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
33.2—March/April 2020
Christian Pro-Family Governments?
Old & New Lessons from Europe by Allan C. Carlson
23.1—January/February 2010
It’s Bent on Bringing Down the House on the Family & the Church by Douglas Farrow
32.1—January/February 2019
on Down Syndrome & the Lives That Matter by David F. Watson
more from the online archives
32.2—March/April 2019
on Properly Rendering Things to Caesar & to God by Peter J. Leithart
37.5—Sept/Oct 2024
The Death of Conservatism & the Negative World by J. Douglas Johnson
21.10—December 2008
Early Christian Teaching on the Incarnation & Redemption by Patrick Henry Reardon
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