Let me share a favorite story about the town where I live and the church that has been my home for 37 years.
Formerly based on granite quarries, many of the townspeople’s lives revolved around the work at those quarries. Every Monday through Saturday, a steam whistle blew at 6 a.m. that could be heard throughout the region.
The whistle was intended to awaken the workers to let them know that the shift would start in an hour. Time to get up, eat breakfast and get walking toward the quarry.
One rowdy night, a group of partying townspeople moved a large obstacle to the train tracks that run through town. The rail yard is near the quarries. When the train engineer saw the obstacle while pulling onto the main line at 5 a.m., the engineer blasted his train whistle to alert the rail attendants to remove the obstacle.
Naturally many in the town were awakened. When they looked at the clock and saw they had another hour to sleep. Many chose another activity until the quarry whistle blew. It wasn’t worth trying to sleep another hour.
The story was laughed off about the obstacle and mostly forgotten.
A few months later the local doctor noticed something curious. A dozen or so townswomen seemed to have simultaneous pregnancies. A few months later he determined they pregnant women shared almost identical due dates by his calculations.
Then within the same week, nine months after the train whistle incident, he was running to deliver a dozen local babies. That cohort of children in the town became known as the “train whistle babies.” All through their upbringing, schooling, military service and adulthood, they shared the same birth week window with each other.
Many commentators, including myself, expected this past pandemic season to be a whistle blast for families. With many couples and families homebound for much of the early months, an outburst of births was projected.
Why? Well, to say it nicely, the guesses were that people were going to be home with no place to go and nature would take its course.
I saw a prominent pastor and his spouse on a video to their congregation also projecting that same idea early in the pandemic with the encouragement: “We are going to see lots of babies born next spring so let’s get ready for kid’s expansion.”
It was not an unreasonable expectation.
But it hasn’t happened. And doesn’t look like it will.
Brookings, a DC based think tank, has a good summary here. Their current projection is about 300,000 fewer US births this year due to pandemic and recessionary impacts. The number could go as high as 500,000 fewer births than expected.
To give a comparison number. In 2010 there were about 4 million US births, 2018 around 3.79 million with the gross number dropping each year.
The expectation is that the number could be a half million births lower. In round figures a drop of 11-13% across the US in a very broad base of communities.
That sounds small when thinking of percentages, but is rather a large change when thinking of absolute number.
The current projection is based on surveys of women of child bearing age as well as doctors reporting pregnancies.
On the good news front, the year I was born, 1961, the infant mortality rate was around 25 deaths per 1000 births. (remember rate is a ratio) Today that number is close to 5 per 1000.
Admittedly for some races and communities the rate is higher. The rate above is across the whole of the US births. The mix of race and communities has also changed though in the 60 years since I was born.
Additionally, maternal death during childbirth has become much rarer, though still a risk.
Just to be clear – Rate is a measure that compares a number with either 1000 or even 100,000. Gross number is the actual number.
The birth number has been fairly steady. But as population increases, unless births keep up with that same growth, the birth number declines in absolute terms.
This points out the different between a forecaster and a futurist
A forecaster takes current data trends and projects the logical results. A futurist takes a slew of data, weak signals and impressions and then predicts what could happen.
Forecasters are often more accurate than futurists, especially in the short term.
The pastor cited early had no data point other than people would be at home. They had a futurist hat on. So did I when I expected increased births starting about now!
The data today is more forecasting based on data.
What are the implications for these “missing births” especially for churches?
And could we see a bulge the next year (2022) which makes up for it? That is up in the air. Either way though, there are implications.
See those after the ad
Generis has some great FREE workshops being held every week from now until February 10th. The START STRONG series specifically targets larger church Senior Pastors and Executive Pastors.
Today – Jessica Bealer, (she of purple hair streak) on “What Can You Cut in Family Ministry in 2021.”
January 27 with Dave Ronne on Rethinking Your Online Worship Experience
February 3 with 5 Key Frameworks for Building Leaders – with Greg Ligon and your humble author.
And finishing February 10 with Jon Wright on Creating a Healthy Staff Culture.
A power hour every week at 1 p.m. Eastern but you must sign up to get the credentials to attend.
Implications:
For those in our churches and in our communities currently expecting a child, we should continue our outreach and extend our ministry. There is some space for real creativity there. Don’t let the other implications deter you. Future issues will address some of the ways on that front.
But also, if all other conditions were stable, our children’s numbers will potentially decline naturally. We should not expect the size of our grade level ministries to be equivalent to prior decades. Every community could look different here of course. In some exurban areas children’s ministries might be growing. But many existing suburbs will naturally have a decline in the pool of potentials. That is not to say that there are plenty of parents and children unconnected to faith and the church that should be reached. But the natural state will lead to adjusted expectations.
I have often seen leadership teams expect children’s ministries to always be growing even when the number of children is dropping in their community. Line up expectation with reality.
But it could correspond with a desire to take children’s discipleship to deeper levels. As I will explain in future issues, families with fewer children invest a lot of energy in those children.
In many communities this will impact local public schools with reduced number of classes at early grade levels unless the teacher/student ratios remain. If your church has a private school attached, expectations should also be set there.
The same can be said of employment in organizations, businesses, leagues that serve children and their parents. Fewer children mean things like less diapers sold, fewer enrollments in preschools, fewer sports league participants overall. With fewer involved, income for these areas could drop. If your church has a sports program, preschool that caters to this demographic, be advised.
This could have a marked impact on college enrollments 17-18 years from now. The ripple through all sorts of extracurricular clubs and sports will be felt. If college sports continue, (more on that in a coming newsletter), the competition could be great that year.
If this trend persists for several years, which it could, the above implications and more will be magnified across several years. My prediction is that the absolute number will have a multiyear dip for several years with resultant impact.
What implications do you think are important based on this exceptional one-year occurrence? I would love to hear your views.
The train whistle babies and their families composed a small cohort. From what I have been told, the tales of their journeys through school, scouts, involvements with various churches, and even through the military – their shared journey continued. It also drove some parents and teachers a bit crazy.
As the late Paul Harvey said…if you want the rest of the train whistle baby story, email me and I will share it with you. It is a fond memory from one of the funerals of the train whistle babies.
Great Things God Has Done Podcast
A great interview this week with David McQueen. You will be encouraged by listening.
Go like and subscribe today. And go back and listen to some of the prior episodes as you walk off those Christmas pounds!