This story was a great reminder of how much I loved my first trip there years ago. I grew up in a town in MA with a huge Cambodian population. There was a ton of crime in those neighborhoods and I always thought by association that Cambodia was a dangerous place. Couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
I am rather surprised that there is such angst about declining birthrates given that most of my life we have been bombarded with the disaster ahead of ever increasing population being one of the greatest perils to face our world. We were indoctrinated with how we must slow our population growth, have only one or preferably no children or at most just replace ourselves with 2 children. China even took up the One Child policy as part of this propaganda.
Reminds me of the first weekend after the COVID ban was lifted and I went to a favorite public park and heard the voices of children playing for the first time in two years. A bunch of 8 year olds negotiating who was going to use a certain stick or which fork in a path to follow was just staggeringly beautiful.
I spent a year in Cambodia. During seven years in SE Asia, five in Philippines and one in Vietnam.
I personally didn’t notice a difference in the kid situation as you did. I found the kid culture refreshing in all of them. My first year in Philippines I lived on an unusual side street that had no through traffic so no cars but those that lived there, and so the streets were just taken over by the many kids and it was a joy every time coming or going and word would spread the giant foreign guy was coming out and they would all come running…we developed so many little fun games we’d play, the favorite to get me to hoist them up as high as I could as if my height afforded them a rare chance to explore the stratosphere. The parents were all around sitting in the street hanging out and they loved me for loving their kids.
I moved neighborhoods eventually but I really missed those kids. And now it’s been ten years since I lived there and I’ve longed to visit that little side street and see if those kids, now teenagers, remember me and to see how they’ve all grown.
I was a kid in the sixties and seventies when we all just roamed our neighborhood and walked ourselves to school. This modern era of play dates and driving kids to school passed me by and I never experienced it. I suspect the kids in Asia are healthier the way they live free to roam looked after by everyone as it was in my childhood.
Although I did feel like kids were kind of cared for more when I observed my friend’s families as an adult (I never married or had kids). I was a little too free as a kid to the point of minor neglect. So there’s a balance.
Yes Jeffrey as another comment has pointed out it’s the way kids are raised here (and rest of world) that is as big a difference as the number.
I also grew up in 60/70s and also ran around my small rural town with few if any restrictions. That matters hugely IMO
There are definitely more kids here, and free range, than in Bangkok. But about same as Jakarta (which I also love) and Hanoi (perhaps my favorite city?).
I’ve not been to Philippines in over 40 years. Each time I plan to go something gets in way. But expect to find a similar experience.
Thank you for the very thoughtful comment. I could see you getting swarmed by those kids each day. I
Totally agree that the presence of children imbues a place with vitality, meaning, and joy, but I attribute that more to the second part of your formulation--a trust-based culture and a communal sense of responsibility for child-rearing--than to fertility rates. Cambodia's fertility rate is, as you point out, lower the world average, and much, much lower than, say, Uganda's, which from your description of Kampala, did not sound like a very joyful, meaning-making place at all. While Spain, which has among the lowest fertility rates in Europe, has a very similar culture to what you describe encountering in Phnom Penh--high devotion to family and scads of happy kids out and about, playing in the public squares and running around while their parents sit in outdoor cafés, because there's an understanding that everyone is looking out for them.
To me, so much of what makes a city feel young or old has to do not with how many children people are having, but to how many there are in proportion to other ages. Even though kids are everywhere present in Madrid and Barcelona , those cities may not feel young because 20% of the population is over 65. If Phnom Penh's case, just 6% is. And the reasons for that, I would venture, have less to do with how many kids people are having than with the fact that over half the population was killed by its government 50 years ago.
I wish I had emphasized more the "trust-based culture and a communal sense of responsibility for child-rearing" because that is as important, if not, as you argue, more important.
I'm glad you brought up the Kampala comparison (I was wondering if anyone would!) because I thought about it a lot while writing, and kind of hedged myself in the last paragraph by throwing in the line about happiness being "adjusted for economic level' and I was going to address it more, but felt it was getting too long in the tooth to do so.
I actually liked Kampala, especially after the initial jolt of cultural shock wore off and I found my footing -- and I think the high fertility rate, and the "communal sense of responsibility" was a large part of that. (I did not like Dakar, but I think that is more of a personal issues of mine and inability to deal with heat and discomfort and the ex pat community).
I believe economic deprivation can trump the vitality and meaning that comes with children, but children do temper the pain. Also, I believe in a place like Kampala what I feel is very much do to me being a fish out of water. I got push-back from some Ugandan readers on my pieces who thought I was too negative, and I believe they were right, especially as I look back on my time there. It is a place I want to return to, because it still lingers in my mind, and I believe with more time I would be more appreciative.
You are right about Spain (or France in my case) -- even with low birth rates a communal sense of responsibility, where the children that do exist are integrated in spaces in a way they are not in the US , can indeed imbue a place with vitality
So thank you for your thoughtful comments -- I will think about this more!
This is the best thing I have read in some time: “Perhaps that’s because no matter how material we become, while humans can deal with their own mortality they cannot deal with the mortality of humanity and a society with lots of children is a constant reminder of our shared commitment to the good, and that we will succeed, one way or the other.”
Thanks for the wonderful post. After the discussion of traffic issues, I was not expecting the turn to a deep contemplation of declining fertility rates :)
It feels like almost every day now I read or hear something about below-replacement level fertility. However this post is the first to mention how the vibe of a city is affected by the presence or absence of children.
Personally, I agree with the discussion of how parenthood can provide the deep sense of meaning that people need in their lives. I'm sure that not everyone shares this view---after all, I'm a parent (and also religious). But I do hope that Western societies will think more about where we are getting meaning from, and whether the modern sources provide sufficient structure for our lives.
Yeah, I don’t always write linearly. In retrospect I should have put the traffic stuff in a footnote. lol.
I understand having kids is a lot of work, that almost always falls to the mother — but I also know a lot of mothers, as they get older, realize how meaningful it is.
The burden of raising children here is lessened by the community and by norms. There’s less stress about getting it perfect and so kids have less guidance as well as help from extended family and neighbors, to any extent we don’t have in the US
There's some talk in the comments of "governments should support families." In America, I can see both sides to this argument and have trouble deciding how I feel about that statement.
What I see as a bigger concern in America is a cultural change... less and less grandparents play a role in supporting the families that they started. Many grandparents seem to have adopted the belief that "I raised my kids, went to the soccer games, and paid for college. Now I'm packing my bags and moving to Florida where I'll heart the grandkids photos on the facebook on my tablet and call it good."
Multigenerational households are almost entirely dead. Beyond that, grandparents are increasingly unlikely to live in the same neighborhood, city, or even state as their grandchildren, much less under the same roof. I think this trend is very bad.
Beautifully written, and I’ve been contemplating this post all morning. I wanted to offer a counterpoint to the idea that the density of children can lift a drab and shallow city. It’s the drab, soulless, private-equity ridden cities that imperil culture and conditions for human life; modern cities have become a globalist “inferno of sameness” (Byul-Chun Han’s phrase), which is not only deadening and lonely, but a terrible substrate from which human life can grow. To create a society where parenthood is foregone conclusion, there needs to be baseline trust, nourishment, and a felt sense of communal belonging. Until our values shift away from putting the onus on the individual (and individual women to have more babies, for that matter) and towards collective cultural production for its own sake, the sooner we create the conditions conducive to the kind of flourishing that you describe in this article.
I agree with all of that -- one of the things I didn't emphasize enough here, although I alluded to it by saying Phnom Penh is one big day care center, is how children are effectively raised by the entire community.
There is an elder woman across from my regular coffee shop where I sit for an hour each morning, who spends all day sewing on the veranda. She also spends all day effectively babysitting for the children of the neighborhood who run in and out of her house, including the children of the owners of the coffee shop that are pictured in my essay.
The children, to a level that would shock Americans today, but not in the 70s, are effectively roaming the neighborhoods by themselves, often as young as 6. They can do that because the entire neighborhood looks out for them.
That does happen in a few select neighborhoods in the US, but rarely in big cities, for many of the reasons you mentioned, but I would emphasize the "baseline trust", which is a cultural reason that I think drives the move towards the "inferno of sameness"
Thanks Chris for a moving write up. I live in Vietnam for much of my life, and still, I haven't paid Cambodia a visit. Lots of it have to do with my preconceived notions of its economic development, but after reading this, I reckon that was misguided. Traveling should not just be about leisure, but an invite to question my own humanity as well.
Wish I found your writing sooner. Would've loved to buy you a round of bia hoi on the Hanoi sidewalk. Hope to see you around these parts soon.
Laughable article written by a hack and snowflake
This story was a great reminder of how much I loved my first trip there years ago. I grew up in a town in MA with a huge Cambodian population. There was a ton of crime in those neighborhoods and I always thought by association that Cambodia was a dangerous place. Couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
This was just beautiful and brought tears to my eyes. Thank you!
I am rather surprised that there is such angst about declining birthrates given that most of my life we have been bombarded with the disaster ahead of ever increasing population being one of the greatest perils to face our world. We were indoctrinated with how we must slow our population growth, have only one or preferably no children or at most just replace ourselves with 2 children. China even took up the One Child policy as part of this propaganda.
Reminds me of the first weekend after the COVID ban was lifted and I went to a favorite public park and heard the voices of children playing for the first time in two years. A bunch of 8 year olds negotiating who was going to use a certain stick or which fork in a path to follow was just staggeringly beautiful.
I spent a year in Cambodia. During seven years in SE Asia, five in Philippines and one in Vietnam.
I personally didn’t notice a difference in the kid situation as you did. I found the kid culture refreshing in all of them. My first year in Philippines I lived on an unusual side street that had no through traffic so no cars but those that lived there, and so the streets were just taken over by the many kids and it was a joy every time coming or going and word would spread the giant foreign guy was coming out and they would all come running…we developed so many little fun games we’d play, the favorite to get me to hoist them up as high as I could as if my height afforded them a rare chance to explore the stratosphere. The parents were all around sitting in the street hanging out and they loved me for loving their kids.
I moved neighborhoods eventually but I really missed those kids. And now it’s been ten years since I lived there and I’ve longed to visit that little side street and see if those kids, now teenagers, remember me and to see how they’ve all grown.
I was a kid in the sixties and seventies when we all just roamed our neighborhood and walked ourselves to school. This modern era of play dates and driving kids to school passed me by and I never experienced it. I suspect the kids in Asia are healthier the way they live free to roam looked after by everyone as it was in my childhood.
Although I did feel like kids were kind of cared for more when I observed my friend’s families as an adult (I never married or had kids). I was a little too free as a kid to the point of minor neglect. So there’s a balance.
Yes Jeffrey as another comment has pointed out it’s the way kids are raised here (and rest of world) that is as big a difference as the number.
I also grew up in 60/70s and also ran around my small rural town with few if any restrictions. That matters hugely IMO
There are definitely more kids here, and free range, than in Bangkok. But about same as Jakarta (which I also love) and Hanoi (perhaps my favorite city?).
I’ve not been to Philippines in over 40 years. Each time I plan to go something gets in way. But expect to find a similar experience.
Thank you for the very thoughtful comment. I could see you getting swarmed by those kids each day. I
Pure joy in words and images, Chris! Wish we had appreciated Phnom Penh in this way when we visited
Totally agree that the presence of children imbues a place with vitality, meaning, and joy, but I attribute that more to the second part of your formulation--a trust-based culture and a communal sense of responsibility for child-rearing--than to fertility rates. Cambodia's fertility rate is, as you point out, lower the world average, and much, much lower than, say, Uganda's, which from your description of Kampala, did not sound like a very joyful, meaning-making place at all. While Spain, which has among the lowest fertility rates in Europe, has a very similar culture to what you describe encountering in Phnom Penh--high devotion to family and scads of happy kids out and about, playing in the public squares and running around while their parents sit in outdoor cafés, because there's an understanding that everyone is looking out for them.
To me, so much of what makes a city feel young or old has to do not with how many children people are having, but to how many there are in proportion to other ages. Even though kids are everywhere present in Madrid and Barcelona , those cities may not feel young because 20% of the population is over 65. If Phnom Penh's case, just 6% is. And the reasons for that, I would venture, have less to do with how many kids people are having than with the fact that over half the population was killed by its government 50 years ago.
Thanks Lisa for this.
I wish I had emphasized more the "trust-based culture and a communal sense of responsibility for child-rearing" because that is as important, if not, as you argue, more important.
I'm glad you brought up the Kampala comparison (I was wondering if anyone would!) because I thought about it a lot while writing, and kind of hedged myself in the last paragraph by throwing in the line about happiness being "adjusted for economic level' and I was going to address it more, but felt it was getting too long in the tooth to do so.
I actually liked Kampala, especially after the initial jolt of cultural shock wore off and I found my footing -- and I think the high fertility rate, and the "communal sense of responsibility" was a large part of that. (I did not like Dakar, but I think that is more of a personal issues of mine and inability to deal with heat and discomfort and the ex pat community).
I believe economic deprivation can trump the vitality and meaning that comes with children, but children do temper the pain. Also, I believe in a place like Kampala what I feel is very much do to me being a fish out of water. I got push-back from some Ugandan readers on my pieces who thought I was too negative, and I believe they were right, especially as I look back on my time there. It is a place I want to return to, because it still lingers in my mind, and I believe with more time I would be more appreciative.
You are right about Spain (or France in my case) -- even with low birth rates a communal sense of responsibility, where the children that do exist are integrated in spaces in a way they are not in the US , can indeed imbue a place with vitality
So thank you for your thoughtful comments -- I will think about this more!
Great article and some amazing photos. A very moving moment with the boy and then the two giggling girls. It's as if the moment just HAD to happen.
“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” — John F. Kennedy
This is the best thing I have read in some time: “Perhaps that’s because no matter how material we become, while humans can deal with their own mortality they cannot deal with the mortality of humanity and a society with lots of children is a constant reminder of our shared commitment to the good, and that we will succeed, one way or the other.”
Thanks for the wonderful post. After the discussion of traffic issues, I was not expecting the turn to a deep contemplation of declining fertility rates :)
It feels like almost every day now I read or hear something about below-replacement level fertility. However this post is the first to mention how the vibe of a city is affected by the presence or absence of children.
Personally, I agree with the discussion of how parenthood can provide the deep sense of meaning that people need in their lives. I'm sure that not everyone shares this view---after all, I'm a parent (and also religious). But I do hope that Western societies will think more about where we are getting meaning from, and whether the modern sources provide sufficient structure for our lives.
Thank you so much Tom.
Yeah, I don’t always write linearly. In retrospect I should have put the traffic stuff in a footnote. lol.
I understand having kids is a lot of work, that almost always falls to the mother — but I also know a lot of mothers, as they get older, realize how meaningful it is.
The burden of raising children here is lessened by the community and by norms. There’s less stress about getting it perfect and so kids have less guidance as well as help from extended family and neighbors, to any extent we don’t have in the US
There's some talk in the comments of "governments should support families." In America, I can see both sides to this argument and have trouble deciding how I feel about that statement.
What I see as a bigger concern in America is a cultural change... less and less grandparents play a role in supporting the families that they started. Many grandparents seem to have adopted the belief that "I raised my kids, went to the soccer games, and paid for college. Now I'm packing my bags and moving to Florida where I'll heart the grandkids photos on the facebook on my tablet and call it good."
Multigenerational households are almost entirely dead. Beyond that, grandparents are increasingly unlikely to live in the same neighborhood, city, or even state as their grandchildren, much less under the same roof. I think this trend is very bad.
Another illustration of why a Wall Street defector from small town Florida will eventually be viewed as one of the more profound writers of our time.
Brilliant.
Where the kids are and aren’t in Arndade’s home country:
https://www.aaastateofplay.com/the-u-s-cities-with-the-most-and-fewest-children/
Beautifully written, and I’ve been contemplating this post all morning. I wanted to offer a counterpoint to the idea that the density of children can lift a drab and shallow city. It’s the drab, soulless, private-equity ridden cities that imperil culture and conditions for human life; modern cities have become a globalist “inferno of sameness” (Byul-Chun Han’s phrase), which is not only deadening and lonely, but a terrible substrate from which human life can grow. To create a society where parenthood is foregone conclusion, there needs to be baseline trust, nourishment, and a felt sense of communal belonging. Until our values shift away from putting the onus on the individual (and individual women to have more babies, for that matter) and towards collective cultural production for its own sake, the sooner we create the conditions conducive to the kind of flourishing that you describe in this article.
I agree with all of that -- one of the things I didn't emphasize enough here, although I alluded to it by saying Phnom Penh is one big day care center, is how children are effectively raised by the entire community.
There is an elder woman across from my regular coffee shop where I sit for an hour each morning, who spends all day sewing on the veranda. She also spends all day effectively babysitting for the children of the neighborhood who run in and out of her house, including the children of the owners of the coffee shop that are pictured in my essay.
The children, to a level that would shock Americans today, but not in the 70s, are effectively roaming the neighborhoods by themselves, often as young as 6. They can do that because the entire neighborhood looks out for them.
That does happen in a few select neighborhoods in the US, but rarely in big cities, for many of the reasons you mentioned, but I would emphasize the "baseline trust", which is a cultural reason that I think drives the move towards the "inferno of sameness"
Terrific piece. Chris, did you ever consider turning your posts into video photo essays? Do you ever shoot iPhone videos on your travels?
Thanks Chris for a moving write up. I live in Vietnam for much of my life, and still, I haven't paid Cambodia a visit. Lots of it have to do with my preconceived notions of its economic development, but after reading this, I reckon that was misguided. Traveling should not just be about leisure, but an invite to question my own humanity as well.
Wish I found your writing sooner. Would've loved to buy you a round of bia hoi on the Hanoi sidewalk. Hope to see you around these parts soon.