By John M. Grondelski

Population figures have lately come to be used in arguments connected with U.S. immigration policy. Some opponents of that policy accuse the Administration of importing a "replacement population." For them, that simply means politicians choosing their voters by bringing in immigrants they later provide with a "clear path to citizenship," and a Democratic voter registration card. For others, it means changing the demographic mix of "systematically racist" America by increasing representation from Third World countries.

Proponents of lax immigration policy, however, also employ population numbers. The American Chamber of Commerce has long pushed looser immigration with the claim that it will "boost economic growth" (and increase profits by paying lower wages), and that immigrants do jobs Americans won't.

Recently, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has thrown in the argument that, with an aging, top-heavy, inverted demographic pyramid, we need immigrants just to work (including caring for the old gringos) and, by extension, keep our social welfare system going by paying into it.

Even Pope Francis seems to have gotten into the act, telling Jesuits in Belgium on September 28 that importing a substitute population is how a childless Europe might survive: "Europe no longer has children, it is aging. It needs migrants to renew its life. It has now become a question of survival."

This makes me want to ask: Is parenthood among the "jobs" immigrants will do that Americans won't?

Republican nominee J.D. Vance has been criticized for observations he's made about childlessness and, while they have a polemical edge, their core remains valid: having babies - a social ideal, maybe even an expectation once thought natural and normal - is now deemed "weird."

U.S. population trends are below replacement level and have been for a while. It would have been even lower but for Hispanic women having babies. But even there, fertility is falling. Still, if anybody is having babies (other than traditional Catholics), it's immigrants.

Psychologist Erik Erikson identified "generativity" as one of the highest of his stages of psychosocial development. Those stages involve progressive exit from egocentricity towards other persons (and, in that respect, are highly Christian). Generativity differs from its preceding stage of intimacy. While intimacy takes responsibility for someone who is one's peer, generativity involves responsibility for another for whose very existence one is responsible.

For Erikson, these stages are not mere "choices." They are normal stages in human psychosocial development - or decline.

Yet, in our elite culture, marriage is increasingly deferred (or replaced by ersatz substitutes) while parenthood - hitherto a natural follow-on of marriage - has now become an Everest to conquer. And with the replacement of the idea of parenthood as a gift by that of parenthood as a choice, maternity and paternity are seen less as normal adult vocations and more as "jobs" whose appeal - like mowing lawns or caring for the elderly - finds fewer American takers.

Various commentators have noted the "job-ification" of American culture. We prepare kids from preschool for the "right" paths that will lead to the "right" jobs twenty-some years down the line. We plot schools, coursework, internships, and extracurricular participation to line up Junior for the "ideal" job.

Other than mention it in passing, however, do we devote anywhere near the same amount of attention to preparing Junior for the "ideal" marriage? For someday being a mother or a father? Why are those realities, those "choices," left to the autonomous individual (usually in his spare time) while the "job" is plotted out by the village with a laser-like precision?

And, given the changing nature of American work, isn't that also reflected in marriage and family life? Once upon a time, job permanence, stability, and loyalty were premiums. People "committed" to a good j...