"Marriage and childbearing belong to the domain of the spirit, the rational part of the rational animal. Marriage and kids are choices we make. They have to be chosen because we are reasoning beings. The reasons to do them have to be weightier than the reasons not to do them. And there are many reasons not to do them. Marriage and kids are hard to do. You give up a lot. But what do you gain?"
Dr. Catherine Pakaluk, social scientist and economics professor at the Catholic University of America gave a BYU Forum address on the societal and spiritual need to raise children, even in a culture which increasingly prioritizes personal autonomy over child rearing.