May 2, 2015

"The city’s birthrate is steadily declining, but not among the affluent, and that rise is changing the feel of the city."

So says the teaser on the front page of the NYT that takes us to "Baby Boom Among New York’s Affluent," which is illustrated by this startling ad — anti-birth propaganda from the city:



"What happens to me?" = words the government puts in the mouth of the unborn child, who presumably has the opinion that she should not be born. And try to wade through the race-and-class politics of this:
Between 2004 and 2013, of all the racial groups that the city’s Health Department measures, birthrates increased only among whites. Beginning around 2010, as birthrates among whites started steadily to climb up, birthrates among blacks began to go down. In 2013, blacks had a birthrate of 12.7, the lowest of any group in the city, with the abortion rate four times as high among black women as among white women...

For decades there were factions on the right worried about poor minorities “overbreeding” and taxing the city’s resources. Historically, there has been far less panic about the affluent having a lot of children, and yet they change the feel of the city, driving family-size S.U.V.s and generating a more suburban sensibility. The main complaints have come from well-off people themselves, as they worry about overcrowding in affluent school districts and rising numbers of children attending private school, making admission even more impossible....
So the affluent white people end up sick even of themselves — or especially of themselves — and the NYT tries to amuse its affluent-white-female readership with this kicker:
Perhaps those ads could be recast and targeted at TriBeCa mothers with small children, warning them of the tough realities: “You may think you want a fourth child. But what if your husband never buys you that four-bedroom apartment and never says yes to the weekend nanny?”
ADDED: Two things:

1. Why pick on "factions on the right" who worried about "poor minorities" breeding when you've got an ad that plainly reveals that the city government — liberals — were actively fighting exactly that?

2. It's quite politically incorrect to portray a woman as looking to her husband to buy her a home and and a servant. Don't these upscale, affluent types have egalitarian marriages these days? I would have thought that TriBeCa mothers are equal partners in decisionmaking within their marriages. Why did that sexist stereotype suddenly appear? When does the NYT let its guard down?

50 comments:

chuck said...

driving family-size S.U.V.s and generating a more suburban sensibility.

There goes the neighborhood.

phantommut said...

Breeders. Rich or poor, they're just not with the program.

Ann Althouse said...

The city isn't for children. That's what the best people think.

buwaya said...

The only argument wealthy white people have against breeding is that it will get in the way of their vain status seeking and luxuries.
The simple answer here is that those concerns are sinful.

The Bergall said...

And the City paid for this?

JackWayne said...

Annals of Blue State victories. Blacks down and white Democrats up. Who woulda thunk it?

MayBee said...

That ad is super creepy.

Michael said...

The sensibilities of the Times, and presumably the affluent, educated women for whom it is written, have become simply preposterous. In the first place it was leftist Margaret Sanger types who worried about the proliferation of the lower orders and promoted birth control and abortion to prevent it. And secondly, people having more children means people are more optimistic and concerned about something beyond their own sweet selves and whether they can "have it all." Men and women. Nothing would do more to solve the country's problems than a rebirth of strong family feeling among men and women of all groups and classes.

JPS said...

"For decades there were factions on the right worried about poor minorities 'overbreeding' and taxing the city’s resources."

Really?

Which factions? Who spoke for them? Who used the term "overbreeding," since you [the journalist] put it in quotation marks?

Factions within the political juggernaut that is the right in New York City, or the right outside New York City was feeling especially concerned about the city's resources?

Not saying no one on the right would have said this, but it sounds more like the kind of position liberals attribute to their opponents, particularly when they're uncomfortable finding it in their own ranks. Overpopulation is generally something the left worries about.

Shouting Thomas said...

Everybody could take up butt fucking, Bishop... which is pretty much what happened.

Your religion gains new adherents daily!

Of course, the Religion of Butt Fucking ignited the AIDS epidemic (a subject that you strangely avoid), which killed tens of millions.

You're responding to this slight problem with the ridiculous and laughable institution of "gay marriage," in the vain hope that gay men will stop fucking themselves to death.

You are basically a brain in a jar, Bishop. You should not try to deal with issues that involve the corporeal world. That is beyond your ken. Your brain in a jar existence renders you competent only for abstract ideals.

retired said...

If only the 1% preached what they practiced.
A paraphrase of Charles Murray.

rcocean said...

What "Fractions on the right" live in NYC and care about minority birth rates in same being too high?

My guess is about 7 people.

Meanwhile, the "fractions on the Left" in NYC who care about there too many White Babies is probably about 70,000.

rcocean said...

Reminds me of Paul Ehrlich a leftist who wrote the 1968 bestseller "The Population Bomb". In it he claimed to be upset at there being too many people in the USA.

Later, in the 1980s he clarified that the problem was too many WHITE people, 'cause you can never have too many immigrants and people of color. When they vote Democrat.

YoungHegelian said...

That ad's way too wordy.

Shorter & pithier version:

Girl! Baby-daddy ain't gonna stick around, nuh-uh

It's easier to read as the bus or taxi whizzes by, too.

Be said...

Am assuming similar in France, due to the alloc's familliales.

Paul Ciotti said...

Rcocean, I heard Paul Ehrlich give a talk in the early seventies at UC Berkeley in which he said that things were getting so bad so fast that "I'm not sure I want to be alive in another ten years." This would seem to imply that Ehrlich was planning to slip his mortal coil sometime in the eighties. Silly me. I missed his obituary.

madAsHell said...

Breeders. Rich or poor, they're just not with the program.

Having a couple of kids is the best thing I ever did, but thanks for opting out....and here's your Darwin award.

Michael K said...

"Having a couple of kids is the best thing I ever did"

I have five and just had lunch with one of them.

David said...

20 million black abortions since Roe and counting.

Just what does this have to do with the rise of single parent families, especially in the black community?

Answer: a lot.

RecChief said...

those factions concerned about overbreeding of the lower classes were liberals who vote Democrat Party. And give to Planned Parenthood. Margaret Sanger was concerned about the overbreeding of blacks for example.

Achilles said...

"The city’s birthrate is steadily declining, but not among the affluent, and that rise is changing the feel of the city."

Eugenics just changed names. Still use the same language, same methods, and same results.

Mel said...

Hmm..these people need more real friends. I have four kids, 3 bedrooms, have been married for 23 years. A weekend nanny would cost a fortune and I live in a small town. Better to send them to spend a weekend with friends and then return the favor when their parents need a weekend away.

rcocean said...

"Silly me. I missed his obituary."

I heard him on the radio in the 80s and he was hale and hearty. The population problem had been solved, the white birth rate was way down.
He also said we should never restrict immigration, just achieve ZPG by reducing the white birth rate even further. LoL!

Anonymous said...

The "factions on the right" line is exactly the reverse of reality. Can anyone say "Ruth Bader Ginsburg"?

Sebastian said...

"anti-birth propaganda"

Or anti-single-teenager-birth propaganda?

Overbreeding is a lefty meme.

From Sanger to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After all, at the time of Roe, "there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of."

JackWayne said...

More annals of Blue State victories: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/01/aspens-smuggler-mountain-is-full-of-dog-poop-and-it-stinks/

madAsHell said...

I have five and just had lunch with one of them.

We didn't think we had the resources for five.
We were wrong.
You are blessed.

n.n said...

A wicked solution to a "wicked problem".

n.n said...

Whether it is procreation or immigration, the concern should be assimilation and integration. If there is an overpopulation problem, then it is due to excessive or unmeasured (i.e. illegal) immigration, social policies that promote converged migration and marginal resource use, and economic policies that impoverish middle and lower class Americans. It is not native reproduction, where 1 in 6 human lives conceived are aborted.

cold pizza said...

Shorter ad: #BlackLivesMatterUnlessThey'reFetuses. -CP

Kevin said...

The next NYC ad campaign:

"Mom! I'd much rather be aborted than be born into a single-parent family!

Take care of it, please!"

chickelit said...

driving family-size S.U.V.s and generating a more suburban sensibility.

That kind of talk reminds me of the heartless bitch profiled by the NYC years ago who aborted two of her triplets because she'd have "to start shopping at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise."

Mama Cass would have had those triplets

Christopher said...

Abortion within the US was originally, and really still is, just a part of the wider eugenics movement that people like to pretend stopped after WWII.

Deirdre Mundy said...

We have 6-- other than food, more kids don't seem to consume more resources.

And they're a fun, interesting crowd.

I assume at least one of them will grow up to break my heart, but for now, they're all awesome.

Ambrose said...

I don't think NYC has ever relied on native births. People move to NYC from elsewhere - every day.

chillblaine said...

Planned Parenthood: We Curate The Worthy & Cull The Innocent Unlucky.

Plucked from Twitter user @fowlerradio.

Saint Croix said...

At the time of Roe 11% of births were to single moms. Now over 40% of births are to single moms. The Supreme Court's goal was to get rid of the single moms, particularly poor moms.

You would think liberals would notice that they have not achieved this goal. In fact abortion-on-demand seems to have made the situation far worse. Perhaps because fathers no longer feel any obligation to be fathers. It's your body, it's your choice. Putting woman at the center of human reproduction--the decider--has had a really bad effect on fatherhood. And on motherhood. And on babies. Defining the baby as an object, not only paves the way for infanticide, but it shrinks any duty we might feel to the child we have created (or to the mother we have impregnated).

I once told a roomful of attorneys that when we have sex, we should have love in our hearts. They all laughed at me.

jr565 said...

Liberals have destroyed the family through deconstruction. and the black community through deconstruction. And have made our future generation possibility seem suspect. All by redefining norms.
Good to know that christians are still being fruitful and multiplying as otherwise there won't be anyone to around to pay for my social security.

n.n said...

A civilization with leaders who claim an unprecedented intelligence and empathy should be able to reconcile individual dignity and intrinsic value without denying both and simultaneously sponsoring corruption of civil and private institutions.

Perhaps progressive corruption concluding with a dysfunctional convergence is simply inevitable with the establishment of monopolies and redistribution of opiates to suppress the people's response.

n.n said...

Saint Croix:

The Supreme Court's goal was to get rid of the single moms

So their solution was to legalize elective abortion, followed by promotion to make it affordable, available, and acceptable. A wicked solution to a "wicked problem".

Freeman Hunt said...

I am amazed that someone has gotten away with that ad, a racist ad promoting eugenics. Yow! Who approved it?

chickelit said...

That kind of talk reminds me of the heartless bitch profiled by the NYC years ago who aborted two of her triplets because she'd have 'to start shopping at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise.'

If anybody needs a link, they can email me privately.

Mark said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mark said...

"For decades there were factions on the right worried about poor minorities “overbreeding” and taxing the city’s resources."

I know others have commented on this one line, but I have to do so too. That line is such unmitigated horse sh*t. The only factions that worry about poor minorities "overbreeding" are the liberals. My best liberal friends tut tut at me about my being pro-life and assure me they really want what's best for the poor young women they "serve" via Planned Parenthood. Pro-lifers welcome all life and understand the implications of their positions. Pro-lifers run crisis pregnancy centers throughout the country to serve women in trouble (and their babies) - regardless of race or creed. Could pro-lifers do more to put their money where their mouths are? Of course--as can anyone of principle.

But it's not those on the "right" who worry about "overbreeding." The NY Times editors are shameless.

Hopefully an article like this helps the honest pro-choicers - those who can think critically and don't just parrot the politically correct lines -- see that in fact the pro-choice position is morally bankrupt.

clint said...

And the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy just keeps getting larger.

Even Planned Parenthood is now a part of it.

Mark Caplan said...

It takes a multitude of overburdened taxpayers to raise a simpleminded teen's illegitimate child; hence, the ad.

Rocco said...

From the leftist point of view, this is a good thing. The Gini coefficient will decrease with the next generation. The wealth will be spread out more instead of concentrated in the hands of a few.

That's assuming the affluent will divide their estate equally among their kids instead of a single heir getting it all.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Is the ad trying to get women to stop breeding with black men? All women, or just white women?

79 said...

The most dangerous time in any person's life is the 9 months spent inside his mother's womb. Fact: children under the age of 2 killed by firearms in the US in 2010; 24...abortions in 2010, 765,651....but let's ban guns...for the children

gerry said...

Progresives have been trying to kill off "undesirable" populations for a long time.

I guess they are succeeding, finally.