Lithuania has always managed. Can it succeed this time as well? It can, if we believe that this is a matter for all of us, not just politicians. There have been several stages in Lithuania’s history that threatened to destroy our language, identity, culture, and independence. There has always been will and power in the nation to survive. This time we are again at a crossroads. Where the choices are only two. Whichever we choose, we must understand its consequences and the price we will have to pay for that choice.
The first is to let everything happen naturally. That is, to do nothing. Simply accept that society has changed so much that children are no longer a necessity or a life priority. They are not needed to give meaning to life or to ensure the survival of the nation. And we reconcile ourselves with the fact that today it is more important for us to realize ourselves, to be successful in our careers. Gradually, we will see regions disappearing, schools closing further, growing loneliness among people, almost all sectors will continue to complain about the lack of workers, and very soon the shortage will tragically affect higher education institutions as well.
There will be a shortage of people to perform essential state functions. There will be a shortage of teachers, doctors, police officers, firefighters. We will not be able to blame anyone for their shortage. It will be a consciously made decision by ourselves. We will have already said that they are not needed. Over time, the pension system, which is so familiar to us, will also disappear. Having chosen the principle “each for themselves and alone,” we will have to accept that a phenomenon like a pension will cease to exist because there will be no one to pay it. We will have to accumulate or save it ourselves, as the taxes paid by the remaining young working taxpayers will hardly be enough for other needs.
You might say that artificial intelligence and robots will do everything, and we will only have to enjoy. That is very possible. And it is also very possible that the reality depicted in the movie “The Matrix” will come very close to ours, where brain implants generating virtual reality images and a cocktail supporting biological functions will be enough for us to happily end our existence. Perhaps even in that death capsule created by a Swiss.
Gradually, Lithuanians will disappear. The land watered and defended with blood so many times will certainly not stand empty. Our wonderful land was, is, and will be attractive to people who today can no longer live there due to heat, water shortages, regimes, wars, etc. We will become rare natives in our land, just as the natives of Australia or America are now.
Well, maybe that is too fantastic, but admit that we are gradually approaching it.
The second choice really requires a kind of miracle. The determination to survive. The truth is that hardly anyone has managed to create it, and the total fertility rate is decreasing throughout Europe. But that does not mean it is not worth trying. Many have said that the development of our independent state’s history is a kind of miracle. So we can, when we want and understand the necessity. Do we understand the necessity today?
In political speeches, it is finally possible to state the emerging awareness of necessity. Even political forces that have pursued anti-natalist and family-hostile policies for decades have begun to realize the necessity to survive. However, a long way has been traveled. A good life has spoiled us so much that any difficulty, any, even temporary renunciation of usual pleasant comfortable things has become unacceptable to us. The concept of family is being washed out under the guise of modernity and human rights, trying to say that family is essentially anything.
In school textbooks, children are still hammered with statements that there are too many people on Earth, they cannot be fed, so by not having children, we behave very responsibly. Cultural gender wars continue to be swung, trying to portray the coexistence of men and women as impossible because the former are depicted as incorrigible abusers, and the shared home becomes “the most dangerous place for women.”
In such a context, who would want to create any relationships and think about raising new life? It is increasingly heard that there are no men with whom relationships could be built, so both women and men should raise children alone. And this is only a small part of the complex cultural, social, and psychological factors that form a negative attitude towards having children. Not to mention the feeling of insecurity and the current issues of a changing world.
The truth is that to agree on something with someone, we must create the conditions for an agreement.
First, agree on which of the paths I have named we choose. If we still choose not to slowly disappear but to willfully survive, then apparently a national demographic renewal strategy would have to be created at least until 2050. Can politicians with different views agree on this? Yes, if they perceive it as a survival issue. We have been proposing to solve this problem for several years. I am glad to see that others are beginning to understand the relevance of this topic. And this time we must talk not only about the issues of large families, as they are becoming a disappearing phenomenon, but about solving the problem of childlessness. Special attention should be paid to the first child and the creation of young families.
Relatively inexpensively at the state level, young families can be helped and motivated by implementing a family housing program that creates conditions for young families to acquire their first home, ensuring guaranteed access to childcare services, strengthening families’ financial security in the tax system, recognizing the costs of raising children, which we have already proposed in the Seimas, and promoting more flexible work and family reconciliation. The family must again be romanticized, valued, and privileged. Such a family where children are born and raised.
If we plan to survive, we must agree to press the pause button and create a kind of demographic infrastructure reserve in the regions, solving the chicken and egg question when it is explained that nothing is needed anymore because there are no people. The destruction of infrastructure and services eliminates the last hope that they will appear there. Therefore, that hope must be preserved. In the regions, the education, healthcare, culture, transport, and other systems can no longer be destroyed under the guise of cost-benefit analyses.
There are many things in life that we do willfully, understanding that they are necessary for the normal functioning of a person and society. We do them even though we have to try. We learn, study, go to work, serve in the army, etc. Everything requires effort, but we understand the need and meaning of it.
Does our survival seem important and meaningful to us? If so, our thinking must change to one that is dedicated to this goal, not to constant excuses why we cannot achieve it.
