Just wait till you get older...

[muckefuck]

I've frequently wondered if the oft-noted trend of young people to get "more conservative" as they age was as universal as all that. Now at last some clear evidence that it isn't. It will be interesting to see what sociologists turn up as they go about investigating the causes. In particular, I'll be interested in seeing the role ascribed to childlessness (which is double for our generation what it was for our parents), since many people I know personally have identified this as a driver of returns to the fold. How many of us, on articulating our liberal views to our elders, have heard the words, "You'll feel different when you have kids." I didn't have kids and I don't feel different, but I'm not sure what connexion there might be between those two things, if any. It is worth noting, however, that of us four kids, the only one who's still a practicing Catholic is also the only one with any offspring.

An interesting side note on that: my generation was also the "most Catholic" in USA history, with a fully a third identified with the religion in the 70s. Now it's down to a quarter and still dropping, something conservative pundits are ascribing to "confusion" about what the RCC actually teaches as a result of Vatican II. Hate to break it to you, guys, but I know in pretty thorough detail what the RCC actually teaches and that's precisely why I could never again be a practicing Catholic.

Comments

[jovianconsensus.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I strongly suspect the decline in religious affiliation is related to childlessness, but which is the cause, and which the effect? Or they could both be caused by some common factor. Maybe this cohort doesn't trust in social institutions like religion because they felt like those institutions never came through for them: they never felt secure enough to have children.

Can I get a ruling on when Generation X ends? I was born in 1980 and am sometimes told that I'm part of it, sometimes not. This article defines it as ending in 1972, which seems very early. Surveying a narrower age band is the right choice here (don't want to mix in 30-somethings who are still having children), but why call it Generation X?

Of course, economic conservatism is dead among the elderly. The epitaph: "Keep your government hands off my Medicare."

[lhn.livejournal.com]

IIRC, Strauss and Howe had it as 1961-1981 in "Generations", so it would make sense that you'd be in the border regions. Ultimately, where the border is set may depend in part on what's used as the defining moment for the Millennials. Probably the role that either 9/11 or the Great Recession played in their early adulthood, if I had to guess. (There might be a provisional case for adult/not-adult on 9/11 as the divider, though I'm not sure if that should be 18, 21, or some other number.)

[mollyc-q.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder to what extent Roe v. Wade/wider availability of birth control, the feminist movement and Baby-Boomer divorce rates played in a greater percentage Gen Xer's going without having children. Among my friends, or people I knew in college who got married, children are the exception and not the rule. My best friend from high school and I are both childless and unmarried. Most of my women friends from college are also childless, and entirely by choice. Most of my women friends from grad school, similarly not having kids in their 20s or at all. I think it became more acceptable/expected that women would go to college and have careers however they manage the issue of children. It was culture shock to be in the South most people are married in their early 20s.

Mucke, correct me if I am wrong, but hadn't the methodical chipping away of Vatican II (under John Paul and Ratzinger), coupled to the revelations of financial and sexual abuse crises and the Vatican's reaction played a big role in the declining numbers? A few years back, I recall reading that were it not for immigration from Latin America, the population of Catholics in the U.S. would be even smaller.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I've yet to read a thoroughgoing sociological analysis of the increase in irreligion among baptized Catholics so I can't really speculate about causes. As ghastly as the revelations have been, they don't seem to have shaken the faith of the committed Catholics I know to the degree I might have expected; those who I know who have left seem to done so over irreconcilable differences with Church doctrine and policy (e.g. gay like me, divorced like my dad, etc.).

[mollyc-q.livejournal.com]

The irreconcilable differences seems to have led the exodus based on my recall of the lit, but its been years. My sister in law is the child of lapsed Catholics, I am not even sure what the trigger was for her parents- but it was a firm rejection of the RCC without being a rejection of religion in general, just organized religion. They (and my brother's in laws as a whole) have always been incredibly gracious about not only not objecting to all religious/cultural stuff, but participating as well. Almost all of the lapsed Catholics in my life have mindfully walked away from the church over a basic issue. A member of my committee stated (the sociologist), pre Roe v. Wade, that it was the merciless stance on abortion and the reality of illegal abortion that cause him to walk. Another pal, who is a sociologist, used to work for the Church in an administrative capacity out of college and was increasingly alienated by the more pronounced drift to the right by the Vatican - this from someone who grew up in Cardinal John Cody's Chicago, and was working for the Church under Bernadine.

Or, my guess is of the people who have left for variations on the same reason you and your father have, the abuse crises was just yet another point of recognizing you have even less inclination to go back to the RCC and seals the path.

I am curious as to what effect picking on American Nuns is going to have on the landscape. Most nuns are in their 60's. They outnumber priests in this country(by a just a few thousand, and over all numbers as you know have shrunk. Like so many other Christian groups - the RCC depends enormously on female labor, whatever the positioning of men in the hierarchy.

But to your larger point about younger generations opting not to have children, this appeared in this morning's Daily Beast.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/04/it-can-happen-here-europe-s-screwed-generation-and-america-s.html

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It's impossible to prove given the unreliability of the evidence, but I've always suspected that the percentage of homosexual clergy in the RCC has actually dropped over time due to the effect of the LGBT rights movement. I look back over all my own trajectory and strongly suspect that, had I been born a generation earlier, I might well have decided to go into the priesthood rather than marry a beard or attempt life as a "confirmed bachelor".

I am interested in the role of the catastrophic decline in vocations in all of this. They must be scraping the bottom of the talent pool these days, and that naturally increases the chances of further scandals, which further depresses the prestige of the occupation, making it even harder to recruit. And it makes the hierarchy more defensive, leading them to reiterate the indispensability of the clergy and further emphasise doctrinal purity over pastoral ministry. It's a vicious circle the RCC has got itself in and I really see no way out.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I have kids and I'm probably more socially "liberal" now than I ever have been. That said, a recent reunion with old friends made me realise that I'm probably quite an outlier in that group.
I've always been an atheist, pretty much from the first moment I gave the question any thought, so I can't help much on religious questions.