Why Have Children? A Panel Discussion

Join me in person or live stream on Saturday, February 15 at the New York Encounter

Dear Friends,

As part of the annual cultural event called the New York Encounter, I’m honored to moderate a panel discussion at 2 pm this Saturday, February 15th, 2025, on the question: Why Have Children? You can join in person or via live-stream. All the videos will be shared afterwards on the New York Encounter’s YouTube Channel.

On this panel, two esteemed scholars, Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia and Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, will share research and insights into what caused the global shrinking of population. Some questions I hope we ponder include:

• Is this demographic drop-off a real problem when overpopulation has been presented for years as a real threat to our future? What are the most predictable consequences for society? What might be the main causes and most adequate remedies?

• What does the lack of desire for children/family say about the loss of human desire to start again, to begin anew with a new generation of people? How, practically speaking, do people thrive when forming a family is not the expected pathway to adulthood?

  

The New York Encounter is a unique opportunity for thousands of people from across America to ponder what binds us, where we come from, and where we are headed. I’ve previously had the honor to moderate panels at the New York Encounter on topics ranging from suicide to motherhood.

Inspiring by the writings and life of Monsignor Luigi Giussani, an Italian Catholic priest and founder of the lay movement Communion and Liberation, every exhibit, presentation and discussion at the New York Encounter aims to go to the heart of human experience. I teach Giussani’s book The Risk of Education every year, where he explores how humans fundamentally desire meaning and belonging. We fashion our identity through an adventurous journey where we encounter mystery and the infinite. But too often, we rob people of tradition.

As Giussani writes in the Risk of Education, “it is bitter to hear that this disorientation is intentionally provoked on purely methodological grounds, and even considered to be a crucial rite of passage, because people do not realize (or do not want to recognize) that simply being tossed into the fray inevitably produces skepticism in a young person . . . skepticism is absolutely not a rite of passage.”

Please join me for this unique event where today’s challenges and opportunities are discussed frankly and with faith and hope.

Sincerely,

Margarita Mooney Clayton