Rich Kids
on Wealth & the True Cost of Having Children
When it comes to natalism —meaning, having kids —a latent hostility to big families may be nearing its expiration date. We seem to be at an inflection point because two trend-lines are crossing: the advent of demographic winter and Baby Boomers retiring en masse.
A recent indicator is an op-ed in The Financial Times by fashion editor Elizabeth Paton, entitled “The ultimate status symbol? A big family,” published on August 24, 2025.
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C. R. Wiley is a pastor living in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of The Household and the War for the Cosmos and In the House of Tom Bombadil. He is also a co-host of The Theology Pugcast. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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more on family from the online archives
34.1—January/February 2021
Jesus' Astonishing Other Teaching on Marriage by James Ware
33.3—May/June 2020
Maternal Body: A Theology of Incarnation from the Christian East by Carrie Frederick Frost
Fertile Ground: A Pilgrimage Through Pregnancy by Laura S. Jansson by Agnes R. Howard
33.2—March/April 2020
Encounters with Faith & Forgiveness in Communities of Faith by Nicole M. King
more from the online archives
32.6—November/December 2019
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs by Jesse Russell
27.3—May/June 2014
Religious Freedom & Why It Matters
Working in the Spirit of John Leland by Robert P. George
31.5—September/October 2018
The Secular State Without the Decalogue by James M. Kushiner
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