Why Aren't Americans Having Kids?
A review of Timothy Carney's "Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be"
Dear Friends,
A new book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be1 considers a constellation of possible cultural causes of America’s declining birthrate, which has now been below replacement level for several years. Author Timothy Carney’s animating question is: Why don’t people have more kids?
This is especially important to consider because of recent studies showing that most American women, at least, have fewer children than they would like to have. It’s not that parents want fewer children than parents did even just twenty years ago; on average, they still want 2-3 children but end up having fewer.
Carney considers a variety of forces at play in this context, from public policy to civilizational mood to declining religious belief. What is so hard (or so wrong) about parenting that so many feel they must forego, limit, or delay it?
Read my review:
“Why Aren’t Americans Having Children?”
Do you agree with the gist of my review?
What about the particulars?
What do you think prevents those who *do* want more children from having them, or from entering parenthood earlier in life?
Do you have experiences or insights to share about the question of how culture affects family size?
And keep an eye out for my friend
‘s review, which is coming out tomorrow at the same journal. I can’t wait to read her take!Have a great day!
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“People are good.” Excellent.
I haven’t read this book but this topic is very important to me. In my experience, the second point seems to carry more weight when it comes to the reasons people give for remaining childless — the view human life as not inherently worth it and meaningful. A large number of the female friends I had in my twenties don’t want children and their reasons are usually things like “I don’t want the responsibility,” “I don’t want to be up all night,” or “travel is the only thing that makes me happy.” They simply aren’t seeing what having a child means or does or is, at all. It’s very heartbreaking.
I would have had kids sooner if I had met my husband sooner. Wanting kids was a roadblock for me in my previous long term relationship. I think a lot of women (probably men, too) struggle to find a spouse who also wants kids right now in time to have as many as they would have liked (or any at all).