Highlights
- Shock and even disdain are too often the reactions big families face in our current culture. Post This
- As those of us who come from a big family will so often attest by replicating it in our own lives: big families, struggles and all, are contagious. Post This
- Whenever a celebrity uses his platform to place having more kids squarely in the plus column, those of us who believe in the beauty of marriage and children will take it! Post This
Recently, while waiting in the lobby of an autobody shop, the manager, who is Korean, asked me why it had taken me seven months to bring our car in for repairs after someone had rear-ended it. “Well, for starters, I have five kids,” I answered.
Her eyes widened. “What!?” she exclaimed. “Five kids! That’s a lot of kids! Too many kids!”
She didn’t say it maliciously; she was genuinely taken aback. But you can forgive her for being surprised in a country where the birthrate has fallen below replacement levels and especially in a region where less, not more, children is the norm.
It’s a reality that has many experts perplexed—and yet shock and even disdain are the reactions big families are often met with in our current culture. Be it expense, misplaced environmental concerns, or just a culture of “self-care” selfishness, kids are rarely viewed as something to be desired—at least not in quantities greater than two.
Which is why it was so refreshing to watch actor Kieran Culkin’s pro-child remarks at the Oscars this past Sunday, in which he used part of his acceptance speech for his first academy award to ask his wife for more kids. Toward the end of his remarks, Culkin shared:
“About a year ago I was on a stage like this, and I very stupidly publicly said that I want a third kid from her, because she said if I won the award, she would give me the kid,” he explained, referring to his wife, Jazz, sitting in the audience. He continued:
Turns out, she said that because she didn’t think I was going to win! After the show, we’re walking through a parking lot, she’s holding the Emmy, we were trying to find our car, and she goes, ‘Oh…I did say that? I guess I owe you a third kid.’ I turned to her and I said, ‘Really, I want four!’
To which he added that she replied, “I will give you four when you win an Oscar.”
At this point, the camera cut to a laughing audience and to his wife who, blushing, mouthed, “I did!”
After a bit more joking, Culkin said with sincerity, “I just have this to say to you, Jazz. Love of my life, ye of little faith. No pressure—I love you. I’m really sorry I did this again. And let’s get cracking on those kids, what do you say?”
It wasn’t exactly the most polished appeal, and yet his brief little pro-kid petition set social media abuzz.
Writer and podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey wrote, “It’s refreshingly sweet to see an actor unapologetically enthusiastic about having more kids with his wife.”
Another female influencer tweeted, “This is Kieran Culkin. He just won his first-ever Oscar. During his acceptance speech, he shocked Hollywood by defying the pro-abortion narrative and celebrated having more kids with his wife. We need more of this.”
A popular pro-life platform wrote, “Negotiating for baby #4 on live TV? That’s an Oscars speech we can get behind. Kerian Culkin just made parenthood the real prize of the night. More of THIS, please!”
Others were quick to caution that Culkin is hardly a role model for the pro-family movement, given some of his political views. And others cautioned about the transactional nature of his remarks in a culture where children have become quite literally the product of commercial transactions.
Fair enough.
And yet Hollywood has an outsized impact on culture. And recently, it’s used that impact—including many award show speeches—to advance a very anti-child, anti-family worldview that unquestionably affects our culture for the worse. So, whenever a celebrity uses his platform, particularly an award acceptance speech, to place having more kids squarely in the plus column, well, those of us who believe in the beauty of marriage and children will take it!
Interestingly, Culkin himself grew up Catholic, one of seven children. His family was poor, and his father abusive. And yet, despite his childhood, he still wants more kids. As those of us who come from a big family will so often attest by replicating it in our own lives: big families—struggles and all—are contagious.
So are cultural trends, and Hollywood is famous for starting them. Just maybe Kieran Culkin will start a pro-child one.
Ashley E. McGuire is a Contributing Editor at the Institute for Family Studies and the author of Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female (Regnery, 2017).
