“One other thing I’m bound to remark upon is the fact that I continue to see glimpses or strong images of those people no longer here. And they not only emerge in my dreams but have a habit of muscling into my daily walks.”
Update from Julian.
The Old Homestead.
Mazel tov.
“At 1.62 expected children per woman – down from 3.8 in 1957 – the fertility rate is the lowest it’s been since the government started tracking it in the 1930s. Americans simply aren’t having enough children to replace themselves.”
Mothers of large families interviewed:
“The women bucking the trend weren’t necessarily wealthier and didn’t seem to face lower childbearing costs. Rather, they believed that children were blessings from God and the main purpose of their marriages. As Leah told me: ‘Every child brings a divine gift into the world that nobody else can bring.’
Most of them ended up having more children because they valued having a big family so highly. They didn’t plan their family sizes around other life goals – they planned other life goals around having children. And the very high accord they granted to childbearing ordered their priorities in ways that made it more likely for them to get married and have kids, even while meeting career and financial milestones.”
Thanks to Wrath of Gnon.
And that would be “swagger.”
Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie blames the decline of swagger, in part, to generational forces.
“Millennials and Gen Z have been bred like human veal by their Boomer and Gen X parents who made sure their kids were constantly being surveilled and optimized for success in SATs, sports and entry into the Establishment pipeline,” he says. “Can we be surprised that such a system has produced generations of journalists who endlessly describe anything they disagree with as misinformation and want to control and regulate everything like the room temperature in an after-school enrichment program?”
“It was a Jewish axiom: ‘One should sell all he possesses and buy books, for as the sages put it, “He who increases books, increases wisdom.”’”
“A man who lent books, particularly to the poor, earned merit with God. ‘If a man has two sons, one of whom dislikes lending books, while the other is eager, a man should leave all his library to the second, even if he is younger,’ wrote one of Maimonides’ contemporaries, Judah of Regensburg. Pious Jews saw heaven as a vast library, with the Archangel Metatron as the librarian: the books in the shelves pressed themselves together to make room for a newcomer.”
Paul Johnson - A History of the Jews
Happy Mother’s Day!
