Sometimes, a person gets a reminder of what’s important in life.
Growing up outside Chicago, one of my morning joys was getting the local newspaper. I read Mike Royko whenever he put a column up. Over 30 years, he produced 7,500 articles, writing five days a week. Later in his career, he moved to four articles per week, and I was always disappointed to see “Mike Royko is off today” in the place where his column normally would be. Royko was a Chicagoan through and through and knew the ways of City Hall and the lives of the normal people in the city. He had his finger on the pulse of the city and always made for a good read.
During those days in the suburbs, a neighbor owned a beautiful Porsche. It seemed that every minute he was not busy with his job as an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company, he was washing, waxing, or otherwise preening over that car. I thought about his car and realized something. However much he loved that car and took care of it, if he and his wife were to wrap the car around a tree, the first words that would have come out of his mouth would have been, “Are you okay?” The car has its place; life has a more important status. I was at the local synagogue this morning when the phone rang at 5 o’clock. A call that early can only mean one of two things: really good news or the opposite. Our son called to say that our second grandson was born. I danced around, and the handful of others present figured that I must have lost it. We are incredibly grateful for this bundle of joy. We have a bit of a running joke in the family: since my grandfather was born in Germany in 1894 with a twin sister, we have had no girls in our linear family. My father was an only child; I have one brother, and we have boys, and, thank God, grandsons. 130 years without a girl. But we have been blessed with a wonderful daughter-in-law who makes for an amazing mother and wife.
Last week, we were all treated to a runner who used her baton to whack a competing runner in a relay race. The culprit has been criminally charged, though she claims that she had no real intent to cause the other woman’s concussion. From the video, it seems that she would have pulled out a pistol if she could have. Passing off the baton in sports and life has its importance. While all of us are engaged in our own personal activities and goal-achievement, there will come a time when they will retire our jerseys while we are still wearing them. At that point, the question will come up as to what we left behind. Many people can rightly claim to have made this world better through inventions or helping others. And all work contributing to our moving forward and living in a better world is something one can be proud of. My late father trained every single pharmacist in the state of Illinois. We couldn’t walk into a pharmacy without a former student calling him out. The question comes up: what happens after we are gone?
However much we would like to live forever, there may be a day when we spend our hours drooling from one side of our mouths while looking aimlessly out of a window. If we have been fortunate to leave children and grandchildren behind to continue making this world better, then our job does not end with us but rather continues. I am always amazed when I go into a liquor store and see whiskeys 12, 18, or 24 years old. If I made the stuff, I would leave it in the vat for an hour and then bottle and sell it. I have very little patience. But some things in life demand patience and playing the long game. One of those things is children. No one can deny that bringing up children includes financial, emotional, and oftentimes physical challenges. But there can be no greater joy than having those children not just take care of you when you get older but also continue the work that you either started or continued yourself. A rabbi once said on the passing of his mother that she used to say that her 500 offspring were her answer to Adolf Hitler. It is amazing to be around bigger families here in Jerusalem. One rabbi passed away, leaving 1,000 descendants. Two more babies were born during the funeral.
In the West, birth rates are low and getting lower. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are aware of the problem and have prioritized addressing it. President Trump has stated that he will do everything he can to make IVF more available and affordable for those needing it. If they and their colleagues can make life more affordable, ideally, more young couples will consider having children or additional children. I personally enjoy seeing Musk and others bring their kids to the White House. Life feels younger when there are young kids around. I still remember my Catholic friends from school having big families. The famous Italian scene of a big family with wine and Italian delicacies is long gone. Already years ago, I read that for every 30 grandchildren, there are 100 grandparents—a total inversion of what life was like fifty years ago. The decline in religiosity in the West and the growing rates of women in the professional world are probably the two biggest contributors to reduced fertility rates.
One has to be grateful for all of his or her blessings. We have our work in this world; part of it is preparing future generations to continue after we are already in the past tense. I saw the little fella briefly tonight, but both of us seemed too tired to have much of a conversation. If when Donald Trump leaves office, the US birthrate is back to over 2.1 per woman, he will have performed a great service not only for the United States but for mankind in general.