So it's the macro micro, right? Where I think it's okay to go hard on this conversation on the macro, but be sensitive on the micro.

What's up, guys? Welcome to another five-minute fatherhood. So it's important if your ambition or your

desire calling is to build a large family, that could really impact where you choose to live. One of the things we

talked about before, but I thought I was reading an article in Christianity Today with Grace

Olmstead. And she said some things that I want to take on, Jeff. She said, throughout our

nation's history, people with tenuous financial situations still choose to get married

and have a lot of babies. So money doesn't explain everything. Instead, Stone writes,

our culture and its underlying ideals most determines people's childbearing decisions. Put

simply, he writes, there is robust empirical evidence that people learn fertility ideals from their parents

and immediate communities.

So our first point is that a lot of times people today are saying fertility rates are going

down because people are worried about money and whether or not they have enough money to raise

children.

Her point, though, is that if you compare that analysis with other cultures,

that doesn't really bear out. That culture and parents and communities have a much bigger impact

on people's decisions than finances. And she goes on to talk about this idea of community.

The difference was not financial, but it was the presence of a supportive, multi-generational community.

Even in the United States, she writes today, many communities that maintain strong family societal norms have this kind of modern village parenting style, whether it's immigrant communities in big cities or Mormons out west.

Stone wrote for the Institute for Family Studies last year.

Unsurprisingly, these groups tend to have higher fertility rates, perhaps in part,

because parents and especially women have more volunteer help on hand to assist them.

And so, guys, one of the things that we want you just to think about is if you have a desire

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