With more couples delaying marriage and children, it’s inevitable that children will come later, if they come at all. Of course, that’s the crux of the crisis facing the family. That’s why all this talk about over population is such utter nonsense. We’re not suffering from too many people. We’re suffering from too few.

Most families have running jokes, memories and moments talked about and discussed repeatedly across the years. They can bond us and help elicit happy recollections of days gone by.

My mother, whose been gone since 2012, loved to bring up something I said when I was just ten years old. She said it always tickled her. We were at church, milling about and talking with the pastor and some friends. The subject of age came up, and I apparently blurted out, “I never knew my mother when she was young!”

At the time, my mom was fifty, which is actually my age now. You can do the math. That means she had me when she was forty. Back in 1982, a half-century ago seemed ancient to me. It was the Great Depression – and nine years before the start of World War II. Thinking of my mother’s childhood and era, I may have even thought of those days in black-and-white. I wasn’t trying to be witty or sarcastic. It was just a matter of fact. From the lips of a child, so to speak.

I thought of that story this morning after seeing that just yesterday, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its annual report concerning births in America for 2021. This particular edition, published under the banner of “National Vital Statistics Reports – Volume 72, Number 1,” paints the picture regarding not just the numbers of births, but also maternal demographic and health characteristics, medical and health care utilization, source of payment for the delivery, and even infant health characteristics.

The main headline was that there were 3,664,292 births in the United States, an increase of 1% between 2020 and 2021.

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