Mother’s Day has become an occasion to talk about fertility and freedoms

In online directories we only find: “Mother’s Day was introduced in Russia by presidential decree No. 120 of January 30, 1998.” There are no explanations for the November peg. Well, okay, the man, as they said then, “worked with the documents,” did the work on January 30 and signed the decree. But “in other countries” in terms of calendar references is no better: some “civil activists” made their way to the top, found lobbyists and… Some tied the holiday to their mother’s birthday, others to the very day of their “breaking through” into Congress.

If we liken the calendar to a target after shooting, the accepted holiday dates give a certain “accuracy” around the most affectionate month. Who celebrates Mother’s Day on May 8, and in Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, the USA, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Australia, Japan, Belgium, Brazil, Canada – it is the second Sunday in May. Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania – first Sunday in May. Greece – May 9, Poland – May 26. Sweden, France – last Sunday in May. Only Britain on its island – the first Sunday in March.

Without boring you with the enumeration, I will further dwell on a strange pattern, which you, of course, noticed. Mother’s Day is celebrated mainly in countries where motherhood itself is… well, not very good. The trend, of course, is not one hundred percent, but the prevailing pattern is that, sir. I deliberately rummaged through the reference books. In Arab countries, Mother’s Day is not celebrated everywhere. And in African countries, only South Africa and Egypt are noted (but they were counted under the Arabic article). The countries that generate the most rapid immigration flows to Europe, the USA, have not heard of this holiday. The thesis emerges: “They don’t celebrate Mother’s Day there. There’s no time to give birth to children.”

In the history of Russia, before Yeltsin’s decree of 1998, Mother’s Day was introduced in 1915, and as a kind of… scout holiday. If anyone suddenly finds time to dig around and find out the reasons for the connection between motherhood and Boy Scouts, please let me know. But you will have to wade through hundreds of pages offering “the best cards for Mother’s Day,” “organization of congratulations, concerts,” or even free ready-made “poetic congratulations to your dear mothers.” Probably convenient. I’ve seen greeting poems that are a couple of pages long; you can order them individually, even the size of the Iliad.

In general, you can order the writing of rhymed congratulations from a dozen companies, but… there is no one to “fuse” your own, sometimes not at all festive, thoughts and concerns. Think yourself.

You can’t isolate yourself from the problems of fertility by geographic (in Europe it’s just as bad as here) and chronological borders: citizens of the USSR also remember the “hinting” tacky posters and the unambiguous, without hints, “tax on childlessness” – 6% of salary. However, the date of its introduction – November 21, 1941 – drives away all irony, leaving only sorrow and understanding. Well, maybe another sad analogy: that Boy Scout Mother’s Day was established in the First World War, the childlessness tax was established in the Great Patriotic War.

All today’s measures to increase the birth rate evoke only gratitude from those who are not indifferent to the fate of the Fatherland. But they don’t remove the thoughts: there is a high birth rate in places where they didn’t even think it was possible to think about encouraging it. This is without any approximation: honoring Mother’s Day and motherhood are in strictly inverse proportion.

To the million all-Russian, worldwide ideas, rationalization proposals, bills, I will add only indirect notes about the connection between the number of children and civil liberties. I will propose a seemingly completely distant topic: credobaptism, the question of the time of infant baptism.

Our ancestors baptized newborns, usually 8–40 days old. In the USSR, of course, people were baptized more often among distant village relatives, when it could be hidden from prying eyes – especially in the case of parents with careers. The vacuum bomb that exploded in the late 1980s left huge voids in the way of life, mentality, and, for example, the topic of credobaptism was then decided upon under the dictation of various Protestant missionaries and televangelists. The argument was deadly simple. Freedom of conscience should also leave the child the freedom to choose religion. What can you object to here: Orthodox Christians baptize a helpless, unresponsive, two-week-old baby. Protestants (not all, but in the first waves the most spirited and, importantly, economically powerful ones came to us) baptize “only persons who have reached the age of responsibility and reason.” Those who delve into history will find the most ardent supporters of adult baptism: the Cathars, from whom a rope has long been stretched right up to the Freemasons.

But then we were more interested in modernity, “our (turning-point) days,” more than ancient stories. Catholics also baptize infants, but they, more respectful of canonical boundaries, did not meddle in the revived Orthodox fields. It was the “Protestant ethic,” recognized as the spiritual mother of capitalism and progress, that in our country firmly connected economic success and their interpretation of freedom of conscience. This affected children in a wide range. From the fight against the gray, “completely killing individuality” soviet school uniform (the uniform worn by Pushkin and generations of lyceum and gymnasium students was kept silent) to “conscious baptism.”

The connection to the title theme, like the Protestant argument, is simple. Enforced freedom of choice for children kills the freedom of choice of parents. After all, their choice to give birth/not to give birth is based on the most fundamental law, irrevocable even with the current abolition of genders: children are the genetic continuation of their parents. And if someone’s choice was to give birth, it means that the parents wished to continue themselves not only with chromosomes, but also with their entire spiritual essence.

Proof to the contrary. Try to imagine parents of faith/culture X, specifically giving birth to children for faith/culture Y. They themselves will move to this Y, but… consciously nurture a kind of “sleeping cell” within themselves? Such espionage is unimaginable even in modern times. Conclusion: they give birth to a continuation of themselves. Prohibiting or hindering this continuation reduces the incentive to bear children.

Note that I did not take the most screaming consequence of freedom of choice for children on all TV channels. These lectures and school dances by transvestites are just honestly bringing freedom to its logical consequence: the freedom to change your gender. It seems that the path to the current rainbow of freedoms began precisely with the freedom to choose faith, “responsible” baptism. The argument read yesterday in one of the forums, “Let him grow up and decide on his own baptism,” is not just the height of cretinism, but in general murder, replacing true freedom with stupid demagoguery.

Childfree – “militant childless people.” They have already directly linked “freedom” with an unwillingness to continue themselves.

The traditionalists compiled a dossier: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, two marriages, childless. Theresa May, Prime Minister of Great Britain, married 37 years, childless. Stefan Lofven, Prime Minister of Sweden, is childless. Paolo Gentilone, Prime Minister of Italy, 62 years old, childless. Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, 50 years old, single, childless. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, 64 years old, childless. Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, is childless (but there marriage is moving from “free” to “freak”).

In Russia, a bill banning the spread of childfree ideas among children has been introduced and is being defended by people and regions with healthy instincts.

The sage Chesterton said: “We have the right and must command children. If we started convincing, we would deprive them of their childhood.”