Sunday, March 22, 2009

New Births Off The Charts

When it rains it pours, and these days we must be having a semen storm, or an ovary flood, or something. Recent birth records have finally eclipsed the previous known record set during the baby boom, when so many kids were born because soldiers returning from overseas duty during World War II were so happy to see their wives and girlfriends. That's understandable, but what have so many people got to be so happy about today? I know I should try to shine a positive light on things here, in that the Oestra season is supposed to be a fertility festival, but from the looks of things, lack of fertility is not the problem. Unfortunately, it might well be adding to the many problems we have. What fool in their right mind wants to have kids under the current set of world economic conditions and outlook? Is it just that people are that damned careless and unthinking?

Well, I guess that's a good part of it, and it becomes more comprehensible when you consider that a large part of the new birth parents are teenagers, the mothers in particular being unwed mothers. Yes, that sad statistic is once more on the rise.

As for Oestra and the idea of fertility rites, there's something to be said for viewing fertility not in the sense so much of procreation but first of building a prosperous life. An over-abundance of new births during harsh economic conditions kind of defeats the purpose of aiming first for prosperity, and then building a life that might include a family, one assured of at least some degree of security and stability. In fact, this is pouring gasoline on the fire. Welcome to life in the twenty-first century. Oh, by the way, you owe about twenty-billion dollars-if you're lucky.

I do think its incumbent on us all to be a little more responsible in our actions, and to try to encourage greater forethought and self-discipline. Its not all about what feels good at the moment.