Not enough children: President set up new roundtable
President Katalin Novák announced on Friday the establishment of a demographic roundtable to smooth dialogue on demographic issues and their solutions.
“If we can’t at least spark in young people questions about whether they want children, we have no hope for a future for Hungary,” the president said at the gala dinner in Székesfehérvár, concluding her visit to Fejér County, in central Hungary.
“We must ask ourselves why raising a family isn’t attractive these days, and why those who are drawn to it end up with fewer children than they wanted,” she said.
“We must face the challenges we think are the most important rather than turn away from them, and we must think about solutions if we are to avoid a demographic Ice Age,” she said.
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President: In times of distress, Hungarians must stick together
President Katalin Novák, speaking in Feketic (Bacsfeketehegy), in northern Serbia, on Saturday, said that Hungarians in times of distress must “stick together” and “give each other strength”.
“Only communities that stick together can survive and become stronger,” she said at the consecration service of a Serbian Reformed church.
The president alluded to “destructive ideologies” and “a campaign now targeting children”, as well as heightened tensions in Kosovo and instability in the Western Balkans, in addition to the war “raging in Ukraine” and an imminent war in the Middle East. She added that economic challenges were making everyday life for families difficult.
She said Christians turned to God at such times when the safety of communities and families was imperiled, and questions, she added, were answered by “clinging together”.
She said Hungarians within the territory of Hungary and beyond were connected to each other as if by “an umbilical cord”.
Hungarians, too, can maintain friendship with Serbia, and this helps cohesion, she said.
János Nagy, a state secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office, read a letter of greeting by Viktor Orban at the episcopal consecration. The letter said that in Vojvodina Reformed churches were not only houses of faith but also strongholds of the Hungarian people.
Orbán wished the newly elected bishop, László Harangozó, to be blessed in his service to the entire Hungarian population of Vojvodina.
Zoltán Balog, bishop of the Danube Reformed Church District, head pastor of the Synod of the Hungarian Reformed Church, preached at the service.
People live too well, with a myriad of entertainment and travel options, exponentially more than every before, and a crying kid is a huge albatross around the neck. Having a child greatly restricts your freedom to travel, go out, etc., not just because you have to look after him/her but also because of the added expenses that cut into the budget you use for more selfish purposes. It’s not that having a child is unaffordable; it’s that young people are too focused on themselves and their immediate satisfaction. Plus, of course, there’s the cosmopolitan propaganda that sneers at the traditional family model and dynamic in favor of “go to college, spread your wings, do what you like, do as much mattress-surfing as you can, focus on your career, and make money.” Sad.