Pope Francis likes countries like Indonesia where there are none of those childless cat ladies

Michael Cook
September 05, 2024 7 Reactions

Is Pope Francis a plagiarist? No sooner had he arrived in Indonesia on his marathon trip, he called out JD Vance’s “childless cat ladies”.

Well, not those precise words, but sitting next to President Joko Widodo in Jakarta, he praised Indonesia’s relatively high birth rate. "Keep it up, you're an example for everyone, for all the countries that maybe, and this might sound funny, (where) these families prefer to have a cat or a little dog instead of a child," he said.

Republican Veep hopeful Vance has been pilloried in the American media for his mockery of voluntary childlessness, but he said more or less what Pope Francis said. And to see the wisdom of encouraging large families, take a look at Indonesia’s greying neighbours. They are steeling themselves for demographic disaster.

Perhaps the notion of luxuriating in a life without kids works in Brooklyn or Hollywood or in the Beltway. There’s more leisure to check out the restaurants; to go on overseas holidays; to relax in wellness spas. There’s more money for buying shoes and health insurance. There’s no hassle about wiping noses and changing nappies (until you're 70+) . America is a country that is old but rich.

But for Indonesia and its neighbours, shrinking families mean that they will become old before they get rich.

This is happening across Asia – even in Indonesia, where the birth rate has fallen steadily from about 5.6 in 1960 to 2.2 in 2022. Here’s The Economist on Thailand:

In 2021 the share of Thais aged 65 or over hit 14%, a threshold that is often used to define an aged society. Soon Thailand will, like Japan, South Korea and most Western countries, see a dwindling supply of workers and, without extraordinary measures, flagging productivity and growth. Yet unlike Japan and the rest, Thailand, with a GDP per person of just $7,000 in 2021, is not a developed country. It has got old before it has got rich. When Japan had a similar portion of oldies, it was roughly five times richer than Thailand is today.

Other countries which are getting old before they grow rich include China, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. Elderly people in these societies must look upon their twilight years with foreboding. Those who have no children to support them will have to depend on charity or government support.

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Thailand, with a birth rate of 1.16 children per woman, far below the replacement level of 2.1, has become a super-ageing society. Traditionally, caring for aged parents has been a cornerstone of Thai society. This assumption is eroding rapidly. The Japan Times reported last year that “for many, retirement with dignity is a pipe dream”. According to the Kasikorn Bank, 34% of Thai elderly are living below the poverty line — making do on less than US$830 a year. Childless cat ladies in Bangkok might end up eating their cats.

In fact, The Japan Times described the dismal life of a poor widow who lives on 82 US cents a day. She depends on hand-outs for meals. "If it's too wet to come, I eat 7-Eleven bread with ketchup," she said.

The Pope has probably been hammering the global birth dearth for longer than JD Vance. In May he complained at a conference on demography that there are more pets than children in Italy:

There is no shortage of dogs and cats… These are not lacking. There is a shortage of children. The problem of our world is not the children who are born: it is selfishness, consumerism and individualism, which make people satiated, lonely and unhappy.

And he warned of a tsunami of loneliness sweeping across an ageing world:

Lonely grandparents. Rejected grandparents. This is cultural suicide. The future is made by the young and the elderly, together: courage and memory, together.

This is not fake news. This is not the Pope’s obsession. This is the truth. The World Health Organization recently set up a commission to study global loneliness. It says that isolation and loneliness are serious health risks. Kids are pricey, but aren’t they worth it if they help to ward off early death, anxiety, depression, suicide, dementia, heart attacks and strokes?

Perhaps nursing home robots will ease the pain of loneliness in a rich country like Japan. But not in Thailand. And probably not in the US either. I’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again: JD Vance is on to something with his childless cat ladies shtick.

Do you see evidence of a tsunami of loneliness?

Michael Cook is editor of Mercator

Image credit:  Pope Francis and Indonesian President Joko Widodo / screenshot Vatican News Service

 

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  • mrscracker
    Thank you for your comments Mr. Bunyan. I hadn’t actually thought about how the Pope is financially supported. I’d agree that his meals and lodging are covered. But I was thinking about the difficulty of his vocation as far as responsibility and decision making. Not just where his next meal was coming from.
    Most priests are on call 24/7. Their shift never really ends.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-09-07 08:27:54 +1000
    mrscracker, the Pope’s living expenses are paid for by the church. He won’t have to work 16-hour shifts just to put food on the table for his family.

    Life is much easier when you don’t need to worry about your next meal.
  • mrscracker
    Mr Bunyan , could you please explain in what ways being the head of the Catholic Church is an easy job ?
    Or how being a member of the clergy is? Thank you.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-09-06 14:43:52 +1000
    I don’t trust the Pope on issues of family and child-rearing. He chose to take an easy job where he doesn’t have to deal with the unpaid labor of raising children for 18 years.

    What a hypocrite.
  • Emberson Fedders
    commented 2024-09-06 11:15:45 +1000
    Of course, JD Vance has consistently voted against measures to help the pressures on families in America, so, as usual, his actions say one thing while his rhetoric (which, if nothing else, is just plain rude) says another.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-09-05 22:52:55 +1000
    Unfortunately the economics of child rearing have taken a turn for the worse in recent years, Michael. Were JD Vance serious about his concerns with fewer people having children, he would work to address the reasons as to why people aren’t having children. The US has one of the lowest paid family leaves amongst industrialized nations. The US is no longer the country from the 50s where it is possible to raise a family on a single income, in part due to corporate greed and higher housing costs. There is a litany of issues as to why people are choosing cats over children – more than just “not wanting children”

    It is worth noting your comparison to Pope Francis (big fan of his btw. The stories of him sneaking out at night to work in a soup kitchen to feed the hungry warm my heart and speak to his character). Americans for a while didn’t trust Catholics; that’s why JFK was the first Catholic president. There were concerns about the president being subservient to the pope. Just an interesting little tidbit.
  • Michael Cook
    published this page in The Latest 2024-09-05 21:57:03 +1000

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