May 22, 2018
The United States has really awful policies on child care and parental leave. This makes it very hard for parents, and especially mothers, since they invariably get stuck with most of the responsibilities, to raise kids.
This is an outrage as Amy Westervelt points out in her Guardian column. But a declining birth rate, as the supposed downside for those of us not raising kids or thinking about it, doesn’t pass the laugh test.
The prospect of less traffic congestion, less crowded parks and beaches, and lower house prices doesn’t have me quaking in my boots. It’s not clear what the point is here. In a good society, people should be able to have kids if they want to and not have to worry about a life of stress and poverty, but if we have fewer kids because people’s priorities are elsewhere, so what?
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