i really enjoyed this article! i also think that...if someone doesn't want to have kids simply because they want to do things for their own life that don't necessarily contribute to some "greater cause" and they do just want to have more fun with the time and money they save from not having kids...that's totally fine and understandable??? like having kids just for the sake of having them is way more selfish than not having them because you like your sleep or whatever. having kids should be an opt in, but it has been treated like an opt out for so long. the question is always "why don't you want kids?" when the question should be "why DO you want kids?" imo. bringing a whole other human onto the earth is something that people take too lightly and it results in a whole lot of trauma for everyone involved in a lot of cases.
Yes. This was so well said. I am a childfree lady who works with high schoolers and I hear “you’re so good with kids, why don’t you want them?” and it seems like the simple answer of “I don’t want them and never have” never is enough. The next time I hear a version of that question thrown at me I’m going to say “well why do you want kids?”
as a certain freak (edit: freak(s), plural) below has done us the courtesy of demonstrating, the "birth rates" conversation is nearly always a proxy for latent (and sometimes active) fascist racial anxiety among the intelligentsia. even if you concede the point that declining fertility rates are creating a potential economic problem in the long-term (already an extremely shaky claim), there is a very obvious way to get more working-age people in the country if we ever need to do so - but the american intelligentsia is so reflexively and instinctually racist that it never even comes up.
i love this article because it so artfully cuts through the bullshit, and evidently pushes the freaks making these arguments to say what they're really concerned about.
I always wonder at the "immigration can solve it" answer. It's a zero-sum thing ultimately. If the US and all the other countries below replacement rate hoovered up emigrants from the few remaining places above replacement rate, wouldn't we be depopulating those original countries to their detriment? Most places are seeing declining birth rate even if some are still above replacement. Also, immigrants' birth rates decline to match the locals' within a generation or two.
Immigrants can make 10-15x the wages in the US that they would at home, so remittances tend to be a big deal, massively outperforming foreign aid both in terms of scale ($150b/yr vs. $70b/yr) and targeting.
Oh, keep in mind that the entire population of the United States is but the rounding error on that of China.
There’s a lot of people in this world. The American population is a tiny slice of that pie — it’s really only consequential in terms of its outsize consumption rates.
I wouldn’t necessarily attribute that attitude to the intelligentsia; certainly not at large. I’ve seen policy paper after policy paper pointing out that declining birth rates are not a problem when you have immigration. It’s only the “stable geniuses” like Elon Musk who are deeply concerned about it.
Thanks for your article. The debate surrounding fertility and having children is still extremely influenced by patriarchical values (more so than other domains, it seems to me).
Some interesting points I have noticed:
* In my liberal country in Western Europe, young childless women who want to be sterilized need to approval by a psychologist to do so. Like, why??? The same does not hold for childless young men, as far as I am aware.
* You're not just supposed to have children as a form of moral ambition, you're also supposed to really want them. Expressing regret about having children is taboo. Of course, this holds for women and much less for men.
* A big part of the fuss about transgender youth who want to go on puberty blockers is really about their fertility. They're considered too young to make the informed decision to give up their fertility, which is seen as one of the greatest possible losses.
* Single people who get pregnant unexpectedly and decide to keep the baby are still frowned upon in society and by no means adequately supported.
And gay/lesbian couples who really want to have children face numerous roadblocks and hate from conservatives. So when people say they find fertility rates important, I suspect they often mean "patriarchy".
I think one more point to acknowledge would be why so many people (women, really) feel having kids would make the other things they want to do (performing life changing surgeries etc) so difficult/ impossible. I worked in the music industry for a long time and would hear women musicians say things constantly like ‘I really want to have kids one day but I can’t because I’m constantly on tour’, whereas their male counterparts would never even think about it (they would often just have kids, continue to tour, and be absent from their children for months on end, or often just be completely estranged from them.) Just using music as an example but I’m sure it’s the same across various demanding fields, and while it’s true that loads of women just don’t want kids, it’s also true that loads feel they have to make a choice between motherhood and say, a viable music career - and that the two are mutually exclusive. I don’t know what the answer is, I just wish it wasn’t like this!
I think that’s right, for sure! As I said, I do think if there were greater resources for childcare, there would be fewer trade-offs. But I still think some would remain, so I think some people just wouldn’t want kids under even ideal circumstances, and that’s fine!
The increase in childcare resources needs to first come from the dads. That's how I see it anyway. But many men still operate under the assumption that as their career takes off, his wife's will take a backseat so she can manage the children.
This is often explained away in that the men can make more money anyway, so it's the best way that particular family can organize their life. But because it's such an ingrained cultural assumption, it constrains all families. "They did it this way - why can't you? Why don't you?"
This question of "pursue my talent or have kids?" Is absolutely central to the experience of being a woman.
I always refer people to the 1948 film "The Red Shoes". The central conflict in that revolves around the choice to be a prima ballerina OR get married and have kids.
People love to think that things are totally different now and that movie is irrelevant post sexual-revolution, but it really isn't.
Last year I met a guy on r/LockdownSkepticism and figured that given how we met, he would care about "Out of Lockstep". NOPE. In February, I got my chance to finally do the full installation at a festival in NH after 2 years of working on the idea, and my ex basically said, "but you'll have to stop doing this once you get pregnant, right?"
He wasn't even talking about getting to know eachother better first and getting married, just getting me knocked up and me leaving behind everything else I wanted in life.
I was 37 years old and knew if I dumped him, I might not get another chance to have kids. Given the choice between the art installation or having a guy who hadn't even gotten to know me yet push me to get pregnant, I obviously chose the art installation. Dumped him a day after he suggested I give it up, never spoke to him again, spent the next 5 months using every spare moment to get that installation together. I have no regrets.
It was a relief when I got to New Hampshire and got feedback like "oh, this is a rite of passage!" When people saw what I'd made. With just the *preview*, hundreds of people could finally process their grief around the covid lockdowns and start to really heal.
My former business partner tried to get me to be in a polyamorous relationship with him, so I also dropped him like a hot potato and replaced him with a new partner who immediately found me a space in NYC to display my work. At that point it was like the universe was telling me to just stay single and focus on my art.
Men don't go through this shit when they're trying to do a big ambitious art project. Between the pressure to breed and the sleazy "casting couch" type shit from the guy who supposedly did support my career, I'm done. Just going to stay singe, thanks.
Hm. I feel like it’s somewhere in the middle of both perspectives. I do see a lot of people expressing that desire to maintain their relative carefree and ‘fun’ lifestyle by remaining childless AND to reroute that saved time and labour towards other avenues. But I wouldn’t necessarily agree that supporting their greater community in other ways is at the root of that decision for most. Not saying that they don’t care about community but that it’s not really a strong decision factor. And honestly, does it have to be? It’s not a trade-off. There’s nothing wrong or narcissistic about not having kids, do we really need to point to other ways women offer value as if it’s some type of compensation?
Anyway, I like your point about how the past birth rate is treated as some de facto baseline and I definitely agree that material conditions aren’t as big of a contributing factor as some suggest.
Love a vibes-based discourse! I'm coming up on 40 and still childless. I never had the strong desire to become a mother and always characterized myself as "on the fence" but looking back I think I was just afraid to admit I didn't want kids! My boyfriend now was so clear on his choice that he had a vasectomy a few years ago (prior to meeting me) and having the question of "are we going to have kids?" completely off the table once we started dating felt like such a RELIEF. Then I considered how I'd always felt a little betrayed when a female celebrity announced a pregnancy, as if her remaining childless would help validate my decision to do so. I also felt so much fear during pregnancy and birth scenes in movie, like "oh my god, I can't believe I will HAVE to do that one day." Motherhood still feels so compulsory!
I have so many thoughts on the subject, how modern dating culture might influence this, what I'm hearing from my friends who are mothers (and what our friendships are like now that one of us has children and one of us does not), should kids be allowed at breweries or should we ban them from all public spaces, but I will stop at one more thing - I hate this argument that having kids ensures someone will be around to "take care of you" in your old age. As if the US has a strong culture of intimately caring for our elders! As if the same people making this argument aren't also shipping their own aging parents off to retirement homes. As if all kids outlive their parents, as if all kids will have the ability, time, money or desire to care for their parents when it is needed. Maybe I'm too pessimistic but that's a bet I just wouldn't count on.
I completely agree! It’s also vibes-based analysis, of course, but I do observe that people who are always on about how liberal institutions are hostile to children aren’t really in those institutions. Pretty much everyone in those institutions that I know recognizes that motherhood is kind of the default option within them!
Other people’s kids, that they spent a lot of time and money raising, will ultimately be taxed to pay for your retirement. The systems are pay as you go so you will have contributed nothing towards them by the time you retire.
The cost of raising a kid, not counting college or unpaid parental labor, is around $330k according to the usda (2023 dollars) That’s after “free” k-12 education, which parents also pay for through taxes.
So having replacement fertility (2.1ish) costs parents at least $700k, and likely more.
I can see how someone would view $700k in additional disposable consumption (plus freedom, time, etc) of essentially free riding in middle age and then dumping the cost in other people’s kids would be a good move in a selfish sense.
Back of the envelope, childless people should probably contribute another $10k or so in taxes each year to support child bearers, if they wanted to do their fair share to contribute to their own retirement. Obviously it would take on the usually progressive shape (higher for higher income).
And of course the form the support comes in matters. Cash is best. “In kind services” tend to benefit the service provider more then the parent, k-12 is already a good example.
While it’s “not just the money”, I find the childless also don’t want to pay up the money. It’s almost like paying up the money, in addition to literally not being fun, would be a kind of admission of what they are doing.
I always think it’s worth noting that ~10 years ago, the moral panic was focused on overpopulation and controlling & lowering birth rates in “underdeveloped” countries. To me it’s always about exerting control over certain populations. The “pronatalist” worldview is pretty easy to parse out, they want the “right” people to have more children and others to stop having what they deem to be too many. Even in the more liberal interpretations of this like the one you discuss from the NYT, there isn’t this acknowledgment that they were just having a freak out about the opposite issue relatively recently! It’s so frustrating.
the whole boohooing about people wanting to have fun instead of being tied to the responsibility of raising children is insane to me.. like some people want to fulfill their OWN happiness 😱 and not feel pressured to find a purpose in the grueling task of bringing up children? WOW!!
Thanks for writing this! The question of feminism and women’s rights is always ignored in these discussions, I think because the people pushing them are often of a reactionary bent (eg Vance) and the evidence doesn’t fit the “hedonistic liberal culture is causing birth rate decline” argument.
The data seems to show that more gender-equal, egalitarian societies (like France and Scandanavia) have maintained higher fertility rates than socially conservative countries where women do often have to sacrifice their careers and independence for motherhood (Italy, South Korea, China).
Take something normally associated with conservatism and fertility: religiousness. East Asia is almost entirely atheistic.
Or take the governments attitudes towards fertility. South Korea led a 50 or so year long anti-natal campaign where they disincentivized having children and tried to get people on IUDs whenever they could. China obviously had the one child policy.
When I look within countries, it’s always the more conservative people having the kids.
The Nordic countries are pretty “well functioning”. They tend to do better at everything. They also have school choice and didn’t shut down over Covid, which are both “right coded” things.
Even so, they are just experiencing the same problem slightly slower than others.
East Asian countries have vanishingly low rates of childbirth outside of wedlock (whereas in the west this is increasingly common and socially acceptable) and while women in the workforce have become much more of a norm, social attitudes still skew quite traditional when it comes to gender roles (the mother is almost always going to be the one to stop working if a couple has children). Both of these are certainly markers of social conservatism (small c). I think part of the issue is a blend of more conservative traditional cultural values conflicting with the introducing of more “modern” progressive values and the conflict not being resolved, which leads to many young people stuck in a difficult place (having to choose one or the other) or even a lose lose situation.
Of course, it’s not just this; as you say, the one child policy and its equivalents (Singapore had similar family planning messaging for decades and now faces very low birth rates too) have also caused the current demographic issues. High property prices certainly don’t help either, when the prevailing societal expectation is that you should own property before having kids.
In any case, it seems to me that pursuing more egalitarian family structures and less socially constraining norms is a good in and of itself.
Do you believe that if Korea had more out of wedlock births and working women that this would increase fertility? I'm pretty skeptical that's the solution. Both of those things are associated with lower fertility pretty much all around the world.
Despite Muslim immigrants pulling a lot of fertility indicators up in the Nordics, we are still seeing a steady decline from an already below replacement rate.
I think you're totally right, Becca. Thanks for writing this piece summing up your argument! I wanted to add though that I think having kids and pursuing other non-kid ventures may be less about serving society and more about feeding the ego. I think wanting biological kids has egotism at its root. It's good for the continuation of the human race/social security/ capitalism in aggregate! But people wouldn't care so much about lineage and legacy and "juniors" if ego wasn't a good part of it. And now, there's just a lot more ways for people — a group that most definitely includes women — to feed their ego. That may be going to grad school, starting a business, writing a book, etc. Those things can be good for community and collective knowledge and all those good things. But they're also big ego boosts.
I want to give the author you quoted some grace in regards to what he's saying here-- I'm not familiar with his other work and don't know his views on birth rates largely but solely based on what you've shown here I understand a lot of what he's saying and don't see it as pro-birth propaganda but rather as critiquing the judgement and vitriol some mothers experience from those privleged enough to choose whether or not to have children.
Of course, not every mother has children out of obligation, but I do believe that a lot of mothers bringing their children into public spaces-- bars, restaurants, whatever-- do so because they miss that freedom of being able to do as they please, an agency you staunchly, and rightly, defend. If the choice is between staying confined in the home with their children or bringing them with them when they need a sense of normalcy but have noone to watch their kids, I firmly believe people should be able to choose the latter without being berated for burdening everyone around them. Don't let your kids wreak havoc all over the place, sure, but the mere presence of a child in a public space does not infringe on any right or sacred comfort of yours. I'd much rather a few pissed off coffee shop patrons than mothers off their asses on valium to cope.
As for his comments about forgoing children to "have fun", I agree with you in that that's not the only reason people may not have kids and if it is... who cares. If you have the privilege of motherhood being a choice (a point I'd like to hear more from you about), your eventual decision and reasoning behind it are nobody's god damn business. That being said, I didn't really get the sense that he was saying everyone should have to give up their hopes and dreams and take on the challenge of motherhood whether they'd like to or not. Maybe he does believe that, I don't know. But what stood out to me most in his argument is that "any sacrifice of [the freedom to have fun] is ipso facto bad" in the eyes of a lot of young people today. And I think there's merit here. No, you shouldn't have to be miserable, and a life of suffering without respite is not analogous to maturity or "being a grown up". But I think we can all agree that life at some point or another forces all of us to give up something, or many things, that we love. To fear this inevitable crossroads, to me, is a sign of immaturity. What he's saying here, I'm interpreting, is that these decisions are not always net negative, in fact they rarely are. I can see how this general idea applied specifically to the choice to have children or not can come across as pro-natalist, but I'd like to see it as a little more nuanced. Arguing for the benefits of having children is not inherently anti-feminist, so long as the pros and cons of both decisions are weighed appropriately depending on the context and that neither ultimate decision is demonized.
I agree with a lot of what you wrote and vehemently agree that the pro-natalist argument is violently misogynistic, racist, and littered with eugenicist and fascist dogwhistles. But I also think the other side of this discourse can easily morph into mom-shaming and overlook the fact that even today motherhood is not a choice for a lot of women. I don't believe that was your intention at all, but I saw some room for those interpretations to fester and just wanted to state what was on my mind. :)
I think that’s right! There’s part of his thread that I didn’t include here because it didn’t annoy me and I agreed with it, lol. It was about how many women face discrimination because they’re mothers—which I’m sure is true and which is also a concern!
I like this article, and makes you also think about the so-called biology clock and all those myths imposed to women for generations and generations. Another thing that contributes to children decline is the fact that many people just have one child, unlike before when people had a whole rockband. On the other hand, we are 8.2 billion people on earth right now, should we truly truly get worried about running out of kids?
What I have also noticed is the attitude of people who hold the belief that most people who don’t want kids are selfish and hedonistic and living a life of extended adolescence.
Their main argument for convincing these so-called hedonists to have kids is they should want to suffer. Having and raising kids is difficult, and you should want to do it. You shouldn’t be allowed, socially, to just chill and travel and spend money and enjoy yourself.
They complain about how selfish people are these days, that we are enjoying an unprecedented level of comfort and ease, and (implied) that’s bad and we should not do that. The fact that convincing people that they should make their lives worse isn’t a very convincing argument does not seem to cross their minds.
I’ve noticed a lot of parents hold the belief that they are suffering, and everyone else should suffer with them. However, people generally do not want to suffer, especially when their lives now are great. I think arguing that no, they have it too easy and they SHOULD suffer, is destined to lose.
I think your point is directionally correct but I think that it might be a little overly charitable to assume most people forgoing parenthood are doing so to “express commitment to their communities in different ways” or to reform the criminal justice system like your friend is choosing to do. If we’re doing “vibes-based” thinking, my vibes definitely match the person you quoted a little bit more—people are choosing to forego children to live hedonistic lives or prioritize much less altruistic careers than the ones you mentioned (West Regional Director of Paperclip Sales etc etc).
The vast majority of people make decisions out of pretty simple self-interest. Parenthood has always required a certain degree of societal encouragement because it IS deeply challenging and taxing—both mentally and physically. We’d never expect a homo rationalis conception of people to choose to be a parent, it’s why external incentives are needed!
I don’t think it’s wise to fully do away with some sort of pressure of this kind and just saying “people should do what they want”. Of course this applies more to women than men but parenthood is a two way street! The responsibilities should fall on both parents (despite the unfortunate fact that it doesn’t always play out that way). It’s difficult to balance all this with ensuring women are treated fairly, but I really hope we can manage to!
not sure i agree that most people make decisions out of self-interest. there are all kinds of smaller, less dramatic ways to demonstrate a commitment to the future: volunteering at a local animal shelter, joining a local political group, working as a teacher. and i’m not sure that we should incentivize parenthood because i’m not convinced that it’s better than all the other ways of contributing to society or leading a meaningful life. (unless it’s the only way to keep society going…but i’m not convinced that’s true either, for various reasons)
Why can’t people (women) “do what they want” regarding having children? Why can’t people (women) choose not to become parents for any reason that works for them (women) (me)?
There are some people who think it will lead to society’s decline and eventual human extinction, apparently. Melodramatic but if I humour it for a moment: if ALL women didn’t want to have kids and ALL women collectively agreed they were done, I’m pretty okay with that lmao.
I feel like that’s an uncharitable reading of my comment :(
Of course people should make those decisions for themselves! I wouldn’t tell people what decisions to make on an individual level, but unfortunately some totally okay decisions made individually result in bad outcomes when they extend to wide scale societal trends. It’s just an unfortunate consequence of large numbers.
Unless immigration ramps up massively, societies do tend to require somewhat stable birth rates to sustain things like healthcare (Canadian perspective), social security, etc. otherwise you end up in a situation like Japan where the working population isn’t sustaining the aging one.
At the end of the day if not having kids is the right call for somebody they should respect that! I’m not trying to make decisions for other people, just expressing why I’m not inherently opposed to encouraging people to have children and why I don’t think removing that value is necessarily a helpful idea for societies moving forward
It is folly to think institutions of men will be successful controlling the sex drive, reproductive wishes, and social wishes of millions of women. It has never, and I mean never in the course of history, worked. It says a lot about the men in charge that they prefer this fascist, livestock management approach to women's lives as opposed to oh, say, re-thinking our valuation systems and economic systems, all of which were invented by, you guessed it, men. So my organs, and my daughter's organs, are now responsible for shoring up their bullshit Ponzi scheme of an economy.
Sounds hot! Really makes me want to fuck for the continuation of such a scheme, you know? Risk death to propagate further torture of women! Has anyone, and by anyone I mean any man, considered that this approach belies the reality of being a human woman? That we are ultimately livestock whose sole purpose is to produce more men, and that is being proven right now, in real time, as our rights to our own bodies are in peril? As we are written about only in terms of wombs that must turn up production for...*checks notes*...more men to make money off of our bodies and our time and our lives, in perpetuity? Close your eyes and think of the economy?! Is that the line y'all think will work?
Do you realize that this doesn't light a fire in us to get fucked, ruin our organs, and die, because prolonging such a society actually seems like a terrible idea for us, the livestock vessels? If anything, more women are getting permanently sterilized to avoid such a fate. If I could do it all over again, I would get my tubes tied at 19. I have two daughters that I regret. Not because I don't love them, but because I have doomed them to experience this world under the thumb of men, who seem only to delight in our torture and suffering. One out of every 4 women experiences sexual assault as a child. The rest will experience it as adults, in between making less money than men, being harassed in the workplace, and then suffering the pain and indignity of aging and hormone depletion that quite literally ruins our lives and bodies, and for which the medical community will neither study nor take seriously.
You posit that we must 'do something' to continue to propagate the human species. I say no thanks. If humans can't figure out a way to treat half the population like people instead of animals, then we SHOULD die out. Women are done propping this shit up.
Yet you said our reading of why people choose not to have kids should be less charitable, so why do we owe you charity?
People have to have jobs in most modern societies in order to live. You crapping on being a paperclip salesperson is a value judgment in itself, like it's not possible to happy doing that job or find it valuable, for whatever reason.
And what precisely would be WRONG about ramping up immigration massively? It can be argued we owe it to the people to want to come (and I'm speaking of the US here), given that the actions of our government have made their homes unlivable.
Besides, we already encourage people to get married and have children. It is *still* the norm; it's soaked into our culture and advertisements and tv shows and parental expectations and tax incentives. I'm really tired of people pretending it isn't.
The better thing to encourage is creating a more livable society for everyone and doing everything we can to mitigate climate change.
a) Because I’m not being uncharitable in my reading of Becca’s argument, I’m bringing up a different perspective in good faith?
b) I have no issue with paper clip sales obviously, I’m just using it as a placeholder for a corporate job that isn’t inherently altruistic
c) I’m not opposed at all to ramping up immigration, it’s just not a policy I expect the American government to implement. I’m not sure how you read that I’m opposed to that
d) I didn’t say it wasn’t the norm, I said we shouldn’t do away with that norm completely
e) I agree with you that we should do everything to stop climate change that we can, this isn’t completely inconsistent with a relatively stable population level
I feel like every response to my argument has been trying to misread and misinterpret what I said! At the end of the day, it makes me really sad that we’ve reinterpreted childrearing as some trad conservative value. Nobody should feel individually forced to have children, but to pretend like both outcomes (having or not having children) is equally beneficial for a society’s future I don’t think is correct.
deleted this comment elsewhere because i accidentally replied to the wrong person, sorry!
a) No you aren't. You literally said we should be less charitable in our assumptions about why people don't have kids. You are completely judgy about that choice. Your comments reek of it.
b) But you're still missing the point: people don't take corporate jobs because they are "altruistic," they do it because they need money to live. You're basically insinuating if someone DOESN'T have an altruistic job they need to have kids. Fuck that.
c) It's not my problem you lack imagination. The US economy already relies HEAVILY on immigrant labor. We will need more.
d) we haven't, You haven't proved that we have. You haven't even *addressed* parts of my comment dealing with the existing incentives to marry and parent. Perhaps they are not sufficient; but they exist nonetheless. Next.
e) I don't even know what you're trying to say here. My last sentence directly followed from my sentence laying out the existing incentives and cultural norms for parenting and giving birth.
I feel like maybe if *everyone* is misunderstanding your argument, then did not argue well. Neither have you proved that "we've reinterpreted childrearing as some trad conservative value." What's actually trad and conservative is FORCING people to stay married and have as many children as they can.
"but to pretend like both outcomes (having or not having children) is equally beneficial for a society’s future I don’t think is correct. " Hey, fuck you dude. You don't know what's going to be beneficial for the future. You're guessing. We've always had people who didn't have kids in our world. You claim you don't want to force people, but you're pretty obviously judgmental of people who choose to be childless. I'm done with this discussion. You may think you're in good faith, but your comments reek of pronatalist nonsense. If YOU want lots of kids, have at. Don't make this everyone else's problem.
Why shouldn’t we tax multi billion dollar corporations more to fund social security? Why are you suggesting people should have kids so those kids will grow up and get jobs and pay taxes that fund social security? What a weird argument.
so from what i've read, declining global and developed world fertility rates are largely due to the same thing: poor women and teens are having fewer unwanted children thanks to more widely-available birth control. that accounts for the vast majority of the drop, and should be a laudable development.
middle and high-income women on average want about the same number of kids as they did in previous decades (2.2 ish), but actually end up having less than they want for various reasons. but the effects on the middle and upper-income groups account for a smaller proportion of the overall change, even if it's what's more culturally salient for those doing the hand-wringing.
someone also just sent me something about how a lot of the decline (like, almost all of it) in western countries is the product of decline in teen pregnancies! but insofar as there is a decline in the demographic of interest to commentators because we all belong to it, i don’t think the issue is a meaning crisis. much the opposite: i think there are now many avenues for women seeking meaning, whereas there used to be only one permissible social avenue
Thank you for writing this. I am going to possibly get a lot of shit for this but since we're doing vibes, here's my two cents. This might be slightly triggering for people who want to give birth, so be forewarned please:
I am absolutely terrified of pregnancy. Absolutely horrified by it. Not by children, mind you, I think they are absolutely adorable, even if they are a lot of work. Just that pregnancy as a biological concept is the single most terrifying thing I can imagine a human body going through. Even thinking about it makes me want to cry. I realise that this is a phobia, and so probably makes me a statistical outlier. I am surrounded by people wanting to have children. As a cis woman in her mid twenties, I cannot exactly pinpoint when this started. But I know that at some point I went from marveling at the general ability of the female body to give birth and went into panic mode upon understanding that not only is this something MY OWN BODY is capable of, but that in the social eye, this ability trumps anything else I might ever desire or achieve in my life. Couple that with the sheer biological horror of it - and I find myself at a genuine loss - I can not relate to the people around me who want to carry a child.
This absolutely does not mean I have anything against people who are capable of or want to give birth. To be honest, I am in awe of them. I think it is a major sacrifice - not even counting all the economic and social issues that make pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing difficult. Just the pain your body goes through - which is bad enough that people's brains produce a hormone to essentially make you forget how painful it was so that you would do it again - makes me want to do everything possible to make a pregnant person's life easier. I cannot believe how little support we offer pregnant people in our society. They have very, very little agency, because people either expect them to go on as if nothing is happening, or they are basically confined or condescended to by people around them. It also doesn't warm my heart to know that in SEVERAL places in the world if I were to somehow become pregnant (r*pe statistics being what they are) I would essentially stop being a person in favour of the foetus.
I do not understand how it is selfish to not want to be in pain if you can avoid it - or to not want to chance dying. Mortality rates during childbirth are the highest they have been in the UK in 20 years by the way. There is a very real chance that your partner could die during childbirth - if they want to take that chance, it is their right. But by no means is anyone going to convince me that it is my duty to give birth. I do not want to give birth for a THOUSAND different reasons, but if the only response I give you when you ask is 'I don't want to, because I don't want to', maybe I am not being irrational - maybe it's because I know you will judge me over something that, quite frankly, is none of your business.
It's not at all irrational and I don't think you should describe it as a "phobia" when phobias describe irrational fears and you're just being fully logical about something that is actually brutal. I asked men how much they'd have to be paid to go through it, and the few who answered me (as opposed to the dozens just trying to argue with me) said several million dollars: https://kryptogal.substack.com/p/the-fertility-crisis-is-inevitable
Yeah I did think about it, and thought 'it's not irrational, so why should I call it phobia?', but I think that is also true for at least some things that are classified as phobias. For example, if someone is afraid of snakes, that fear may be at least partially rational, considering some snakes are dangerous. The phobia aspect of that is more just being scared of going around your life thinking about snakes, or having intrusive thoughts about snakes. I think that's the past I relate to - the near constant thought that I might be forced to give birth. This is the single most distressing thought I have in a day. I don't live in a country that forces women to give birth (thank fuck), but there are efforts to change that of course through organisations like SPUC which are funded by US anti-choice organisations. So, I admit it isn't completely irrational - but I think the scale to which I think about it is an overreaction. I can recognise that about myself.
This is perfectly valid, and I used to share this phobia. I only stopped having it after my nephew was born (made me see having kids differently), and after I had surgery for endometriosis. I've also had surgery for a microperforate hymen, and even after surgery those conditions can cause a lot of issues with childbirth. There's a very high chance I would need a C-section for every birth if I had children. Between the endo and the microperforate hymen, I really didn't want to put my reproductive system through more problems when I was younger. By the time the baby fever got to the point where it could over-ride that, I was already in my late 30s. I spent most of my 20s not even bothering to date because sex was so painful with the conditions I have. Trying to make myself be interested in sex and able to have it without feeling pain has been about as much of a fun process as trying to overcome ARFID-- it feels like "yeah, this is probably a good thing to do to feel more normal", but it's not actually enjoyable. Plus that process is easy to put off because it turns into a catch-22: why worry about having no drive if I don't have a partner, and why worry about not having a partner if I have no drive? The only reason I'm not a virgin is because I've been aggressively pursued by men my entire adulthood and sometimes the combination of aesthetic appeal and personality makes me put up with the pain.
That sounds really traumatic, I'm sorry you had to go through that! I think if I lived somewhere where reproductive rights were limited or banned - I would absolutely give up sex without a second thought.
Even in ultra-progressive NYC, women's healthcare was a joke. The main reason I could finally get endo surgery was that I moved to South Dakota. The surgeon here actually had time to do it since the medical system isn't overburdened. That's probably a lot of how they stayed open during covid, too-- medical services don't get overwhelmed here. Twice in my life, I've had a horrible stomach virus that required hospitalisation. In NYC, they treated this in a hallway full of dozens of other people on rolling beds. It was like a field hospital in a war. In Sioux Falls, I was the only one in the waiting room and got a private room with five star service. Places like NYC will just tell you to use ibuprofen and/or birth control for endometriosis. It's insulting at best and life-ruining at worst. No freaking way was I going to risk a pregnancy there! Oddly enough, SD has the highest birth rate in the country. Part of this could just be better access to healthcare.
I basically avoided sex to some degree in NYC. I mostly hung out in the "queer" community and worked jobs that were mostly staffed by women and gays. All I needed to do to avoid sex was just not make an effort to meet straight men, dress a certain way, and say "no". When I went clubbing, I would dress really androgynously to look less available. I had a lot of glam drag king looks that were influenced by 80s New Wave fashion.
What I loved about NYC though is that being single and childless is much more normalized for women than it is in SD! I liked that in NYC, people all sort of expected to grow old with their platonic friends (at least among queer artsy types), and those relationships were prioritized more than they are in Middle America, where things are more focused on couples and nuclear families. Being ace or celibate actually fits in way better with really libertine cultures that are stereotyped as being "degenerate" and sex-obsessed.
i really enjoyed this article! i also think that...if someone doesn't want to have kids simply because they want to do things for their own life that don't necessarily contribute to some "greater cause" and they do just want to have more fun with the time and money they save from not having kids...that's totally fine and understandable??? like having kids just for the sake of having them is way more selfish than not having them because you like your sleep or whatever. having kids should be an opt in, but it has been treated like an opt out for so long. the question is always "why don't you want kids?" when the question should be "why DO you want kids?" imo. bringing a whole other human onto the earth is something that people take too lightly and it results in a whole lot of trauma for everyone involved in a lot of cases.
Yes. This was so well said. I am a childfree lady who works with high schoolers and I hear “you’re so good with kids, why don’t you want them?” and it seems like the simple answer of “I don’t want them and never have” never is enough. The next time I hear a version of that question thrown at me I’m going to say “well why do you want kids?”
You’ve said exactly what I thought as I read this piece.
as a certain freak (edit: freak(s), plural) below has done us the courtesy of demonstrating, the "birth rates" conversation is nearly always a proxy for latent (and sometimes active) fascist racial anxiety among the intelligentsia. even if you concede the point that declining fertility rates are creating a potential economic problem in the long-term (already an extremely shaky claim), there is a very obvious way to get more working-age people in the country if we ever need to do so - but the american intelligentsia is so reflexively and instinctually racist that it never even comes up.
i love this article because it so artfully cuts through the bullshit, and evidently pushes the freaks making these arguments to say what they're really concerned about.
I always wonder at the "immigration can solve it" answer. It's a zero-sum thing ultimately. If the US and all the other countries below replacement rate hoovered up emigrants from the few remaining places above replacement rate, wouldn't we be depopulating those original countries to their detriment? Most places are seeing declining birth rate even if some are still above replacement. Also, immigrants' birth rates decline to match the locals' within a generation or two.
The key is remittances.
Immigrants can make 10-15x the wages in the US that they would at home, so remittances tend to be a big deal, massively outperforming foreign aid both in terms of scale ($150b/yr vs. $70b/yr) and targeting.
Oh, keep in mind that the entire population of the United States is but the rounding error on that of China.
There’s a lot of people in this world. The American population is a tiny slice of that pie — it’s really only consequential in terms of its outsize consumption rates.
I wouldn’t necessarily attribute that attitude to the intelligentsia; certainly not at large. I’ve seen policy paper after policy paper pointing out that declining birth rates are not a problem when you have immigration. It’s only the “stable geniuses” like Elon Musk who are deeply concerned about it.
Thanks for your article. The debate surrounding fertility and having children is still extremely influenced by patriarchical values (more so than other domains, it seems to me).
Some interesting points I have noticed:
* In my liberal country in Western Europe, young childless women who want to be sterilized need to approval by a psychologist to do so. Like, why??? The same does not hold for childless young men, as far as I am aware.
* You're not just supposed to have children as a form of moral ambition, you're also supposed to really want them. Expressing regret about having children is taboo. Of course, this holds for women and much less for men.
* A big part of the fuss about transgender youth who want to go on puberty blockers is really about their fertility. They're considered too young to make the informed decision to give up their fertility, which is seen as one of the greatest possible losses.
* Single people who get pregnant unexpectedly and decide to keep the baby are still frowned upon in society and by no means adequately supported.
And gay/lesbian couples who really want to have children face numerous roadblocks and hate from conservatives. So when people say they find fertility rates important, I suspect they often mean "patriarchy".
This is a really interesting and probably apt way of thinking about the trans panic—I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it makes so much sense!
I think one more point to acknowledge would be why so many people (women, really) feel having kids would make the other things they want to do (performing life changing surgeries etc) so difficult/ impossible. I worked in the music industry for a long time and would hear women musicians say things constantly like ‘I really want to have kids one day but I can’t because I’m constantly on tour’, whereas their male counterparts would never even think about it (they would often just have kids, continue to tour, and be absent from their children for months on end, or often just be completely estranged from them.) Just using music as an example but I’m sure it’s the same across various demanding fields, and while it’s true that loads of women just don’t want kids, it’s also true that loads feel they have to make a choice between motherhood and say, a viable music career - and that the two are mutually exclusive. I don’t know what the answer is, I just wish it wasn’t like this!
I think that’s right, for sure! As I said, I do think if there were greater resources for childcare, there would be fewer trade-offs. But I still think some would remain, so I think some people just wouldn’t want kids under even ideal circumstances, and that’s fine!
The increase in childcare resources needs to first come from the dads. That's how I see it anyway. But many men still operate under the assumption that as their career takes off, his wife's will take a backseat so she can manage the children.
This is often explained away in that the men can make more money anyway, so it's the best way that particular family can organize their life. But because it's such an ingrained cultural assumption, it constrains all families. "They did it this way - why can't you? Why don't you?"
This question of "pursue my talent or have kids?" Is absolutely central to the experience of being a woman.
I always refer people to the 1948 film "The Red Shoes". The central conflict in that revolves around the choice to be a prima ballerina OR get married and have kids.
People love to think that things are totally different now and that movie is irrelevant post sexual-revolution, but it really isn't.
Last year I met a guy on r/LockdownSkepticism and figured that given how we met, he would care about "Out of Lockstep". NOPE. In February, I got my chance to finally do the full installation at a festival in NH after 2 years of working on the idea, and my ex basically said, "but you'll have to stop doing this once you get pregnant, right?"
He wasn't even talking about getting to know eachother better first and getting married, just getting me knocked up and me leaving behind everything else I wanted in life.
I was 37 years old and knew if I dumped him, I might not get another chance to have kids. Given the choice between the art installation or having a guy who hadn't even gotten to know me yet push me to get pregnant, I obviously chose the art installation. Dumped him a day after he suggested I give it up, never spoke to him again, spent the next 5 months using every spare moment to get that installation together. I have no regrets.
It was a relief when I got to New Hampshire and got feedback like "oh, this is a rite of passage!" When people saw what I'd made. With just the *preview*, hundreds of people could finally process their grief around the covid lockdowns and start to really heal.
My former business partner tried to get me to be in a polyamorous relationship with him, so I also dropped him like a hot potato and replaced him with a new partner who immediately found me a space in NYC to display my work. At that point it was like the universe was telling me to just stay single and focus on my art.
Men don't go through this shit when they're trying to do a big ambitious art project. Between the pressure to breed and the sleazy "casting couch" type shit from the guy who supposedly did support my career, I'm done. Just going to stay singe, thanks.
The red shoes is also the example I give to everyone about this topic.
Hm. I feel like it’s somewhere in the middle of both perspectives. I do see a lot of people expressing that desire to maintain their relative carefree and ‘fun’ lifestyle by remaining childless AND to reroute that saved time and labour towards other avenues. But I wouldn’t necessarily agree that supporting their greater community in other ways is at the root of that decision for most. Not saying that they don’t care about community but that it’s not really a strong decision factor. And honestly, does it have to be? It’s not a trade-off. There’s nothing wrong or narcissistic about not having kids, do we really need to point to other ways women offer value as if it’s some type of compensation?
Anyway, I like your point about how the past birth rate is treated as some de facto baseline and I definitely agree that material conditions aren’t as big of a contributing factor as some suggest.
Love a vibes-based discourse! I'm coming up on 40 and still childless. I never had the strong desire to become a mother and always characterized myself as "on the fence" but looking back I think I was just afraid to admit I didn't want kids! My boyfriend now was so clear on his choice that he had a vasectomy a few years ago (prior to meeting me) and having the question of "are we going to have kids?" completely off the table once we started dating felt like such a RELIEF. Then I considered how I'd always felt a little betrayed when a female celebrity announced a pregnancy, as if her remaining childless would help validate my decision to do so. I also felt so much fear during pregnancy and birth scenes in movie, like "oh my god, I can't believe I will HAVE to do that one day." Motherhood still feels so compulsory!
I have so many thoughts on the subject, how modern dating culture might influence this, what I'm hearing from my friends who are mothers (and what our friendships are like now that one of us has children and one of us does not), should kids be allowed at breweries or should we ban them from all public spaces, but I will stop at one more thing - I hate this argument that having kids ensures someone will be around to "take care of you" in your old age. As if the US has a strong culture of intimately caring for our elders! As if the same people making this argument aren't also shipping their own aging parents off to retirement homes. As if all kids outlive their parents, as if all kids will have the ability, time, money or desire to care for their parents when it is needed. Maybe I'm too pessimistic but that's a bet I just wouldn't count on.
I completely agree! It’s also vibes-based analysis, of course, but I do observe that people who are always on about how liberal institutions are hostile to children aren’t really in those institutions. Pretty much everyone in those institutions that I know recognizes that motherhood is kind of the default option within them!
Other people’s kids, that they spent a lot of time and money raising, will ultimately be taxed to pay for your retirement. The systems are pay as you go so you will have contributed nothing towards them by the time you retire.
The cost of raising a kid, not counting college or unpaid parental labor, is around $330k according to the usda (2023 dollars) That’s after “free” k-12 education, which parents also pay for through taxes.
So having replacement fertility (2.1ish) costs parents at least $700k, and likely more.
I can see how someone would view $700k in additional disposable consumption (plus freedom, time, etc) of essentially free riding in middle age and then dumping the cost in other people’s kids would be a good move in a selfish sense.
Back of the envelope, childless people should probably contribute another $10k or so in taxes each year to support child bearers, if they wanted to do their fair share to contribute to their own retirement. Obviously it would take on the usually progressive shape (higher for higher income).
And of course the form the support comes in matters. Cash is best. “In kind services” tend to benefit the service provider more then the parent, k-12 is already a good example.
While it’s “not just the money”, I find the childless also don’t want to pay up the money. It’s almost like paying up the money, in addition to literally not being fun, would be a kind of admission of what they are doing.
I always think it’s worth noting that ~10 years ago, the moral panic was focused on overpopulation and controlling & lowering birth rates in “underdeveloped” countries. To me it’s always about exerting control over certain populations. The “pronatalist” worldview is pretty easy to parse out, they want the “right” people to have more children and others to stop having what they deem to be too many. Even in the more liberal interpretations of this like the one you discuss from the NYT, there isn’t this acknowledgment that they were just having a freak out about the opposite issue relatively recently! It’s so frustrating.
the whole boohooing about people wanting to have fun instead of being tied to the responsibility of raising children is insane to me.. like some people want to fulfill their OWN happiness 😱 and not feel pressured to find a purpose in the grueling task of bringing up children? WOW!!
Thanks for writing this! The question of feminism and women’s rights is always ignored in these discussions, I think because the people pushing them are often of a reactionary bent (eg Vance) and the evidence doesn’t fit the “hedonistic liberal culture is causing birth rate decline” argument.
The data seems to show that more gender-equal, egalitarian societies (like France and Scandanavia) have maintained higher fertility rates than socially conservative countries where women do often have to sacrifice their careers and independence for motherhood (Italy, South Korea, China).
What makes Asia “socially conservative”.
Take something normally associated with conservatism and fertility: religiousness. East Asia is almost entirely atheistic.
Or take the governments attitudes towards fertility. South Korea led a 50 or so year long anti-natal campaign where they disincentivized having children and tried to get people on IUDs whenever they could. China obviously had the one child policy.
When I look within countries, it’s always the more conservative people having the kids.
The Nordic countries are pretty “well functioning”. They tend to do better at everything. They also have school choice and didn’t shut down over Covid, which are both “right coded” things.
Even so, they are just experiencing the same problem slightly slower than others.
East Asian countries have vanishingly low rates of childbirth outside of wedlock (whereas in the west this is increasingly common and socially acceptable) and while women in the workforce have become much more of a norm, social attitudes still skew quite traditional when it comes to gender roles (the mother is almost always going to be the one to stop working if a couple has children). Both of these are certainly markers of social conservatism (small c). I think part of the issue is a blend of more conservative traditional cultural values conflicting with the introducing of more “modern” progressive values and the conflict not being resolved, which leads to many young people stuck in a difficult place (having to choose one or the other) or even a lose lose situation.
Of course, it’s not just this; as you say, the one child policy and its equivalents (Singapore had similar family planning messaging for decades and now faces very low birth rates too) have also caused the current demographic issues. High property prices certainly don’t help either, when the prevailing societal expectation is that you should own property before having kids.
In any case, it seems to me that pursuing more egalitarian family structures and less socially constraining norms is a good in and of itself.
Do you believe that if Korea had more out of wedlock births and working women that this would increase fertility? I'm pretty skeptical that's the solution. Both of those things are associated with lower fertility pretty much all around the world.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/workism-and-fertility-the-case-of-the-nordics
Despite Muslim immigrants pulling a lot of fertility indicators up in the Nordics, we are still seeing a steady decline from an already below replacement rate.
I think you're totally right, Becca. Thanks for writing this piece summing up your argument! I wanted to add though that I think having kids and pursuing other non-kid ventures may be less about serving society and more about feeding the ego. I think wanting biological kids has egotism at its root. It's good for the continuation of the human race/social security/ capitalism in aggregate! But people wouldn't care so much about lineage and legacy and "juniors" if ego wasn't a good part of it. And now, there's just a lot more ways for people — a group that most definitely includes women — to feed their ego. That may be going to grad school, starting a business, writing a book, etc. Those things can be good for community and collective knowledge and all those good things. But they're also big ego boosts.
I want to give the author you quoted some grace in regards to what he's saying here-- I'm not familiar with his other work and don't know his views on birth rates largely but solely based on what you've shown here I understand a lot of what he's saying and don't see it as pro-birth propaganda but rather as critiquing the judgement and vitriol some mothers experience from those privleged enough to choose whether or not to have children.
Of course, not every mother has children out of obligation, but I do believe that a lot of mothers bringing their children into public spaces-- bars, restaurants, whatever-- do so because they miss that freedom of being able to do as they please, an agency you staunchly, and rightly, defend. If the choice is between staying confined in the home with their children or bringing them with them when they need a sense of normalcy but have noone to watch their kids, I firmly believe people should be able to choose the latter without being berated for burdening everyone around them. Don't let your kids wreak havoc all over the place, sure, but the mere presence of a child in a public space does not infringe on any right or sacred comfort of yours. I'd much rather a few pissed off coffee shop patrons than mothers off their asses on valium to cope.
As for his comments about forgoing children to "have fun", I agree with you in that that's not the only reason people may not have kids and if it is... who cares. If you have the privilege of motherhood being a choice (a point I'd like to hear more from you about), your eventual decision and reasoning behind it are nobody's god damn business. That being said, I didn't really get the sense that he was saying everyone should have to give up their hopes and dreams and take on the challenge of motherhood whether they'd like to or not. Maybe he does believe that, I don't know. But what stood out to me most in his argument is that "any sacrifice of [the freedom to have fun] is ipso facto bad" in the eyes of a lot of young people today. And I think there's merit here. No, you shouldn't have to be miserable, and a life of suffering without respite is not analogous to maturity or "being a grown up". But I think we can all agree that life at some point or another forces all of us to give up something, or many things, that we love. To fear this inevitable crossroads, to me, is a sign of immaturity. What he's saying here, I'm interpreting, is that these decisions are not always net negative, in fact they rarely are. I can see how this general idea applied specifically to the choice to have children or not can come across as pro-natalist, but I'd like to see it as a little more nuanced. Arguing for the benefits of having children is not inherently anti-feminist, so long as the pros and cons of both decisions are weighed appropriately depending on the context and that neither ultimate decision is demonized.
I agree with a lot of what you wrote and vehemently agree that the pro-natalist argument is violently misogynistic, racist, and littered with eugenicist and fascist dogwhistles. But I also think the other side of this discourse can easily morph into mom-shaming and overlook the fact that even today motherhood is not a choice for a lot of women. I don't believe that was your intention at all, but I saw some room for those interpretations to fester and just wanted to state what was on my mind. :)
I think that’s right! There’s part of his thread that I didn’t include here because it didn’t annoy me and I agreed with it, lol. It was about how many women face discrimination because they’re mothers—which I’m sure is true and which is also a concern!
I like this article, and makes you also think about the so-called biology clock and all those myths imposed to women for generations and generations. Another thing that contributes to children decline is the fact that many people just have one child, unlike before when people had a whole rockband. On the other hand, we are 8.2 billion people on earth right now, should we truly truly get worried about running out of kids?
What I have also noticed is the attitude of people who hold the belief that most people who don’t want kids are selfish and hedonistic and living a life of extended adolescence.
Their main argument for convincing these so-called hedonists to have kids is they should want to suffer. Having and raising kids is difficult, and you should want to do it. You shouldn’t be allowed, socially, to just chill and travel and spend money and enjoy yourself.
They complain about how selfish people are these days, that we are enjoying an unprecedented level of comfort and ease, and (implied) that’s bad and we should not do that. The fact that convincing people that they should make their lives worse isn’t a very convincing argument does not seem to cross their minds.
I’ve noticed a lot of parents hold the belief that they are suffering, and everyone else should suffer with them. However, people generally do not want to suffer, especially when their lives now are great. I think arguing that no, they have it too easy and they SHOULD suffer, is destined to lose.
I think your point is directionally correct but I think that it might be a little overly charitable to assume most people forgoing parenthood are doing so to “express commitment to their communities in different ways” or to reform the criminal justice system like your friend is choosing to do. If we’re doing “vibes-based” thinking, my vibes definitely match the person you quoted a little bit more—people are choosing to forego children to live hedonistic lives or prioritize much less altruistic careers than the ones you mentioned (West Regional Director of Paperclip Sales etc etc).
The vast majority of people make decisions out of pretty simple self-interest. Parenthood has always required a certain degree of societal encouragement because it IS deeply challenging and taxing—both mentally and physically. We’d never expect a homo rationalis conception of people to choose to be a parent, it’s why external incentives are needed!
I don’t think it’s wise to fully do away with some sort of pressure of this kind and just saying “people should do what they want”. Of course this applies more to women than men but parenthood is a two way street! The responsibilities should fall on both parents (despite the unfortunate fact that it doesn’t always play out that way). It’s difficult to balance all this with ensuring women are treated fairly, but I really hope we can manage to!
not sure i agree that most people make decisions out of self-interest. there are all kinds of smaller, less dramatic ways to demonstrate a commitment to the future: volunteering at a local animal shelter, joining a local political group, working as a teacher. and i’m not sure that we should incentivize parenthood because i’m not convinced that it’s better than all the other ways of contributing to society or leading a meaningful life. (unless it’s the only way to keep society going…but i’m not convinced that’s true either, for various reasons)
Why can’t people (women) “do what they want” regarding having children? Why can’t people (women) choose not to become parents for any reason that works for them (women) (me)?
There are some people who think it will lead to society’s decline and eventual human extinction, apparently. Melodramatic but if I humour it for a moment: if ALL women didn’t want to have kids and ALL women collectively agreed they were done, I’m pretty okay with that lmao.
I feel like that’s an uncharitable reading of my comment :(
Of course people should make those decisions for themselves! I wouldn’t tell people what decisions to make on an individual level, but unfortunately some totally okay decisions made individually result in bad outcomes when they extend to wide scale societal trends. It’s just an unfortunate consequence of large numbers.
Unless immigration ramps up massively, societies do tend to require somewhat stable birth rates to sustain things like healthcare (Canadian perspective), social security, etc. otherwise you end up in a situation like Japan where the working population isn’t sustaining the aging one.
At the end of the day if not having kids is the right call for somebody they should respect that! I’m not trying to make decisions for other people, just expressing why I’m not inherently opposed to encouraging people to have children and why I don’t think removing that value is necessarily a helpful idea for societies moving forward
It is folly to think institutions of men will be successful controlling the sex drive, reproductive wishes, and social wishes of millions of women. It has never, and I mean never in the course of history, worked. It says a lot about the men in charge that they prefer this fascist, livestock management approach to women's lives as opposed to oh, say, re-thinking our valuation systems and economic systems, all of which were invented by, you guessed it, men. So my organs, and my daughter's organs, are now responsible for shoring up their bullshit Ponzi scheme of an economy.
Sounds hot! Really makes me want to fuck for the continuation of such a scheme, you know? Risk death to propagate further torture of women! Has anyone, and by anyone I mean any man, considered that this approach belies the reality of being a human woman? That we are ultimately livestock whose sole purpose is to produce more men, and that is being proven right now, in real time, as our rights to our own bodies are in peril? As we are written about only in terms of wombs that must turn up production for...*checks notes*...more men to make money off of our bodies and our time and our lives, in perpetuity? Close your eyes and think of the economy?! Is that the line y'all think will work?
Do you realize that this doesn't light a fire in us to get fucked, ruin our organs, and die, because prolonging such a society actually seems like a terrible idea for us, the livestock vessels? If anything, more women are getting permanently sterilized to avoid such a fate. If I could do it all over again, I would get my tubes tied at 19. I have two daughters that I regret. Not because I don't love them, but because I have doomed them to experience this world under the thumb of men, who seem only to delight in our torture and suffering. One out of every 4 women experiences sexual assault as a child. The rest will experience it as adults, in between making less money than men, being harassed in the workplace, and then suffering the pain and indignity of aging and hormone depletion that quite literally ruins our lives and bodies, and for which the medical community will neither study nor take seriously.
You posit that we must 'do something' to continue to propagate the human species. I say no thanks. If humans can't figure out a way to treat half the population like people instead of animals, then we SHOULD die out. Women are done propping this shit up.
Yet you said our reading of why people choose not to have kids should be less charitable, so why do we owe you charity?
People have to have jobs in most modern societies in order to live. You crapping on being a paperclip salesperson is a value judgment in itself, like it's not possible to happy doing that job or find it valuable, for whatever reason.
And what precisely would be WRONG about ramping up immigration massively? It can be argued we owe it to the people to want to come (and I'm speaking of the US here), given that the actions of our government have made their homes unlivable.
Besides, we already encourage people to get married and have children. It is *still* the norm; it's soaked into our culture and advertisements and tv shows and parental expectations and tax incentives. I'm really tired of people pretending it isn't.
The better thing to encourage is creating a more livable society for everyone and doing everything we can to mitigate climate change.
a) Because I’m not being uncharitable in my reading of Becca’s argument, I’m bringing up a different perspective in good faith?
b) I have no issue with paper clip sales obviously, I’m just using it as a placeholder for a corporate job that isn’t inherently altruistic
c) I’m not opposed at all to ramping up immigration, it’s just not a policy I expect the American government to implement. I’m not sure how you read that I’m opposed to that
d) I didn’t say it wasn’t the norm, I said we shouldn’t do away with that norm completely
e) I agree with you that we should do everything to stop climate change that we can, this isn’t completely inconsistent with a relatively stable population level
I feel like every response to my argument has been trying to misread and misinterpret what I said! At the end of the day, it makes me really sad that we’ve reinterpreted childrearing as some trad conservative value. Nobody should feel individually forced to have children, but to pretend like both outcomes (having or not having children) is equally beneficial for a society’s future I don’t think is correct.
deleted this comment elsewhere because i accidentally replied to the wrong person, sorry!
a) No you aren't. You literally said we should be less charitable in our assumptions about why people don't have kids. You are completely judgy about that choice. Your comments reek of it.
b) But you're still missing the point: people don't take corporate jobs because they are "altruistic," they do it because they need money to live. You're basically insinuating if someone DOESN'T have an altruistic job they need to have kids. Fuck that.
c) It's not my problem you lack imagination. The US economy already relies HEAVILY on immigrant labor. We will need more.
d) we haven't, You haven't proved that we have. You haven't even *addressed* parts of my comment dealing with the existing incentives to marry and parent. Perhaps they are not sufficient; but they exist nonetheless. Next.
e) I don't even know what you're trying to say here. My last sentence directly followed from my sentence laying out the existing incentives and cultural norms for parenting and giving birth.
I feel like maybe if *everyone* is misunderstanding your argument, then did not argue well. Neither have you proved that "we've reinterpreted childrearing as some trad conservative value." What's actually trad and conservative is FORCING people to stay married and have as many children as they can.
"but to pretend like both outcomes (having or not having children) is equally beneficial for a society’s future I don’t think is correct. " Hey, fuck you dude. You don't know what's going to be beneficial for the future. You're guessing. We've always had people who didn't have kids in our world. You claim you don't want to force people, but you're pretty obviously judgmental of people who choose to be childless. I'm done with this discussion. You may think you're in good faith, but your comments reek of pronatalist nonsense. If YOU want lots of kids, have at. Don't make this everyone else's problem.
Why shouldn’t we tax multi billion dollar corporations more to fund social security? Why are you suggesting people should have kids so those kids will grow up and get jobs and pay taxes that fund social security? What a weird argument.
What makes people feel good about themselves and what “contributes” and different things.
As to keeping society going, that’s a math question that really isn’t in dispute.
so from what i've read, declining global and developed world fertility rates are largely due to the same thing: poor women and teens are having fewer unwanted children thanks to more widely-available birth control. that accounts for the vast majority of the drop, and should be a laudable development.
middle and high-income women on average want about the same number of kids as they did in previous decades (2.2 ish), but actually end up having less than they want for various reasons. but the effects on the middle and upper-income groups account for a smaller proportion of the overall change, even if it's what's more culturally salient for those doing the hand-wringing.
this article from the economist a while back does a good job unpacking the whole thing https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/05/21/can-the-rich-world-escape-its-baby-crisis
and a recent non-economic explanation which says it's also largely due to a meaning crisis: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/08/fertility-crisis/679319/
thanks for writing about this! would be curious to hear more of your thoughts on the topic.
someone also just sent me something about how a lot of the decline (like, almost all of it) in western countries is the product of decline in teen pregnancies! but insofar as there is a decline in the demographic of interest to commentators because we all belong to it, i don’t think the issue is a meaning crisis. much the opposite: i think there are now many avenues for women seeking meaning, whereas there used to be only one permissible social avenue
Thank you for writing this. I am going to possibly get a lot of shit for this but since we're doing vibes, here's my two cents. This might be slightly triggering for people who want to give birth, so be forewarned please:
I am absolutely terrified of pregnancy. Absolutely horrified by it. Not by children, mind you, I think they are absolutely adorable, even if they are a lot of work. Just that pregnancy as a biological concept is the single most terrifying thing I can imagine a human body going through. Even thinking about it makes me want to cry. I realise that this is a phobia, and so probably makes me a statistical outlier. I am surrounded by people wanting to have children. As a cis woman in her mid twenties, I cannot exactly pinpoint when this started. But I know that at some point I went from marveling at the general ability of the female body to give birth and went into panic mode upon understanding that not only is this something MY OWN BODY is capable of, but that in the social eye, this ability trumps anything else I might ever desire or achieve in my life. Couple that with the sheer biological horror of it - and I find myself at a genuine loss - I can not relate to the people around me who want to carry a child.
This absolutely does not mean I have anything against people who are capable of or want to give birth. To be honest, I am in awe of them. I think it is a major sacrifice - not even counting all the economic and social issues that make pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing difficult. Just the pain your body goes through - which is bad enough that people's brains produce a hormone to essentially make you forget how painful it was so that you would do it again - makes me want to do everything possible to make a pregnant person's life easier. I cannot believe how little support we offer pregnant people in our society. They have very, very little agency, because people either expect them to go on as if nothing is happening, or they are basically confined or condescended to by people around them. It also doesn't warm my heart to know that in SEVERAL places in the world if I were to somehow become pregnant (r*pe statistics being what they are) I would essentially stop being a person in favour of the foetus.
I do not understand how it is selfish to not want to be in pain if you can avoid it - or to not want to chance dying. Mortality rates during childbirth are the highest they have been in the UK in 20 years by the way. There is a very real chance that your partner could die during childbirth - if they want to take that chance, it is their right. But by no means is anyone going to convince me that it is my duty to give birth. I do not want to give birth for a THOUSAND different reasons, but if the only response I give you when you ask is 'I don't want to, because I don't want to', maybe I am not being irrational - maybe it's because I know you will judge me over something that, quite frankly, is none of your business.
Rant over.
It's not at all irrational and I don't think you should describe it as a "phobia" when phobias describe irrational fears and you're just being fully logical about something that is actually brutal. I asked men how much they'd have to be paid to go through it, and the few who answered me (as opposed to the dozens just trying to argue with me) said several million dollars: https://kryptogal.substack.com/p/the-fertility-crisis-is-inevitable
Yeah I did think about it, and thought 'it's not irrational, so why should I call it phobia?', but I think that is also true for at least some things that are classified as phobias. For example, if someone is afraid of snakes, that fear may be at least partially rational, considering some snakes are dangerous. The phobia aspect of that is more just being scared of going around your life thinking about snakes, or having intrusive thoughts about snakes. I think that's the past I relate to - the near constant thought that I might be forced to give birth. This is the single most distressing thought I have in a day. I don't live in a country that forces women to give birth (thank fuck), but there are efforts to change that of course through organisations like SPUC which are funded by US anti-choice organisations. So, I admit it isn't completely irrational - but I think the scale to which I think about it is an overreaction. I can recognise that about myself.
This is perfectly valid, and I used to share this phobia. I only stopped having it after my nephew was born (made me see having kids differently), and after I had surgery for endometriosis. I've also had surgery for a microperforate hymen, and even after surgery those conditions can cause a lot of issues with childbirth. There's a very high chance I would need a C-section for every birth if I had children. Between the endo and the microperforate hymen, I really didn't want to put my reproductive system through more problems when I was younger. By the time the baby fever got to the point where it could over-ride that, I was already in my late 30s. I spent most of my 20s not even bothering to date because sex was so painful with the conditions I have. Trying to make myself be interested in sex and able to have it without feeling pain has been about as much of a fun process as trying to overcome ARFID-- it feels like "yeah, this is probably a good thing to do to feel more normal", but it's not actually enjoyable. Plus that process is easy to put off because it turns into a catch-22: why worry about having no drive if I don't have a partner, and why worry about not having a partner if I have no drive? The only reason I'm not a virgin is because I've been aggressively pursued by men my entire adulthood and sometimes the combination of aesthetic appeal and personality makes me put up with the pain.
That sounds really traumatic, I'm sorry you had to go through that! I think if I lived somewhere where reproductive rights were limited or banned - I would absolutely give up sex without a second thought.
Even in ultra-progressive NYC, women's healthcare was a joke. The main reason I could finally get endo surgery was that I moved to South Dakota. The surgeon here actually had time to do it since the medical system isn't overburdened. That's probably a lot of how they stayed open during covid, too-- medical services don't get overwhelmed here. Twice in my life, I've had a horrible stomach virus that required hospitalisation. In NYC, they treated this in a hallway full of dozens of other people on rolling beds. It was like a field hospital in a war. In Sioux Falls, I was the only one in the waiting room and got a private room with five star service. Places like NYC will just tell you to use ibuprofen and/or birth control for endometriosis. It's insulting at best and life-ruining at worst. No freaking way was I going to risk a pregnancy there! Oddly enough, SD has the highest birth rate in the country. Part of this could just be better access to healthcare.
I basically avoided sex to some degree in NYC. I mostly hung out in the "queer" community and worked jobs that were mostly staffed by women and gays. All I needed to do to avoid sex was just not make an effort to meet straight men, dress a certain way, and say "no". When I went clubbing, I would dress really androgynously to look less available. I had a lot of glam drag king looks that were influenced by 80s New Wave fashion.
What I loved about NYC though is that being single and childless is much more normalized for women than it is in SD! I liked that in NYC, people all sort of expected to grow old with their platonic friends (at least among queer artsy types), and those relationships were prioritized more than they are in Middle America, where things are more focused on couples and nuclear families. Being ace or celibate actually fits in way better with really libertine cultures that are stereotyped as being "degenerate" and sex-obsessed.