To be fair, I think we are missing one important point on the pro-natalism argument. In that - as someone who doesn’t have kids (yet) - I do find a certain divide in general worldview with friends who have become parents. Having children appears to refocus people on what truly matters, not least because their “free time” goes to hell, but also because there appears to be a greater sense of responsibility for one’s actions and decisions. Among my peers I definitely see the desire to be the best versions of themselves, while being constantly humbled by the experience of being a parent and turning generally more risk averse. Becoming a parent definitely has a meaningful impact on a person, and therefore, not becoming one ought to have one as well.
It seems to me that natalism as a conscious movement is slightly odd in the way that traditionalism is slightly odd: it mostly works well if you choose it because it seems like the natural thing to choose. If you are consciously choosing and crafting your traditions, you're acting very differently from someone actually guided by tradition. And if you are very conscious about how everyone should have kids, you've to some extent given into the idea that having kids is an optional lifestyle choice.
My wife and I met at a small Catholic college and married five weeks after graduating. 23 years later we have seven kids, ranging from 7 to 22. A lot of the other people we know from college or from church likewise have what today counts as large families.
But this isn't part of a "we need to have lots of kids because of the demographic problems of the US" plan, but rather the natural outgrowth of two things:
First, if you combine the belief that it's wrong to have sex outside of marriage and that inside of marriage it's wrong to use artificial means of birth control (as opposed to selectively avoiding sex during infertile times in order to space children) with the natural desire of young people in love to have sex -- you end up with people who marry young enough to have a lot of kids. We had 5 of our 7 kids before age 30, so it's kind of natural that we had more kids that a couple who married at 30.
Second, in a worldview in which human persons are unquestionably good things, meant by God for eternal life, the trade offs involved in spending your life bringing up little persons seem more worthwhile. This isn't to say that I've never grumbled at having a small person onto me in the middle of the night (or even natter endlessly about Pikachu), but it does give you a clear reason for why it's worth going through all that. Sure, I've had many co-workers over the years say things like, "It might be nice to have kids someday, but right now my wife and I are really focused on travel." But while I'd like to travel and hope to do it more as the kids grow up and move out, having a worldview about the relative important of human beings and trips to Machu Picchu makes it possible to get off the fence on questions like "is this the right year to make the jump into having kids, or should we wait another year?"
Pro-natalism is not weird. What's weird, historically speaking, is the trend in rich countries of the last half century or so, of people in their prime years deliberately postponing marriage and childbirth for the sake of careers and/or just enjoying life. Some people would be lousy parents and shouldn't have kids, but it's sad that so many people who want to be parents don't feel ready (whether their reasons for feeling that way are good, bad, or in between).
I enjoyed Christine's article. Indeed, financial incentives will only get us so far if we want people to have more kids. While I'm all for a child benefit, paid family leave, better housing policy, etc., we also need to help people find meaning in their lives.
There are many things that could plausibly help with that, but one I'd suggest is mandating that every worker get a minimum amount of PTO (say, one hour for every ten hours worked) that they can use for any reason they want, at any time they. Give people more chances to detach from their jobs, and contemplate what's important to them.
I don't get Sam Mace. He makes a good point that partisans are more likely to pick the candidate in a primary than the general party population. OK, so if the candidates aren't chosen in a primary, then how IS he chosen? Please don't suggest that party 'leaders' should be left in charge.
My take would be that American political parties are currently both too powerful and not powerful enough. They are too powerful, because almost nobody can get elected, or even stay elected, without the affiliation and support of one of the two big parties. They are not powerful enough, because by way of primaries they are easily captured by their most extreme voters, meaning that party leadership is often unable to make decisions with respect to the electorate as a whole. Some of the current sense of paralysis in American politics arises from this. The Republican and Democratic parties control everything, but the parties themselves are governed by a vague mixture of insiders and extremists, neither of which holds meaningful power to make bold decisions.
Forcing Biden out was a rare bold decision from a party establishment. In that sense, it felt like a momentary emergence from paralysis, and has probably generated a fair bit of energy based on that alone. But, as your comment notes, the way those decisions were made nevertheless represents a power grab by the party establishment — because that’s the only way that a quick decision can be made!
There are reasons why America as a whole is not run by direct democracy. There are also reasons why America as a whole is not supposed to be run by oligarchy. But the Democratic and Republican parties run everything, and the parties are run by an unholy mixture of direct democracy and oligarchy that draws on the disadvantages of each. Whenever we complain about one, the response is to point out the very real problems with the other.
If the Republican and Democratic parties did not have such a lock on everything, this wouldn’t be an issue. The party leadership could make whatever bold decisions they wanted, and if you didn’t like them you could just vote for someone else. That’s how the balance between democratic power and bold decision making in representative democracy is supposed to work!
Your best way out of this trap is to smash the two-party system. I suggest supporting every voting strategy reform initiative that you can find. First-past-the-post is killing your political system.
That’s a tough one, certainly, but I will note that we are seeing more experiments, within the states, of open primaries or transferable voting. That strikes me as a hopeful development.
To be fair, I think we are missing one important point on the pro-natalism argument. In that - as someone who doesn’t have kids (yet) - I do find a certain divide in general worldview with friends who have become parents. Having children appears to refocus people on what truly matters, not least because their “free time” goes to hell, but also because there appears to be a greater sense of responsibility for one’s actions and decisions. Among my peers I definitely see the desire to be the best versions of themselves, while being constantly humbled by the experience of being a parent and turning generally more risk averse. Becoming a parent definitely has a meaningful impact on a person, and therefore, not becoming one ought to have one as well.
It seems to me that natalism as a conscious movement is slightly odd in the way that traditionalism is slightly odd: it mostly works well if you choose it because it seems like the natural thing to choose. If you are consciously choosing and crafting your traditions, you're acting very differently from someone actually guided by tradition. And if you are very conscious about how everyone should have kids, you've to some extent given into the idea that having kids is an optional lifestyle choice.
My wife and I met at a small Catholic college and married five weeks after graduating. 23 years later we have seven kids, ranging from 7 to 22. A lot of the other people we know from college or from church likewise have what today counts as large families.
But this isn't part of a "we need to have lots of kids because of the demographic problems of the US" plan, but rather the natural outgrowth of two things:
First, if you combine the belief that it's wrong to have sex outside of marriage and that inside of marriage it's wrong to use artificial means of birth control (as opposed to selectively avoiding sex during infertile times in order to space children) with the natural desire of young people in love to have sex -- you end up with people who marry young enough to have a lot of kids. We had 5 of our 7 kids before age 30, so it's kind of natural that we had more kids that a couple who married at 30.
Second, in a worldview in which human persons are unquestionably good things, meant by God for eternal life, the trade offs involved in spending your life bringing up little persons seem more worthwhile. This isn't to say that I've never grumbled at having a small person onto me in the middle of the night (or even natter endlessly about Pikachu), but it does give you a clear reason for why it's worth going through all that. Sure, I've had many co-workers over the years say things like, "It might be nice to have kids someday, but right now my wife and I are really focused on travel." But while I'd like to travel and hope to do it more as the kids grow up and move out, having a worldview about the relative important of human beings and trips to Machu Picchu makes it possible to get off the fence on questions like "is this the right year to make the jump into having kids, or should we wait another year?"
The Gallop poll seems to contradict this Pew Research report https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/07/25/the-experiences-of-u-s-adults-who-dont-have-children/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioswhatsnext&stream=science
Thanks for this!
Am I wrong to suggest that framing issues around someones purported weirdness is stupid. It may even be weird!
I agree with you, but unfortunately the Discourse does not
Pro-natalism is not weird. What's weird, historically speaking, is the trend in rich countries of the last half century or so, of people in their prime years deliberately postponing marriage and childbirth for the sake of careers and/or just enjoying life. Some people would be lousy parents and shouldn't have kids, but it's sad that so many people who want to be parents don't feel ready (whether their reasons for feeling that way are good, bad, or in between).
I enjoyed Christine's article. Indeed, financial incentives will only get us so far if we want people to have more kids. While I'm all for a child benefit, paid family leave, better housing policy, etc., we also need to help people find meaning in their lives.
There are many things that could plausibly help with that, but one I'd suggest is mandating that every worker get a minimum amount of PTO (say, one hour for every ten hours worked) that they can use for any reason they want, at any time they. Give people more chances to detach from their jobs, and contemplate what's important to them.
I don't get Sam Mace. He makes a good point that partisans are more likely to pick the candidate in a primary than the general party population. OK, so if the candidates aren't chosen in a primary, then how IS he chosen? Please don't suggest that party 'leaders' should be left in charge.
My take would be that American political parties are currently both too powerful and not powerful enough. They are too powerful, because almost nobody can get elected, or even stay elected, without the affiliation and support of one of the two big parties. They are not powerful enough, because by way of primaries they are easily captured by their most extreme voters, meaning that party leadership is often unable to make decisions with respect to the electorate as a whole. Some of the current sense of paralysis in American politics arises from this. The Republican and Democratic parties control everything, but the parties themselves are governed by a vague mixture of insiders and extremists, neither of which holds meaningful power to make bold decisions.
Forcing Biden out was a rare bold decision from a party establishment. In that sense, it felt like a momentary emergence from paralysis, and has probably generated a fair bit of energy based on that alone. But, as your comment notes, the way those decisions were made nevertheless represents a power grab by the party establishment — because that’s the only way that a quick decision can be made!
There are reasons why America as a whole is not run by direct democracy. There are also reasons why America as a whole is not supposed to be run by oligarchy. But the Democratic and Republican parties run everything, and the parties are run by an unholy mixture of direct democracy and oligarchy that draws on the disadvantages of each. Whenever we complain about one, the response is to point out the very real problems with the other.
If the Republican and Democratic parties did not have such a lock on everything, this wouldn’t be an issue. The party leadership could make whatever bold decisions they wanted, and if you didn’t like them you could just vote for someone else. That’s how the balance between democratic power and bold decision making in representative democracy is supposed to work!
Your best way out of this trap is to smash the two-party system. I suggest supporting every voting strategy reform initiative that you can find. First-past-the-post is killing your political system.
But how do we smash the two-party system, when they control EVERY aspect of government?
That’s a tough one, certainly, but I will note that we are seeing more experiments, within the states, of open primaries or transferable voting. That strikes me as a hopeful development.