The Demographic Crisis is a Cultural Crisis
In a world that devalues children, motherhood becomes collateral damage
After presenting on pro-fertility policy earlier this year, I was asked why I thought declining birth rates were a “crisis” when much of the decline is because of women being granted more autonomy. It was absolutely a fair critique and I gave a sort of wishy-washy answer about entitlement programs and taxes that had very little teeth.
I was thinking back on this conversation last week while doing some research about the consequences of an aging population and while I partially stand by my original answer, I wish I had been more honest about my opinion. It’s true that the birth rate crisis isn’t all bad, the positive sides of the birth dearth don’t necessarily make up for all the costs of a birth rate slipping further and further below 2.1.
The data on the fiscal consequences of falling birth rates paints a bleak picture, but the real crisis is only visible if you also look at the cultural factors that have contributed to birth rate declines.
Over the coming weeks, I will be sharing why falling birth rates are a crisis. This week, I’m focused on the cultural side. Next week, I’ll dig into the economic side. I’ll conclude the mini-series by discussing the arguments against birth rate declines being a crisis and why I believe the cultural and economic costs outweigh the benefits.
Going Kid Free
On the Call Her Daddy podcast earlier this year, singer Chappell Roan said that everyone she knows that has kids is “in hell.” She compares her life as a Grammy winning artist to her friends from home in Missouri who chose to have children. She is happy, her friends are not. Many parents took offense at her comments and accused Roan of belittling parents and especially, mothers. But others championed Roan for finally giving voice to what so many are thinking – “Why would you ever have children?”
Around 1 in 5 adults are choosing to be childfree (as opposed to being childfree by infertility). This isn’t inherently bad, but unfortunately many of the childfree by choice are fundamentally anti-child. People happily discuss banning kids from planes and grocery stores. An apartment building in Brooklyn, NY targeted at DINKS – double income no kids – started accepting applications last December. While many of these are just provocative social media posts, they all have the same message: it’s fine and normal to dislike children.
Many people choosing to be “childfree” celebrate what they can accomplish as DINKS that parents cannot – lavish vacations, workout classes on the weekend, and going out on a whim. The air of superiority can’t be ignored, but neither can the anxiety and individualism that’s behind perfectly curated instagram posts.
In their book What Are Children For? Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman highlight that Millennials and Gen-Z are choosing to not have kids for a myriad of reasons but many are driven by anxiety about the future. Adults fear that they will be unable to provide for kids or that they will face penalties both in their career and social life. They also worry about the planet and worry about what world kids will grow up in. But this uncertainty about the self, the environment, and the future shouldn’t prevent us from, as Berg and Wiseman say, “embracing the fundamental goodness of human life.”
When the cons of having children are so existential, those who choose to have children feel like an opposite identity. Instead of respecting individual decision making, animosity between parents and the childfree grows. Economist Catherine Pakuluk in her book Hannah’s Children says that children have become “something you plan around, not something you plan for.” If you haven’t included children in your grand life plan, it’s nearly impossible to understand why someone might make a different choice than you.1
Children being viewed as a lifestyle choice instead of necessary for the future empowers puts a new pressure on parents – if you’ve chosen to have children, you are choosing to be solely responsible for their care and to ensure that they are not a nuisance to those who have chosen differently. As one example, in the article “Stop Bringing Kids to Boozy Brunch,” the author says:
“People should not bring kids to brunch because doing so is a sure sign that these people are not ready for parenthood. Stop trying to go back to your pre-kid prime by forcing your child’s presence on your friends and everyone else in the restaurant.”
In other words, if you’ve had children you should accept the social isolation that’s coming your way or you’re a bad parent.
The individualism of the child free movement also tells parents that they must parent on their own. Raising children is solely the responsibility of parents, and maybe grandparents. This then creates a weirdly self fulfilling prophecy – parents can’t do what DINKs can, not because they have kids but because they don’t have a village to support them.
An Anti-Child Culture is an Anti-Woman Culture
Our anti-child culture affects both parents, but women are uniquely harmed. When children are explicitly or implicitly banned from public spaces, their mothers are also banned. Tweeting “children shouldn’t be allowed to be on planes” is really saying “children and their mothers shouldn’t be allowed on planes.”
Yes, fathers do contribute to child care (at an increasing rate) but they still contribute less than women. Even men who aren’t employed and who participate in household child care spend only 10% more time on caring for children than women employed full time.
Data from the Pew Research Center found that even in houses where earnings are similar or women are the breadwinners, women still spend more time on caregiving and housework than their husbands.
While both parents feel loneliness, mothers feel social isolation more acutely than fathers. And because women shoulder the burden of raising children, they also shoulder more of the burden of children being left out of society. Because our anti-child culture has decided that virtually nowhere is child friendly besides playgrounds and daycares, there are also fewer places that are mother friendly – especially in a world where childcare is becoming increasingly expensive and hard to find.
Women should be able to choose their own paths, whether that’s staying home and raising children, working a high powered job and having no children, or somewhere in between. But the more anti-child our culture becomes, the harder it is for women to make the choice to be stay-at-home mothers or to be mothers at all. And with flexible work becoming more common and attitudes becoming more egalitarian, it should be easier for women to choose to be mothers regardless of if they want to work or not. But if having children means losing friends, career penalties, and being closed out from much of your community who can blame women from opting out?
This isn’t to say that some women aren’t freely opting out of raising children – many women don’t want children and that is perfectly fine. The problem is the choice to have children or not isn’t one being made freely in an anti-child world. It is an upside down version of when women were expected to have children, even if they didn’t want them. The cultural shift away from supporting parents and being a “village” is anti-women and that is a crisis in and of itself.
Time Users
What I’m Reading: I keep going back to this article I read last week by Katie Jgln on men falling behind. A must read for anyone interested in gender and family policy
Something I Found Interesting: This graph showing that more religious individuals show neutral or even positive fertility patterns with increasing intelligence
What I’m Listening To: Freakonomics is doing a three part series on why fertility rates are declining and I’m very excited to listen. I promise I thought of my series before I saw theirs!
What I’m Making: I’m on a granola making kick. It is so much cheaper than buying it in store and so easy! I’m excited to play around with flavors more - I just made honey cinnamon granola this week
Great piece! As a former DINK-turned-mother, I can say one of the most baffling things to DINKs is the idea that a parent actively WANTS to spend time with their kids. And I understand why. All they see is the stress and the constraints. They assume their life is the pinnacle of human existence and children “rob” that from their parents. But they do not know that indescribable and soul-shaking bond with the miracle of life that somehow grew inside you (or your partner). When I was a DINK I used to scoff at the idea that my parent-friends didn’t want to leave their kids behind for vacation or chose to skip the same old happy hour to snuggle with the kids after work before their bedtime. Now, my childless friends also roll their eyes at me when I say, sorry, I cannot go on a 10-day trip without my kids. But they don’t know the awe of seeing chubby little hands grasp your finger at dusk or the feeling when those disproportionately large eyeballs look deep into yours. I can always go back to boozy brunches once they get older. But those moments are precious.
I love kids, I work with them and I plan to hopefully have some. While I’ve been happy to make the switch to see my friends at child-friendly venues like parks and playgrounds, I also don’t think I’m obliged to make everything I do child-friendly. I don’t think a ‘boozy brunch’ is usually an appropriate venue for kids (at least not the brunches I’m thinking of).
As long as you’re polite and you make the effort to be the village at other times, I think it’s understandable. It can also be lonely on the other side as well, when your friends with kids are meeting up/bonding and you can’t access that.