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Written by Dwayne Robinson
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Thursday, 17 July 2008 |
Is America on the cusp of a new baby boom?
Maybe.
USA Today reports that there were a record number of babies born in the United States in 2007. The total was 4.3 million, the highest number since 1957, which was in heart of the last major baby boom.
Still, federal researchers are calling this more of a “boomlet” because the year-to-year percentage increase in births was just 3 percent.
Still, USA Today calls this a milestone. And it is.
One has to wonder, though, why are Americans getting so busy today.
Understandably, the last major baby boom happened after World War II. You had millions of soldiers returning home, happy to be alive and, yes, horny. Plus, the world just survived its most devastating conflict and near annihilation, so the natural inclination was to embrace life.
But what’s the explanation for today’s “boomlet?”
USA Today offers some suggestions like increasing Hispanic parents having more babies and more women in their 20s and 30s. Federal officials will know more in the fall, when they receive demographic data of who’s actually having the babies.
Why don’t the census counters look west, as in Hollywood? Face it, ‘Brangelina,’ Madonna & Co. have made it cool again to not just have kids but to have a brood.
The “baby bump” has become as stylish as a Marc Jacobs handbag. And actresses like Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie, who just added to her pride with Brad Pitt with twins, have shown millions of American women the way: That having a baby does not spell the end for their body or their beauty nor does it have to lead to a life of stretchy pants and stretch marks.
[USA TODAY]
Dwayne Robinson is TheSequitur.com's executive editor and a journalist in south Florida.  |
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