The
chat I was having with the German journalist sitting next to me at
dinner naturally got round to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s victory in the
elections a week earlier [Sept. 23]. We were a group of Israelis that
arrived in Berlin for the annual meeting with our German counterparts
over the last days of Sukkot, on a program that began in 2000 to promote
Israeli-German leadership.Once we had said just about everything there was to say about Merkel, my colleague told me about his wife, who was, like him, in her forties. He told me that she has a challenging job, so I asked instinctively, “Who watches your children when you’re both at work?”
“We don’t have any children,” he answered. I was stunned by his response for a moment — not least, in retrospect, because of my tactlessness. I was quick to apologize, but I immediately realized that he wasn’t embarrassed in the least. He and his wife had made a conscious decision not to bring any children into the world.
''We are not the only ones in the family with such an approach,'' he told me, adding that his brother, who is two years older, also decided not to have children. In fact, almost all of his close friends, every one of them well-educated with successful careers, made the same choice. They don’t miss the interaction with children, and his mother has long since given up on him and his brother. She realized that she will never persuade them to make her a grandmother. He and his wife have no regrets or second thoughts about their choice. They have a full, challenging life.
Even the program initiated by Merkel to raise the birthrate, which includes a long paid leave for mothers or fathers and tax rebates for each child, did not cause him to doubt his decision. He has absolutely no qualms about his contribution to the dire prognoses which predict that should this trend continue, the German population would shrink by a third within thirty years, wreaking havoc on the economy.
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