world is trying to change marriage and family norms. Many people don’t realize all of the good that having a strong family can have. In fact, there is more economic growth in countries where there are more traditional families (families where the mother and father are married and living together in the home). Other nations are realizing the effect that low fertility rates have on their countries and are now offering cash incentives to families willing to have children. Italy offers $15,000 per child, Japan $5,000, and Russia is offering $9,000 plus $140 per month and part of the woman’s pay if she stays in the home to raise the children.

Many of the goals that we want as a nation start with the family. We want strong women with good educations? Well girls who are in stable intact families are less likely to have a teen pregnancy and will be more likely to succeed in their education. But it isn’t just girls. Children as a whole are less likely to be into drugs and alcohol, are less likely to be abused, have depression, or need therapy, and are more likely to seek higher education. This is because the family is the place where we are taught how to trust and cooperate with others, learn our moral principles and our conscience is laid.

People don’t realize the importance of intact families and the impact of not having children will have on our countries. We need to strive for marriage and family because it helps the nation to grow economically. The more children we have as a nation, the more we will be able to learn from each other and solve world problems. And to ensure that those children are able to excel to their full potential, we need strong intact families that can be the support system we need to succeed in life!