Where is the dear children

In a article from a Danish newspaper, a journalist gave some thoughts about what a grand-grand-grand-grand-grandfather would think was most far out, if he came back ( may be during Halloween). There is probably many things, but this journalist choose to focus on the lack of children.

Today’s Europe is a safe place with pensions, welfare and some forms of social security (even if many governments try to undermine it). But there is no longer any serious need for people to have children. The children has become a commodity, which many people choose to get, or not. The not´s rationalizes this choice with wanting to live life to the fullest, and basically view it as many of my parents generation viewed a pet, namely something that limits your freedom, more than a gift to life.

So 100 years ago, women on average had 5 children, while its now around 1.2, depending which European country you choose to focus on. A British scientist published some prognoses about how Europe would look in 2050 if we kept being as unproductive as we are now. It showed that the population of Italy would have halved.

This means that even the pope is right for once, along with a lot of politicians in saying that we are running out of people to go to work, take care of the old, and man the cannons in the wars. Will we (as in humans) create so many helpful machines and robots to make a society where there is many old people for each young person, I wonder. Today there is more people above 65 than under 14. Personally I hope to have one or more children, if for nothing else, to come and visit me after I have gotten too old to be a self centered individualist, and start to focus on what I'm leaving in this world instead of what it can do for me.