by Connie Chastain*
Recently on Facebook, quite a few of my friends (some of whom I've never met in my life) have featured photos of adorable new additions to their families. Sometimes they're a son or daughter, sometimes a grand, or a niece or nephew.
The ones posting the photos are uniformly delighted with the little bundle of joy that God has graced their family with. Judging by their comments, friends are also delighted to offer their congrats and observations about the precious little one.
I gush along with everyone else. I can't help but see babies as a blessing for mankind -- the embodiment of the future, of continuity and hope for the whole human family. A marvelous reminder that there's more to earthly existence than war, calamity and wrongdoing.
But sometimes, I wonder what awaits these little ones in the future. What does our going-crazy culture hold in store for them? Every year, a million of their generation never make it out of the womb alive -- the victims of feminist-touted "reproductive freedom."
Those who make it into the world are far from home free, though. Almost five children under the age of four die every day as a result of child abuse. Statistics gathered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicate that children in mother-only households are almost 4 times more likely to be fatally abused (i.e., murdered) than children in father-only households. I haven't seen this blamed on "rape culture" yet -- perhaps there are still some claims about rape culture so insane that even man-hating rad-fems will not go there. Or perhaps they know that abuse is often perpetrated by those who were abused -- regardless of gender.
If a child is destined to grow up in a family without a father, there's a real possibility of a grim future for him or her, a greater likelihood for a host of social pathologies -- poverty, dropping out of school, drug abuse, early sexual experimentation, crime and, perhaps the most sobering, suicide.
Millions of children, of course, do not grow up abused and at risk for these elements of society. For that we can be thankful. And yet, even the fortunate among the sons and daughters of our society face a future filled with risks earlier generations knew nothing about.
Daughters increasingly risk losing out on wife-and-motherhood to pursue careers that will never comfort them in their retirement years like children and grandchildren would.
And anyone who reads this blog can see what lies in wait for sons -- the possibility of being falsely accused of rape, a possibility that's increasing due to the deliberate manipulation of academia and jurisprudence by organized feminism. That possibility is joined by diminishing opportunity for education, an ever shrinking job market and the loss of children in divorce.
Is this really what the progressives of the last century -- the feminists, the champions of diversity, the share-the-wealth advocates and their fellow travelers -- really wanted? Or has their long march through the institutions of our culture resulted in a cultural calamity they could not have foreseen?
Maybe I'm just in a gloomy mood from the deadly weather outbreaks my area this spring. Or maybe it's the national debt, or the fact that I'm still suspicious that my N'Waluns-style fried-oyster po'boy is "dressed" with BP oil....
If you've just got to worry, you can always find a reason. And really, what generation has ever faced a risk-free future? None that I know of.
I just hope our culture will come to its senses and correct the mistakes we've made so those coming along behind us will have a future worth living in.
*Connie is an FRS contributor. Her personal blog is http://conniechastain.blogspot.com/
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