Big Families, Wide Sidewalks, and Frogs, by Austin Ruse

By Austin Ruse, Crisis Magazine, May 3, 2024

Austin Ruse is a contributing editor to Crisis Magazine. He is president of the Center for Family and Human Rights in New York and Washington DC. He is the author of several books including, Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic (Crisis Publications)…..

Our nation is broken to a certain extent because of the dearth of babies. The nation could heal with more of them.

A baby was born to my daughter Gigi’s teacher in our parish Montessori school. The baby lived in the classroom for a few years. I don’t think that baby’s feet touched the ground for two full years. They kept a closely guarded list of the girls who got to carry her next.

In this part of Northern Virginia, we have large families all around us. It is lovely to see teen boys gathering around to cuddle a baby. Babies are healing for everyone, little girls and teen boys.

Catherine Pakaluk makes this point in her marvelous new book Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth (Regnery Gateway). The book tells the stories of women who have not one, not two, not three, or four children, but the small 5 percent of women in our country who have five or more children. Everyone knows this is very special and unusual. …

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