The baby bust: female perspectives

Michie · Nov 6, 2023

After last week's article on falling birth rates, a lot of men blamed generational selfishness. (Kids today!) Here's what the sex that actually gives birth had to say...

After seeing the interest that last week’s baby bust article generated (over 500 comments and emails), I can promise I’ll be coming back to the topic.

Meanwhile, some of your thoughts. Women seem to be driving declines in birth rates globally, both for the obvious reason - women have children, men don’t - and more subtle factors. So this reader mailbag is devoted to female perspectives.

(For what it’s worth, many men wrote along the lines of “We have created an entire generation of entitled narcissists.” Men also tended to mention higher birth rates in Muslim countries. They are generally higher, but they are also falling quickly, especially in wealthier Muslim nations.)

As always, emails are edited only for grammar and length.

Allison P:

I met my husband when I was 33, almost 34. We got married when I was 36 and had our daughter that same year (we were actually pregnant already at the wedding, this was during Covid and because of our ages we decided not to wait and risk infertility). Then we tried for our second and thankfully got pregnant with her right away and are due this upcoming February. My husband is 11 years older than me. We always say if we had met at 28 and 39 instead of (essentially) 34 and 45, we would have had 4 children…

I think some of the reasons we got here are 1. The breakdown of the nuclear family and the way society downplays it’s significance 2. It’s hard to be a working mom… society has devalued the stay at home mom. It’s not seen as something worthwhile, or it’s a “luxury”…

There’s even the illusion that kids need a lot of stuff to be happy. They need present two parent households that are loving and supportive. People don’t seem to get that anymore. We live on much less than we make. We have friends who say they couldn’t afford to stay home, but they also won’t drive used cars or live in a townhome. They get a raise and they upgrade their lifestyles. And suddenly they can’t afford and don’t have time for kids or more kids.

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Meg J.

Continued below.