European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 07, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday october 7, 1985 the stars and stripes Page 17 photo for is by rec15 Boss Beach vacations instead of babies Erma Bombeck tax break for motherhood reversing Germany s Low birthrate Bymark Heinrich associated press w Hile Many nations struggle to control a population explosion the West German government is trying to reverse the world s lowest birthrate with la Breaks and subsidies Lor motherhood. West germans have had the world s lowest birthrate Lor 13 straight years. In 1984, there were 113,000 More deaths than births among the native population and in 1980 Only 10 babies were born per 1,000 germans. At the same time there were 54 births Lor every 1,000 kenyans who Are among the world s Fertility champions. In september a worried conservative Federal government began a counterattack introducing a tax break and subsidy package in parliament aimed at getting married women to set aside their careers and Start families. If nobody has any More children then there s no future for our nation then health and family minister Heiner Geissler warned in unveiling the legislation. Yet Many couples say they value their careers Beach vacations and High powered cars too much to have several children. In addition a Large foreign worker population is filling in gaps at the Tower end of the work Force. A typical Middle class couple is Dieter and Roswitha Klein who weighed their taste for Leisure and decided they could afford just one child. Government handouts won t change their mind. This Aid is too minuscule. Anyway you can t pay germans to have kids said Dieter Klein 42. A tool company representative in an interview in the family s Small but Well furnished suburban Frankfurt apartment. Germans think like this Well the foreign travel will have to be Good the car must be fast so How Many kids can i have germans Are Well known Lor their practicality said Klein. One glaring outgrowth of the birth slowdown the sept. 24 decision to extend military cons Villion Lime from 15 to 18 months in an attempt to Cope with the evaporating Pool of Young men. Officials predict that if the trend continues in the next 50 years the native pulsation will shrink from 56.7 million today to 41 million. Many West germans worry about a future of too few jobs Tor too Many people noting today s High unemployment. When we Are destroying so Many jobs through the technological revolution. I really doubt whether we need any More  said Klein. Or. Klein s opposition to Large families grew out of a postwar childhood living in a tiny Row House Wilh Lour generations of her Famiie. Our parents were just Happy to have survived the War they were consent to live that  Ilio 38-year old Hairdresser said. But Tor our gone ration. That was no Way to  we walled Andreas their 13-year-old son to enjoy Lile As much As his parents  mar Klein went on. Kids demand a Standard today Tennis stereos Home computers cars their own Roo that we never  in a 1984 year end opinion poll on what Uhny desired most for themselves in 1985, West germans favored Good health and lifestyle and More than 10 other things none of them a family. Cabinet minister Geissler recently stepped Down to take a parly Post and his successor. Rita Suessmuth has vowed to vigorously carry on the crusade Lor bigger families. Under proposed legislation Slatting Jan to 1986 a couple will get a600-Mark about $?25 monthly subsidy for the first 10 months of a child s life to be extended to 12 months in 1988. Also beginning Jan. 1. Couples will receive a 2.484 Mark about s933 fax deduction for Inch child. T Here Are a lot of people who look upon moving to another slate As a traumatic experience. They see the frustration of arriving Ona weekend Wilh no utilities. They dread the loneliness without old friends and the pressure of new schools. They live in horror that they la live in Iowa and their furniture will grow up in new Mexico. Not me. I see moving As a Bright new Day a Day when god gives me a second Chance to open a new checking account in a Brand new Bank. There s something absolutely spiritual about walking into a new Bank in a new City where they Don t know you and have them smile and say How May i help you it s not like the old Bank where miss have Rhood used to drop to the floor of the drive in window and assume a fetal position when i drove through and pre tend she was t there. There s an innocence to entering a now Bank. It must be the Way Adam Ana eve Felt when they were standing naked in the Garden of Eden. Full of wonderment and anticipation. Unfortunately with the Banks of my past there were other parallels involving a major sin of temptation to withdraw More than i deposited but i Don t want to go into that. I am always hopeful that the new Bank will have a sense of humor. I want to believe their Little commercials that show a banker with a merry twinkle in his Eye who i can poke Wilh my Elbow and say can t you take a joke where would i gel $5,000?" i want to feel they re sensitive to All those Little human frailties like 7s that look like 2s and my Little notes on the Check where i write after for. The love of god Don t Cash until alter the 15th." Banks turn on you. People Don t realize this but even the computers see you coming. I used one of those drive in machines one night to take $20 from my account. I punched All the buttons put my Little card in it and the machine ate it. I never saw the card or the $20. They know. Mostly i love the respect i gel when i walk through the door of a now Bank and no one has a clue that i am one of the Grea Lesl mathematical minds of the 6th Century. To them. I m a person who put. The right year on my Check keeps a balance Over $1.50 and records every Check i write. Of sure when they see me come in with a yellow Tablet with figures on it arid 30 pounds of cancelled checks they All whip out their window closed signs and go to lunch at 10 30 in the morning but that s the Way it is. I have been moving and changing Banks Lor Over 30 years. Hope Springs eternal every time they give me a Pristine passbook and my packet of now checks Start ing with 001. I always Ligure this could be the Bank where i come out Wilh the same balance As they come out with at the end of the month. Don t laugh. Did t they find Patty Hearst did t Dorothy come Back to Kansas did t Chicago win a world series in 1917? c Loi Angeles time Syndicate