Whidbey Island is like Russia where the population of young people is plummeting. The difference is that Russia is taking action to reverse the trend by providing incentives for people to have children, while Whidbey Island is just sitting back and watching its schools shrink and its culture turn gray.
All three Whidbey Island school districts are dealing with shrinking student populations. South Whidbey has been hit hardest, followed by Central Whidbey. But even North Whidbey with its huge military population is suffering. Perhaps the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are keeping our fighting men and women away too long to bother reproducing back home on Whidbey Island. If so, then the military should give them longer leaves to assure there is another generation of military personnel in the pipeline.
Vladimir Putin put Russian women on notice that their reproductive efforts are appreciated by offering 250,000 rubles for a second child. That’s worth $9,200, which goes a long way in Russia. It won’t buy you a new car in the U.S. but the idea is worthy. Whidbey Island needs to incentivize the child-bearing process, so our schools can once again be filled with smiling faces, and night life consists of something more than old people gathering to complain about this or that, or promote alternative energy for the 30th consecutive year. At least they now have battery-powered hearing aids and pacemakers to brag about.
Without young people, Whidbey Island’s economy will never grow. What clean industry will move here if there is no workforce? The Island County Economic Development Council should take the lead by changing its name to the Island County Reproductive Council. Quit trying to lure business that won’t come here; instead, offer rewards for having children. We don’t have as much money as Putin, but businesses could give stuff away to each child born, and ICRC board members and executives could offer free babysitting. We could have baby incentives, with producers receiving free loganberry pie, their own blackberry patch, coupons for freebies at the farmers market, lifetime library memberships and carload discounts to the Blue-Fox Drive-In.
It would also be a good idea to ban the importation of any more dogs to Whidbey Island. Not that we dislike dogs, it’s just that people are using them as a substitute for children. Dogs have so many benefits, such as they’re obedient, don’t require costly iPods, never pierce their nostrils, and you don’t have to save for doggie college, that they’re making children obsolete. If dogs aren’t available, people of child-bearing years will naturally turn to children as a diversion. Sure, they’re expensive, but they’re cute when they’re little and we have schools and businesses that need them.
Without more children, Whidbey Island will become one huge senior center full of older people with dogs. It’s not a pretty thought. As they say in Russia, please pass the vodka.
