Since watching Demographic Winter, I have felt compelled to write something that has been on my heart/ in the back of my mind for years. For several weeks now in my “free time” I have been chipping away at what will hopefully be a detailed, balanced article on the way Western Christians & Western culture look at children & prosperity vs what the Bible teaches & what Western culture/ strong economies are built on.
Then, last week, I saw this article by Doug Phillips : The Return of the Child Catcher of Vulgaria. Which echoed & expanded on the ideas of an earlier piece that James McDonald had written for the Family Reformation blog. This is a good preview of where my thoughts are going with this piece.
Phillips begins :
Aha! They are here somewhere, I can feel it in my bones. There are children here, somewhere. This nose of mine has never failed me. And if there are children here my friend, you will die. . . . ha, ha, ha, ha!
I remember the first time I heard these words as a little boy. They came from one of the creepiest bad-guys ever to grace the silver screen — the famous Child Catcher of Vulgaria from the family classic, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Vulgaria was a land for the self-indulgent. It was a place where adults could freely roam, unencumbered by the annoyance and burden of children. The leaders of Vulgaria had grown so comfortable in their anti-child policies that the very sight of children — the very mention of them — could incite furor, rage, and terror with the governing elite.
That is why the Child Catcher was such an important figure in their society. With his net, hook, crooked black hat, odd funeral clothing, and protruding snozzola, he was the stuff of nightmares. As the principal henchman of the corpulent monarch Baron Bomburst, the pale and spindly child catcher had one simple mission — to locate and expose excess children lurking in the country.
Thankfully, you and I will never have to meet such a character. Right?
Welcome to the newly-formed “United States of Vulgaria.” All are welcome — except Christian, homeschool families with a “quiverfull” of children. Here politicians seek to fix their runaway spending policies by banning babies; television personalities gasp at the sight of “too many” children; and journalists target fruitful mothers for public ridicule and censure.
Read the rest –
And, from James McDonald’s article entitled “The Economy is Crashing Because of Children?” (it was prompted by an interview that George Stephaopoulos did with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the Stimulus Bill & her claim that funding “family planning” would actually stimulate the economy because children are an economic burden) :
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
As I watched this, I was reminded of the fictional Baron Bomburst, dictatorial ruler of the small country Vulgaria in the classic children’s movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. As you may remember, the childish Baron Bomburst and his selfish wife despise children. They actually employ the Child Catcher to collect and exterminate children. You may remember one of his memorable quotes, “There are children here somewhere. I can smell them.”
And if you want more to wet your whistle, please see a couple of old pieces from this blog :
