The Declaration of Dependence
The Declaration of Dependence
When the New York Times published a story recently about couples who were delaying having children because “rising costs were stopping them,” the couples in question faced some mild public rebuke. One couple, worried that a 2,000-square-foot house would not provide enough space to raise more than one child, decided to forgo having children at all (although they do own several pets). This prompted many homeowners and city apartment-dwellers who raised children in much smaller abodes to post the square footage of their homes on social media.
Other couples featured in the piece “said they wanted to reach key milestones before having children, such as buying a house, paying off student debt or making enough money to afford childcare.” Others said that they “prioritize travel or financial stability.” One man acknowledged that having a child meant he “would have to give up hobbies he enjoys, like golfing,” and for another couple, “the decision not to have children came down to the life they’ve built and what it would take to change it.” The Times wrote of them: “Married in 2023, they have shaped their relationship around exploring new places together, such as Japan, Bali and Morocco.”
It would be easy to criticize such people as selfish or materialistic, or simply naive, as many pro-natalist people have done. This would be a mistake, given that the couples have obviously considered the realistic trade-offs of becoming a parent; you can’t easily jet off to Bali on a whim when you have a baby. It would also be incorrect to assume that if you solve the financial piece of the puzzle, such as increasing government subsidies for housing and childcare, these couples’ views on parenthood would change. The current downward trend in childbearing is also happening in countries with long-standing and far more generous benefits for parents, such as Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and France.
In other words: We are amid a significant shift in the cultural messaging around parenthood, and we can’t throw shame or money at the problem if we hope to solve it. A growing number of people in younger generations have decided that having children simply isn’t worth it. Why?
Cultural scripts, the mix of unspoken assumptions, expectations, and norms of behavior that govern much of our social world, emerge from multiple influences. In this sense, the decision to have children is an individual choice but one that is shaped by the messages we pick up, often unwittingly, from the culture. Some of these messages are subtle; as my colleague Tim Carney has noted in his insightful book Family Unfriendly, even the built environment offers frequent reminders that the world favors smaller families and, often, couples over families altogether. Other messages are less subtle, such as the climate alarmism and political apocalypticism that younger generations, the ones now contemplating parenthood themselves, have been fed since birth. Every generation has struggled with people who believe there is no point bringing children into a flawed world; today’s young adults have heard little else.
The biggest shift, however, is the acceptance of the idea that having children is merely one among many viable choices available if one is to live a flourishing adult life; indeed, it might lead to greater personal growth if one doesn’t have children at all. In very short order, the social pressure that used to insist that people who did not have children were selfish has shifted to its opposite—the idea that having children is selfish, given the world’s unsolvable problems and the need to pursue one’s own goals. From here, it is a short leap to viewing children as a burden, a cost to personal autonomy that is not worth paying.
This is the sensibility lurking behind the positive attention given to the “child-free by choice.” Choosing childlessness, particularly for women, is celebrated as empowering and liberationist, given the lack of options for women in previous eras. Celebrities endorse this sensibility—Chappell Roan told the Call Her Daddy podcast, “I actually don’t know anyone who’s happy and has children, at this age,” and Seth Rogen said parenthood “doesn’t seem that fun.” Social media is filled with short-form videos and posts celebrating “DINK” (dual income no kids) and “child-free life” with images of exotic vacations and spotless homes. Contrast this with the endless stream of negative content about what pregnancy does to women’s bodies and the exhaustion and chaos of raising young children. It’s no wonder that well-intentioned parents fail to persuade the childless when they insist that surrendering freedom and lifestyle is “worth it” because “children are a blessing.” It doesn’t matter that these platitudes are true; you must experience them to understand that, and those experiences aren’t easily rendered on TikTok.
As well, even for those who are seriously contemplating having children, parenting now seems like an impossibly high-stakes undertaking in terms of expectations. Trickle-down elite parenting philosophies have reached the mainstream, and would-be parents now assume they will have to be indefatigable caregivers, therapists, coaches, and friends to their children, all while ensuring they are rigorously applying the tenets of the most au courant parenting mandates (and holding down a job).
When becoming a parent is a choice, the social pressure to do it “perfectly” increases; raising children well begins to feel like a luxury activity available only to the wealthy. Indeed, luxury brands now portray children as a kind of luxury good in their advertising: Bottega Veneta’s recent ad campaign with A$AP Rocky shows him lounging in cashmere with his two young children nearby. “The campaign marks a new chapter in A$AP Rocky’s expression, emphasizing his role as a loving parent and partner,” the brand’s website notes. “This is me embodying and embracing fatherhood, parenthood, companionship, and family, while still working on all aspects of my career,” A$AP Rocky says. Social media is full of content featuring very young children enjoying adult pastimes with their well-off parents, such as dining at five-star restaurants and taking parent-toddler Pilates classes. One of popular culture’s most enduring large families is the Kardashian clan. No wonder people of modest means think the only winning move is not to play.
The economic challenges of modern parenting are real, of course, but younger generations also seem less risk-tolerant in general than their parents and grandparents (who lived through World Wars and a Great Depression). These young adults were raised in a world of extraordinary convenience, given technologies that encouraged solipsism and expectations for instant gratification unknown in previous eras. The screen has been the formative institution in the lives of Americans who are now of childbearing age, and for them, convenience is the preeminent virtue. When the only world you know is seamless, efficient, and tailored to your preferences, and you know that children place limits on one physically, emotionally, and financially, is it any surprise that having children seems like a risk not worth taking?
The way forward isn’t to argue that having children will make you happy (even though it often does). It is to acknowledge that sacrifice, responsibility, and love are what make fully formed people, and that parenthood is one way (although not the only way) of becoming such a person. It is also a warning against becoming a culture that shifts from viewing children as a choice to embracing misopedia—an aversion to children. As with caring for the aging (another social challenge we are not meeting as well as we could), we must understand raising children as a welcome moral obligation that connects us to the future and that contributes to the health of society, as something more meaningful than the decision to live in the city or the suburbs, or which kind of car to buy.
In her provocative book The Dignity of Dependence, Leah Libresco Sargeant argues that we must reacquaint ourselves with the value and purpose of dependence, both our dependence on each other and more broadly within our communities. Dependence is not weakness; it is interconnectedness, which fosters resilience and strength. It is not a coincidence that people of faith (Mormons, ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Amish) are the people still having lots of children. They recognize dependence not as a burden but as one of the shared responsibilities of community.
As a society, if we are to survive, we must acknowledge the reality of the challenges of being a parent, including the loss of convenience, the imposition of limits on one’s lifestyle, and the temporary loss of some agency. And we must understand that going forward, it will likely be viewed as a choice rather than an obligation—a choice that runs counter to the highly optimized world we live in now.
Having children is a vote against convenience and ease and even, to some temporary extent, against autonomy. It’s a recognition that even in a culture that rewards extreme individualism, we still must depend on others, and others will depend on us. Having children demands sacrifices and a tolerance for risk. But it is also an expression of hope, a vote for the future. It is crucial that more people be willing to cast that vote, not only for the sake of our species but for the health of our souls.
Photo: Olga Ryazantseva/Getty Images
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