THE ESSAY: What Both the Left and the Right Get Wrong about Pronatalism

Also, we need to stop calling it "pronatalism"

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We talk a lot about birth rates these days—what’s causing the decline, how it might shape our future, and what should be done about it. But few of these conversations about having babies dig into what it takes to create a family unit, acknowledging both the profound value and the real cost of caregiving—especially for women.

I recently listened to an episode of Interesting Times, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s podcast, on which he interviewed Dr. Alice Evans, a social scientist who studies the decline in global fertility. I found much of what they said fascinating, and what they didn’t say even more fascinating.

Evans: Fertility and women’s choices and men’s choices about how many children they want, that always come up in my interviews because I’m always interested in: What do you want to do for your life? So I’ve got so much data on this going back for the past 15 years.

When I was in Zambia, women would always encourage me to have another baby. “Oh, you must have a baby. You must have a baby.” That was so imperative for them.

Douthat: [Chuckles.] This is what I say to my colleagues too. So it’s not just Zambia.

And later…

Douthat: Do you have kids?

Evans: No. No, I don’t.

After Evans' response, there aren’t any follow-up questions on the matter.

Of course, Evans doesn’t owe us an explanation as to why she didn’t have kids. But to move past the subject so quickly, and not even abstractly touch on the fraught relationship between family life and professional ambition for women felt like a serious missed opportunity. It reflects a broader failure among pronatalists to speak honestly about how children are not just born, but raised—and how that labor still falls disproportionately on mothers and impacts their professional ambitions and financial security for the long run.

Could Evans be traveling around the world, amassing impressive research on the global fertility decline, and writing and publishing enough to get the attention of someone of Douthat’s stature if she had kids? Absolutely, but it would be a lot harder. Why not acknowledge it?

Reckoning with these types of questions would push the pronatalism conversation, one marked by the polarizing extremes of this moment, to a more productive place.

But Douthat and his fellow right-leaning pronatalists aren’t the only ones with blind spots.

ENOUGH WITH THE CAT LADIES AND TRADWIVES

When it comes to conversations about why people aren’t having as many kids anymore, I’m equally frustrated by the blind spots on the right and the left. Too few seem to be saying the thing I think every day: raising children—well—is unnecessarily hard, unnecessarily expensive, and profoundly meaningful. Instead of reckoning with that complexity, both camps tend to get stuck in their own narrow scripts.

On the right, the fertility conversation frustratingly avoids the gender dynamics at play. We have a lot of talk about what it would take for people to have babies, and far less about what it would take for women to be able to raise babies without losing their minds or going broke. While I abhor the idea of a motherhood medal full stop, I really resent the idea that a mother would be awarded one based on the number of kids she has, and not how well she parented them. That’s a whole other can of worms, I know. But I rank viewing good parenting as a matter of quality, rather than quantity, as slightly less terrifying. Reproduction is only the beginning of the long, trying, meaningful journey that is parenthood.

Coming from the left, I see the call to increase the birthrate as nearly exclusively being interpreted as a secret/ not-secret ploy to perpetuate the patriarchy. As if the only reason women have kids is to please men or gain power and agency under male supremacy. As if a world with more children and a world in which women are liberated are inevitably oppositional today.

The left is better than the right when it comes to acknowledging what it takes to raise kids, but that acknowledgement tends to be limited to the burdens and sacrifices. There is little discussion of the merits of parenthood and family-building, or how our individualistic society (fed by forces coming from both the left and right) diminishes the importance of family connection and personal obligation. There is little defending parenthood and family life for its own sake, as something that is tainted by, but also much bigger than, the patriarchy.

I find these two worldviews particularly frustrating during the summer, the season during which I most acutely wrestle with two conflicting truths: I love having extra time to spend with my kids, and don’t feel as though eating ice cream with them on our porch is less valuable and interesting than anything else. Also, I am earning less and, because of childcare inconsistencies, having to pass up on opportunities that could not just provide income now, but benefit me in the long run. Opportunities that might one day land me on a podcast like Douthat’s.

All this makes me yearn for a better conversation on pronatalism, one that values the creation of families, and women’s time. I have a few ideas.

A BIT OF CLARITY RE: MY THOUGHTS OVERALL ON PRONATALISM

Before I jump in to where I would love to see this conversation go, I want to clarify where I stand on this complicated subject.

ONE: There is nothing morally, spiritually or socially wrong with a woman who doesn’t have children, and I don’t think having children is necessary for taking part in the raising of children and contributing to the collective well-being of children. Many, like my Substack friend Lisa Sibbet, care for and appreciate kids even if they don’t have kids of their own. Also, if a woman wants to neither have kids nor be involved with raising kids, that’s perfectly fine, too. There are many other ways to participate in the vast web of human interdependence and make caring for others a meaningful part of your life.

TWO: While there are some ridiculous voices in the pronatalist movement, the concern over population decline isn’t unfounded. I recommend Elliot Haspel’s piece for the New Republic on this subject. The upshot: economically we will be in bad shape if the majority of humans are older and retired and there aren’t young people to pay into our social security system; while many think fewer people will be good for the environment, research suggests it won’t happen fast enough to make a considerable impact on global warming; young people bring fresh ideas and political momentum, old people tend to prefer the status quo or are too tired to change it. Case in point: can you imagine that our growing acceptance of LGBTQ+ people would have come from retirees? Related: Can you imagine a great effort to stop the climate crisis coming from a folks who have 20 years left to live?

THREE: A few months ago I read an article in the New Yorker about fertility decline. The piece looked closely at South Korea, where people 65 and older outnumber people 14 and younger. While it focused mostly on the social, political and economic implications of low fertility, I couldn’t help but respond from an emotional, sensory, and even spiritual, place. This low-child world seemed bleak. And it isn’t just children’s silliness, laughter and joy I would miss. I’d also miss their expressions of pure emotions, the supermarket cart wailing and everything else. Children remind us of our humanity, the whole mess of it.

FOUR: There are clearly many reasons why people aren’t having babies. These include personal, social and economic factors such as housing shortages that make family formation difficult, and unpredictable work schedules that make consistent childcare nearly impossible.

I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all explanation or solution. And would add that for those who point to countries who offer support for families and note that they don't necessarily have a higher fertility rate, we need to take into consideration how policy change doesn’t always match culture change. No amount of paid leave or universal free childcare can guarantee that dads aren’t assuming mom is the default parent during nights and weekends, or responsible for planning birthday parties or making sure the kids have shoes that fit. That said, Darby Saxbe recently found evidence suggesting that the policies still ultimately help in increasing dads’ participation at home. It’s just not overnight.

Lastly, as recent reporting in the New York Times points out, the relative cost of having kids in Scandinavian countries has still gone up even with these supportive policies. So, speaking in strict numbers, it is still financially foolish to have kids even in the land of generous paid leave and childcare.

FIVE: I am sick of the conversation focusing only on moms. Headline after headline talks about fertility decline as a “mom” issue and not a parental issue. If we’re serious about increasing fertility or simply improving family life, we have to include dads in the diagnoses and conversations, and work harder to imagine what meaningful fatherhood looks like. What policies, workplaces, and cultural narratives would actually encourage men to take on more caregiving on a day-to-day basis?

SIX: I have two kids. I wanted three but didn’t have another for two main reasons. One, the big one, money. Two, I dealt with secondary unexplained infertility at age 35 when trying to get pregnant with my second, so it took longer than expected. By the time I caught my breath with the two, Covid came. Today I feel as though I would have loved to have another child, but also feel lucky to get to spend time with the two I have.

CAN WE PLEASE CALL “PRONATALISM” SOMETHING ELSE?

The missing piece of the pronatalism conversation right now, the thing both the left and the right are mostly failing to acknowledge, is the true reality and value of care.

From the right, we often get the bippity-boppity-boo version of having kids, as if tending to them for two decades post-birth isn’t an intensive endeavor that requires serious sacrifice, and compromises careers and financial stability. From the left, the profound importance of care and family life, for the recipient of the care, the giver of the care, and society overall, is often missing.

A big reason we got stuck in this care-blind place is because of the awful term we use to discuss low fertility: “pronatalism”. “Pro” means “for” in Latin. And “natal” comes from the Latin word natalis, which means “of or pertaining to birth.” Birth is something that happens once, and is limited to those in possession of a uterus—which is to say, mostly women. Meanwhile, raising kids is something that involves a few intense decades, is generally a lifelong obligation, and, ideally, is the responsibility of not just the mother.

What if instead of pronatalism we call it “pro-family creation”? The right and left might disagree on what constitutes a family, with the right preferring a classic, heterosexual, married nuclear family structure and the left being more open to queer families, single parents, extended kinship networks, and chosen families of all kinds. Still, at least we would all be getting behind a phrase that honors that babies don't just get made; they get raised by others.

As a phrase, “pro-family creation” makes way for thinking about how those families get created. It invites us to think about the broader supports necessary for raising kids, and the cultural impediments to being a happy parent or a parent at all.

Thinking about the fertility decline through the lens of pro-family creation makes the parents of those kids the leads in this plot, instead of the supporting role they are cast into by “pronatalism.” Solutions to the pro-family creation crisis would have to be multi-generational, and take on the challenge of imagining good care not just for kids, but for everyone who cares for them. The big goal would be to create a world in which children are seen as a collective responsibility and public good.

We would guarantee economic security for all parents, no matter if they are in the paid workforce or not. We would make it possible for parents to work outside the home without losing their minds, through policy and culture change. We would make quality childcare universal, affordable, flexible and reliable, and not be limited to the early years. We would expand the child tax credit. We would think about making housing affordable, and our cities more family-friendly. We would support new moms and dads, from conception on, and continue to push for domestic care arrangements that feel equitable and fair for all. We would pass universal paid leave. (I have more to add to this list, but will stop here for now.)

When a baby is born, parents are born, too. As is, ideally, the community that will form around them. Who is taking this whole constellation of care seriously? Who is affirming the way these constellations of care forming around children add beauty and vitality to our societies overall? Who is seeing this constellation as a unit to be supported and celebrated in meaningful ways?

Too few people these days. Too few.

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