We knew Tuesday’s episode would spark some conversation and we were right! For those of you who don’t want to wade through the 231 (and counting!) comments, we thought we would pull some of the most thoughtful insights and respond here.
Pushback from Ruth
“I wanted to respond to Sarah’s comment that motherhood has taught her everything and if she hadn’t had kids she’d be the same as she was in her early 20s. This might not have been the main point of the conversation, but I think it represents a pretty common way of thinking, especially from people who married pretty young. In that scenario, your only experience of not being married or having kids is your early 20s self — so of course you’d imagine being stuck there. People who’ve been single for a long time, or who don’t have kids, also grow and change. Life teaches all of us.”
— Ruth
Ruth is right and I knew that wasn’t quite right when I said it. (Happens all the time!) I do think I had some real hard edges that needed wearing off. Y’all didn’t know me in my twenties, but you’re just going to have to trust me. I’m sure life would have found a way, but toddlers were particularly efficient at it. - Sarah
The pandemic and reproductive windows
“In my own situation, I have one child, born when I was 31. I would have liked to have more, but the pandemic happened when my son had just turned 2…Now I’m turning 40 and looking at the baby time window closing. I think I’m not alone in wishing the pandemic wasn’t part of that very narrow span of childbearing years. But you know, life happens”
— SMay
“Life happens” is exactly the thing I meant when I kept referring to my Grandmother Joy’s advice that you just do your best and know you’ll get through. There were already tough choices, all involving serious risks and trade-offs. Then we layered on a pandemic that upended e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.
After we released this episode, I was texting with a friend about why neither of us have 3 kids: we hated being pregnant. That’s a hard thing to say when you know that it will reach and wound women who desperately want to be pregnant. It’s hard because I feel some guilt around it. What has my unwillingness to be pregnant again cost Chad, Jane, and Ellen (and our parents, and in some sense, the world)? And then I type that sentence and it’s way too much pressure to put on myself and my life. And of course my physical experience of pregnancy is a valid factor (maybe the dispositive factor) in having another child. There are ands forever, and I think that’s why “life happens” is the most conclusive thing to be said about where we end up in our own families. - Beth
A question from Renee
“Sarah, do you think your desire for multiple children was influenced by you having been an only child?”
— Renee
Abso-fucking-lutely. I grew up in big families. My parents are both one of four, and I felt that lack my whole life. The older I’ve gotten the harder it feels. I tell people all the time. Being an only child as a kid is great, but it sucks as an adult. As my parents age, I feel the increased pressure of being the only one to care for them constantly, and they are all in good health! I wish I had someone who understood my childhood, who I didn’t feel was a relationship I had to earn. I know I inevitably romanticize sibling relationships. My husband is one of five. I get it’s not all closeness and easy connection, but I still really wish I had close siblings I’d grown up in the same household with. - Sarah
Being a burden — the hospice angle
“I tell patients that life is made up of different seasons. Some seasons are mostly about giving and others are times for taking. I talk about all they’ve given to their families/communities and how it’s their time to take again. The life cycle as a circle — that message of interdependence throughout life seems to resonate deeply with your dying patients.”
— Janice Elliott, hospice worker
I’ve known for years that when I reach the end of my life, I’d want Janice Elliott or someone exactly like her by my side. This comment is a representation of what I’ve learned is Janice’s deep commitment to honesty, kindness, and dignity. It’s this kind of comment that has helped me go from an unhealthy, self-sacrificial-even-when-it-helps-no-one, people-pleaser to a person who deeply believes that I am here to burden others as much as I am here to be burdened by others. That if I take on others’ troubles without ever giving them mine, I am undermining their dignity as well as my own. That interdependence is how we keep our human ecosystem in balance. - Beth
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What question should we be asking instead?
“I also believe that the answer to changing population isn’t ‘how do we get women to have more kids,’ it’s ‘how do we adapt?’”
— Ashley Peterson
Two things jump out at me:
1) I would revise “how do we get women to have more kids?” to “how do we make having kids feel more accessible to more people?” I’m not a natalist. I think the objective of just having more people is…not great. It might be a partial solution to some challenges. It certainly creates others. My concern (and concern isn’t even the right word! Maybe it’s more like “my sadness”) is that so many people look at the world and think “I can’t afford it” or “I can’t manage it” or “I’d be doing it alone.” I’m interested in supporting pregnancy better (even with a loving, involved husband, I found it so lonely). I’m interested in building villages so that whatever life hands a family, they know that other people will be meaningfully in it with them.
2) “How do we adapt?” is a great question, and one that we will have to answer. The first step, to me, is finding some level of political stability. I’m not seeing a lot of hopeful, adaptive visions right now because we’re so hunkered down in defense of a status quo that was broken but preferable to *this.* - Beth
The technology/loneliness angle
“I cannot believe no one has mentioned technology in relation to this phenomenon. The way that Sarah talks about feeling the Indiana Jones boulder rolling right behind her in terms of education? Yeah that’s how I feel in terms of dating. We are so addicted to our phones/games/TVs and we are having this loneliness epidemic and it seems like the only way to actually meet people now is through apps.”
— Emily Chapdelaine (who is giving birth in the next 2.5 weeks!)
A friend who studies behavioral patterns texted me this right after the episode! Technology is changing what relationships mean and what we’re capable of within them. I did not dream of scrolling in bed next to my husband while he does DuoLingo exercises and plays a game on his phone, but here we are. I don’t know that the clock gets rolled back on this, and I don’t quite know what that means for any of us, and especially for people who are dating. - Beth
Modern parenting expectations are killing the vibe
“I think we’ve got to shift the vibe around parenting here in the US if we want people to have more kids. The expectations on parents feel so overwhelming — the activities, birthday parties, time spent on betterment, the guilt. I opt out on a ton of the modern parenting expectations — but my kids do notice.”
— Zo
“Every single mom stayed for the entire hour Daisy Scout event. In my day, Girl Scouts was a way busy parents kept children occupied so they could get things done. What happened?”
— Yvette
I would like to start an entire podcast in which I roll into other people’s homes Supernanny style and just go from one thing to the next and say, “Stop doing that!” BUTTTT it would need to involve a bit of magic so that when I stop one family it magically stops all families, because otherwise the pressure will still be there! In other words, I agree! -Sarah
Resources mentioned in the comments
“The Ghost Ship That Didn’t Carry Us” by Dear Sugar (Cheryl Strayed)
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley
Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia by Julia Ioffe
My Notorious Life by Kate Manning
The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
NYT Interactive: Human Population Growth & Decline
Wikipedia: List of Countries by Net Reproduction Rate
I appreciate the pointing out that parenting expectations are so high! To give a tiny example, almost everyone in my neighborhood walks their kids to the bus stop every day. I only do it if my kindergartner is getting on the bus by herself, and that's only because the school requires that - she could absolutely go by herself (and next year when she's in 1st grade, she will). Most mornings, she and my 3rd grader walk to the bus together. My middle schooler says middle schoolers are being walked to the bus by their parents! I thought the pendulum was starting to swing back on helicopter parenting but I guess not. 🫠 And that just leads to more guilt (what does it say about me that I'm the only parent in the neighborhood who doesn't walk their kids to the bus stop, etc.).
To me, this world feels very “child-hostile.” The way we parent now (“I’ll do everything for you and keep you out of danger”) runs contrary to children’s instincts (“I’ll do it myself and go off alone to take risks!”), so parents and kids inevitably clash.
Plus, twenty- and thirty-somethings are considered the “default” in a way they weren’t in past, multigenerational societies, so people who aren’t twenty- or thirty-something are considered background actors—but children refuse to be background actors. They very much insist on being in the foreground. So when they’re full of their feelings and screaming in restaurants, the rest of the restaurant is thinking, “that brat; why won’t their parent shut them up so we can eat in peace” (at least, that’s what prospective mothers are hearing)?
And you know the constant avalanche of advertising meant to lock you into the consumer spending cycle? Double that as soon as you have a kid, because companies know that childhood consumers are consumers for life, so they arm your kids with shiny commercials to nag you with.
Child-hostile.