What Others Can Learn from Israel about Having Children

Ofir Haivry’s account of demographic trends in Israel is as heartening and uplifting as his picture of trends in the rest of the Western world is bleak and depressing. Inextricable from his argument about the meaning of Israel’s high fertility rates is his analysis of how the country’s cultural norms, which include a specifically Israeli style of parenting, may contribute to its fertility bonanza.

In pursuing this point, Haivry contrasts the situation in affluent cultures, where “the material and even the spiritual well-being of individuals is connected to the limit they place on the number of their children,” with the situation in more traditional societies where “large numbers of offspring [are regarded] as the single best measure of success and status.” Yet neither element in this binary juxtaposition quite accounts for most Jewish Israelis, whose family size continues to grow alongside the kind of Western drive that enables both parents and children to prosper in the modern world. Although Israeli parents marry later than they once did, are more educated than they once were, and continue to prioritize education and career advancement—all characteristics of affluent societies—they still continue to produce and to nurture sizable families.

The Israeli example thus invites a reconsideration of some settled assumptions about childrearing in the modern world. The American landscape is saturated with best-selling literature about ideal forms of parenting: French parenting, Danish parenting, Asian parenting, attachment parenting, free-range parenting, and more. One wonders whether an Israeli analogue is due, perhaps something along the lines of “How Israelis Remain Educationally Advanced and Psychologically Stable While Actually Exceeding the Fertility Replacement Rate.”