A couple of thoughts on this debate. First, the trend in declining birthrates is global and has been underway for decades; explanations have to be applicable in places as different as South Korea and Finland and over long time-spans. Recent and country-specific causes, like recent inflation or recession or high housing costs, simply don't apply. Global trends like expanding education and economic opportunities, and changes in societal expectations that used to push women into homemaker and child-bearing as their principal role, probably have more to do with declining birth rates worldwide and help explain why pro-natalist policies based on incentives like better pre-natal care, income assistance, tax breaks, etc., have been ineffective. Second, the problem is likely to be self-correcting over time. To the extent that the inclination to have/not have children is genetically determined, the inclination to not have children is going to slowly but surely breed itself out of the population in a few generations. So, people should calm down. If Earth's population actually declines by a few billion in the meantime, that is not a bad thing! Though it will not be without problems, a slowing, then reversal, of human population growth will allow us time and space to repair the damaged ecosystems that ultimately sustain us all.
I suppose that hints at another question that underlies the sense of meaning problem -- if there's not enough hope/sense of future/optimism to have children, how dedicated will we be to saving or repairing the world? For whom? What's the point? A lack of meaning and purpose, to me, would seem to lead to a larger sense of apathy and retreat...
As always, you’re right on Christine. And although Bill Maher would tease us both for caring, this phenomenon is a big deal with big consequences. I believe that your “meaning” argument can be augmented with the facts of decline in our men. As you point out in your book and as I’ve seen over the years as a high school football coach, boys are in trouble. Boys are not going out, making bad choices and dealing with the consequences. Boys are also unfortunately declining in their attention spans and general respect. Don’t I sound like an old man?!?! lol. But I’ve seen this decline first hand. We’re not climbing fences and entering restricted construction areas. We’re not breaking each others’ figurative balls anymore out of fear of the Woke Police. We don’t know how to talk to girls and we don’t know how to make eye contact. The skills of patience and hard work are being lost in this social media firestorm. Meaning coupled with a general decline in our social norms are responsible for the decline in fertility. Thank you so much for writing and speaking up !
Hi, I really enjoyed your piece but I do want to contribute something to the discussion. As 38-year-old mother of three (my oldest being nearly 12) with many mom friends, there is something I've always felt is missing throughout my experience with motherhood, and many of my friends have agreed with me on this in countless discussions over the years. Yes, money always helps having kids feel more feasible, and yes, imbuing parenthood with meaning helps it feel more important/fulfilling (because ultimately, yes, life and love are more important than money), but the big missing thing is: Community. Because of our cultural and economic dedication to the nuclear family, most parents today, at least in the WEIRD countries (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), go at parenthood feeling completely alone. They don't live with extended family, in fact, extended family often lives across town, in another state, or across the country. New parents bear not just the entire financial burden of a baby, but also the entire laborious process of meeting the child's (children's) every need, from the newborn stage through toddlerhood and beyond.
In today's world, babies/children belong to the parents as their personal responsibility, and they are lucky if their family helps a little. Those of us fortunate to have babysitting-friendly relatives nearby get some relief in this regard, but nevertheless parents are expected to suffer months to years of sleep loss (just look at how big the "get-your-baby-to-sleep" industry is for confirmation that this is a real problem in today's world), as well as pressure to get back to work, to breastfeed and/or pump, to cook/eat well, exercise, and so on—basically to navigate every stage of parenthood, plus normal adult life, on their own. This is not how it has always been. Humans are a deeply social species that evolved in close-knit groups, with family members from aunts and uncles to grandparents, cousins, siblings, and more helping to care for and raise a baby. To hold, feed, wear, and rock it to sleep, to be the baby's warm and safe sleeping place (none of this putting them down in a crib), to clean and soothe and entertain and distract. If one person felt overwhelmed by the screaming baby (or child), there was always another person to step in. What's more, young parents were taught how to parent by older, more experienced members of the tribe. But today, new parents try to learn from books and the internet and are generally completely alone when the baby (or children, once you have more than one) gets overwhelming. Parents today don't receive instruction, don't get breaks, and are stretched too thin trying to survive on multiple fronts (financially, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, etc.). Beyond money, just making food for yourself and/or your family can feel impossible many times in early parenthood. Trying to maintain a clean home? Even harder. Again, there's a reason this stuff is cliche. We have built up the masochistic experience of nuclear-family parenthood as some sort of necessary hardship or right of passage, or else the butt of jokes. No wonder so many young people aren't interested! On top of this negative message about parenthood and the endless sacrifices it entails, they've also been taught to value their personal time, space, financial freedom, ability to travel and pursue hobbies, to shop and socialize and binge watch and, yes, sleep.
So we live in an individualistic, materialist society that teaches us to want to live independent, consumerist lives, each person or couple alone in their own home, but then doesn’t understand why the demands of parenthood are still outweighing the perks. They churn out endless products to “make parents’ lives easier,” but really it’s all about creating substitutes for the real human interaction babies crave (and genuinely need). We surround our babies in manufactured objects to take some of the stress off ourselves, but strollers and bouncers and swings and seats and all the toys simply aren’t the same as having actual real-life support, compassion, advice, assistance. I believe that the support of a community—a network of family and friends in close proximity to help parents eat, sleep, take breaks, learn the ropes, and generally survive as healthy, balanced people—is actually the biggest thing that is missing in our portion of the world. In short, parenthood is daunting, and people feel alone.
A couple of thoughts on this debate. First, the trend in declining birthrates is global and has been underway for decades; explanations have to be applicable in places as different as South Korea and Finland and over long time-spans. Recent and country-specific causes, like recent inflation or recession or high housing costs, simply don't apply. Global trends like expanding education and economic opportunities, and changes in societal expectations that used to push women into homemaker and child-bearing as their principal role, probably have more to do with declining birth rates worldwide and help explain why pro-natalist policies based on incentives like better pre-natal care, income assistance, tax breaks, etc., have been ineffective. Second, the problem is likely to be self-correcting over time. To the extent that the inclination to have/not have children is genetically determined, the inclination to not have children is going to slowly but surely breed itself out of the population in a few generations. So, people should calm down. If Earth's population actually declines by a few billion in the meantime, that is not a bad thing! Though it will not be without problems, a slowing, then reversal, of human population growth will allow us time and space to repair the damaged ecosystems that ultimately sustain us all.
I suppose that hints at another question that underlies the sense of meaning problem -- if there's not enough hope/sense of future/optimism to have children, how dedicated will we be to saving or repairing the world? For whom? What's the point? A lack of meaning and purpose, to me, would seem to lead to a larger sense of apathy and retreat...
As always, you’re right on Christine. And although Bill Maher would tease us both for caring, this phenomenon is a big deal with big consequences. I believe that your “meaning” argument can be augmented with the facts of decline in our men. As you point out in your book and as I’ve seen over the years as a high school football coach, boys are in trouble. Boys are not going out, making bad choices and dealing with the consequences. Boys are also unfortunately declining in their attention spans and general respect. Don’t I sound like an old man?!?! lol. But I’ve seen this decline first hand. We’re not climbing fences and entering restricted construction areas. We’re not breaking each others’ figurative balls anymore out of fear of the Woke Police. We don’t know how to talk to girls and we don’t know how to make eye contact. The skills of patience and hard work are being lost in this social media firestorm. Meaning coupled with a general decline in our social norms are responsible for the decline in fertility. Thank you so much for writing and speaking up !
Hi, I really enjoyed your piece but I do want to contribute something to the discussion. As 38-year-old mother of three (my oldest being nearly 12) with many mom friends, there is something I've always felt is missing throughout my experience with motherhood, and many of my friends have agreed with me on this in countless discussions over the years. Yes, money always helps having kids feel more feasible, and yes, imbuing parenthood with meaning helps it feel more important/fulfilling (because ultimately, yes, life and love are more important than money), but the big missing thing is: Community. Because of our cultural and economic dedication to the nuclear family, most parents today, at least in the WEIRD countries (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), go at parenthood feeling completely alone. They don't live with extended family, in fact, extended family often lives across town, in another state, or across the country. New parents bear not just the entire financial burden of a baby, but also the entire laborious process of meeting the child's (children's) every need, from the newborn stage through toddlerhood and beyond.
In today's world, babies/children belong to the parents as their personal responsibility, and they are lucky if their family helps a little. Those of us fortunate to have babysitting-friendly relatives nearby get some relief in this regard, but nevertheless parents are expected to suffer months to years of sleep loss (just look at how big the "get-your-baby-to-sleep" industry is for confirmation that this is a real problem in today's world), as well as pressure to get back to work, to breastfeed and/or pump, to cook/eat well, exercise, and so on—basically to navigate every stage of parenthood, plus normal adult life, on their own. This is not how it has always been. Humans are a deeply social species that evolved in close-knit groups, with family members from aunts and uncles to grandparents, cousins, siblings, and more helping to care for and raise a baby. To hold, feed, wear, and rock it to sleep, to be the baby's warm and safe sleeping place (none of this putting them down in a crib), to clean and soothe and entertain and distract. If one person felt overwhelmed by the screaming baby (or child), there was always another person to step in. What's more, young parents were taught how to parent by older, more experienced members of the tribe. But today, new parents try to learn from books and the internet and are generally completely alone when the baby (or children, once you have more than one) gets overwhelming. Parents today don't receive instruction, don't get breaks, and are stretched too thin trying to survive on multiple fronts (financially, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, etc.). Beyond money, just making food for yourself and/or your family can feel impossible many times in early parenthood. Trying to maintain a clean home? Even harder. Again, there's a reason this stuff is cliche. We have built up the masochistic experience of nuclear-family parenthood as some sort of necessary hardship or right of passage, or else the butt of jokes. No wonder so many young people aren't interested! On top of this negative message about parenthood and the endless sacrifices it entails, they've also been taught to value their personal time, space, financial freedom, ability to travel and pursue hobbies, to shop and socialize and binge watch and, yes, sleep.
So we live in an individualistic, materialist society that teaches us to want to live independent, consumerist lives, each person or couple alone in their own home, but then doesn’t understand why the demands of parenthood are still outweighing the perks. They churn out endless products to “make parents’ lives easier,” but really it’s all about creating substitutes for the real human interaction babies crave (and genuinely need). We surround our babies in manufactured objects to take some of the stress off ourselves, but strollers and bouncers and swings and seats and all the toys simply aren’t the same as having actual real-life support, compassion, advice, assistance. I believe that the support of a community—a network of family and friends in close proximity to help parents eat, sleep, take breaks, learn the ropes, and generally survive as healthy, balanced people—is actually the biggest thing that is missing in our portion of the world. In short, parenthood is daunting, and people feel alone.