America’s Kid Problem

Waging War on Vulgaria

By guest author Jack Wilkie from Church Reset.

Welcome to Vulgaria.

In the 1968 musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Dick Van Dyke’s lead Caractacus Potts spins a tale of a fantastical land called Vulgaria, a land that shares some rather odd resemblances to modern-day America.

In Vulgaria, children are forbidden at the behest of Baroness Bomburst, a vain woman who is horrified by the thought of little ones. Still, there are plenty of children’s toys to be found, because Baron Bomburst is a man-child who collects them all for himself.

To top it all off, any child who is seen is captured by the Child Catcher. This terrifying man lures them out with bright colors and the promise of candy, only to whisk them away to be locked up in the Baron’s dungeon. (By pure coincidence, I’m sure, the Child Catcher was played by a gay man.)

Leaving the fictional land of Vulgaria for a minute, we find ourselves in… well, real-life Vulgaria.

Our women are afraid of children and don’t want to have them, and our grown men would rather spend their time and money on toy collections, sports memorabilia, and the latest superhero movies than father kids of their own. Our culture is drowning in Bombursts. And just as with Vulgaria, the Bombursts’ personal preferences have driven children out of view.

The old wisdom was that children were to be seen and not heard. Now they’re not even supposed to be seen.

Try taking the kids on a road trip across the country and finding a fast food chain with a play area. Twenty years ago every McDonald’s had one, inside of a garishly-colored building, surrounded by marketing aimed at children. Now every jungle gym has been ripped out and replaced with the greige designs of a crappy coffee shop. Even the Christian family favorite Chick-fil-A has systematically phased out their kids’ areas.

We’re now also normalizing child-free weddings. Yes, the wedding has been a community event since time immemorial, and the presence of kids serves as a reminder of the cycles of life. But a buck goes a lot farther if we don’t have to seat and feed extra-small mouths on the big day, and we can enjoy it more if they aren’t around. So, get a babysitter, Mom and Dad.

Gone also are the days of Sandlot. If the kids are going to play ball, it’s not going to be at the park down the street with their neighborhood pals. Rather, it’s going to be in a league that costs hundreds of dollars so the parents can get a few pics for Instagram. If we’re going to do it, we had better make it worth the adults’ while, right?

Even churches have given in to this thinking, with many congregations sending the children to another room for worship and creating a mini-church within a church, known as the youth group. Mom and Dad bring the family on Sunday and then don’t see their kids until it’s time to leave. The members gather for worship with no kids in sight. “Let the little children go to the childcare volunteers,” as Jesus must have said somewhere.

Consider also any entertainment aimed at families with children. Every Millennial likely remembers the hype around the SNES, then the Nintendo64 and PlayStation, then the PS2, Xbox, GameCube, Wii, and so forth. But as the Millennials grew up, they took the games and consoles with them, creating “eSports” and filling the most popular games with profanity and/or lewd content. Even the arcade has given way to the barcade, establishments where grown men and women can play Pac-Man and Galaga while knocking back a few drinks.

Remember the dozens of family movies that used to be on the theater marquee each year? Now, good luck choosing between the impossibly dumbed-down 38th Minion movie or Millennial nostalgia bait disguised as a kids’ movie.

While leftists have long ignorantly quipped that they wish women would have the same rights as guns, as a parent it won’t be long before I’ll wish my kids would have the same cultural acceptance as people’s ever-present “fur babies.”

We have to face it: our culture neither knows what to do with kids, nor cares.

Much has been made of the coming tsunami of consequences of our declining birth rate, and every bit of it is valid. But at this point, even when we do have kids we don’t know what to do with them.

As kids are shoved out of the cultural picture, it creates a vicious cycle in which there is no place for kids, which means we don’t think about or value kids, which means we don’t have kids, which means we stop creating spaces for kids, and so forth. Vulgaria must be defeated.

On the other hand, a return to the ’80s and ’90s view of kids won’t do, either. Billions of dollars were made when companies realized they could market to kids who would get their parents to buy whatever the TV said was the next big thing. Then those kids grew up and started buying those things for themselves. After the world revolved around them for their entire childhoods, they haven’t wanted to give it up after entering adulthood. There must be a place for kids in society, but it can’t be at the center.

The broad-scale changes can only come slowly, and there’s not much we can do to impact them right now. You and I can’t make Hollywood invest in more family-friendly entertainment, or force McDonald’s to build more PlayPlaces.

But there are some things we can do.

Do not participate in kid-slamming.

Scripture tells us that children are a heritage from the Lord (Psalms 127:3). To hear some people tell it, though, it’s exactly the opposite. Just observe the memes your teacher friends post in June about being free from the kids. Then take note of the memes your parent friends post in August about handing their kids back. It’s blindingly clear that nobody wants to be around these kids.

So, be the person to break that chain. When others start complaining about their kids, turn it around. Talk about how great it is to be a parent. Tell your single and (intentionally) childless friends about how much of a blessing kids are. Instead of talking about all the ways they inconvenience you, talk about all the ways they’ve made you a happier, more responsible, better person.

Make a place in your social life for your kids.

Sure, getting a babysitter to keep the kids from time to time is a boost to any marriage. Don’t be in the habit of excluding your kids from your social life. Decline invitations to kid-free weddings. Keep count of how many times you drop off the kids with Grandma and Grandpa before a vacation or a fun night out, and make sure your kids aren’t being placed solely in your life’s “duty” box with no place in the “fun” box. Find other families to spend time with, and make time for older folks from church or the neighborhood who appreciate children and are happy to see a big family walk through the door.

Keep your kids in church with you.

If you go to a church that sends the kids away during worship, politely decline. Keep your children in decent behavior, of course, but don’t banish them to a kids’ room. A culture that won’t even keep kids around when assembling before God won’t want kids around anywhere else, either.

There are, of course, many other ways to reemphasize the importance of children by making room for them. These are just a few small ways we can begin to turn the tide. Our nation was founded by men who were caring for their posterity. Now it’s run by people who don’t even want a posterity.

If we are to achieve great things, it once again will be done by men who want to make a better world for their children, and this means we must refuse to accept a culture that has shoved children underground. Vulgaria must be invaded. The Bombursts must be defeated.