Kathleen Parker in her Friday W Post piece  (Don’t let doomsday birth rates stop you from celebrating motherhood) moans:

"We humans, having progressively lost interest in childbearing, are risking our very future. Declining birth rates are nearly everywhere in the modern world. The more advanced we become, it seems, the less interested we are in marriage and children — and even in caring. " 

Of course this is utter twaddle as a number of Post comments pointed out (see some of them ahead of her quote). What would have been more illuminating is if Parker had devoted more time to exploring why, for example, so many young American women, don't opt for childbearing. (Clue one: It's beyond mere "selfishness", but rather an absence of state support.)  But her blissful ignorance and pseudo -optimism is what stands out as when she babbles:

"Becoming a mother at 33 was THE defining moment of my life. Everything suddenly made sense amid a previously senseless pattern of random events that had me asking postpartum: What in the world have I been doing all these years? Nothing before had mattered. Everything after did. Maybe that’s just me, but I don’t think so. And stop worrying about every eventuality. What about climate change? What about the cost of college tuition? What about the plague? Do you think would-be parents during those times weren’t concerned about the future? Have the baby. Have another. It will all work out."

So why aren't more women following Parker's path to baby bliss? Robin Abcarian - writing in the LA Times last week - speculates fertility rates dropped as female education and employment rose. This is a reasonable surmise, but one must also reckon in the absurd costs in child care which only the richest 1 percent can now afford - and now exceed the yearly costs at state universities. A comment several months ago from a NY Times reader says it all: 

"We pay $31,000 per year for our 1 child to go to daycare. I had NO maternity leave. I had to take disability, because that’s how America views having a baby. As a DISABILITY. My employer, a top academic medical center on the upper east side, where I also delivered, offers no maternity leave. Let me repeat that, NO MATERNITY LEAVE. I received 60% of my salary for 6 weeks....this is NOT what happens in most of the world."

So from her perspective, and I warrant that of millions of other women, Trump's recent offer of a $5,000 bonus after each baby born is a joke. Abcarian notes that the rate for women dying in childbirth is higher in the U.S. than in any other wealthy nation.  Will Trump and his Trumpturds also cover funeral expenses if the baby is born but the woman dies giving birth?  Inquiring minds want to know. (CDC stats from 2023 show 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in the U.S. compared to 0 deaths per 100,000 live births in Norway.)

When Isaac Asimov, the noted science and science fiction author,  visited Barbados in February, 1976, he delivered a stirring lecture to a packed Queen's Park Theater.

                             Asimov delivering his February 1976 lecture

 It touched on many points, including the limits we humans face living on a finite planet and why our numbers therefore need to be controlled.  Asimov, as part of his lecture, warned that humans had two choices: decrease their population to the Earth's carrying capacity limit to live in an equilibrium with the Earth and its resources, or let nature “increase the human death rate” (e.g. by starvation, pestilence, wars over resources etc.)  He also remarked:

"It is now the willingly childless woman who is the heroine of our planet. She is the one who now deserves all the kudos and praise, for helping to do what is necessary to spare humanity from the ravages of over-population"

Beyond all that, an increasing segment of the population can barely afford to house and feed themselves, much less extra dependents. Even middle class homes are stressed now thanks to Dotard's Trade war and spiking inflation. Checked the price of homes in the U.S. lately? Checked the cost of college educations?  Checked the cost of daycare for even one kid? (And idiot Trump insists he will confer a "medal of honor" to all mothers who have at least six kids.  Hey, Dotard, not every 'Murican mom is one of Elon's chosen!

 According to a study released on Thursday  July 25th last year by the Pew Research Center a growing number of U.S. adults say they are unlikely to raise children. When the survey was conducted in 2023, 47 percent of those younger than 50 without children said they were unlikely ever to have children, an increase of 10 percentage points since 2018.

When asked why kids were not in their future, 57 percent said they simply didn’t want to have them. Women were more likely to respond this way than men (64 percent vs. 50 percent). Further reasons included the desire to focus on other things, like their career or interests; concerns about the state of the world; worries about the costs involved in raising a child; concerns about the environment, including climate change; and not having found the right partner.

The results echo a 2023 Pew study that found that only 26 percent of adults said having children was extremely or very important to live a fulfilling life.   They have realized, like many of us did 50 years ago, that generating economic units for corporations (“consumers”) should not be the nation’s top priority when it is citizens in short supply.

In addition, research has shown that in the United States, people who aren’t parents are generally happier than those who are. Dr. Jennifer Glass’s 2016 study, which examined the happiness gap in 22 countries, found that the disparity was larger in the United States than in any other industrialized country.  No surprise given the burden U.S. society  places on parents: unaffordable child care, soaring health care costs, limited affordable housing.

In the Pew study, most of those surveyed said that not having kids had made it easier for them to afford the things they wanted, make time for their interests and save for the future.

 If the pronatalist Trumpers were really serious about increasing baby making they would dedicate themselves to making parenthood easier rather than blowing billions a year to stop abortions.  That would include: a push for universal health care, mandated and generous parental leave (without having to pull out of 401ks to pay for the leave!),  and federal support for child care - like in other advanced nations.  That the U.S. isn't prepared to do these things, especially the last two, shows me it isn't really serious about begging for more babies. Indeed, it shows that offering meaningless motherhood medals, or tiny one time payments per newborn, are merely pronatal publicity stunts. And I am betting most Americans who've been reluctant to have kids will not be suckered.

See Also:

And:

Can We Please Lose The Hysteria Over The "Baby Bust"?

And:

And:

A Mother’s Day Truth About the “Fertilization President”

by Robert Reich | May 10, 2025 - 5:00am | permalink

— from Robert Reich's Substack

Friends,

With Mother’s Day this Sunday, I wanted to raise a real problem — but one that’s being grotesquely distorted by Trump and his lackeys.

Births in the United States increased by just 1 percent in 2024, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s nearly a record low.

It means ever-fewer workers supporting ever-more retirees. There are now about 3 workers for every retiree in America. That ratio is projected to drop to about 2 workers per retiree in just five years.

It’s a real problem, but Trump’s vow to remedy it — he’s calling for a $5,000-per-birth “baby bonus” and says he wants to be known as the “fertilization president” — has nothing to do with solving it.

» article continues...