It’s probably not selfishness, experts say. Even young adults who want children see an increasing number of obstacles.
For years, some conservatives have framed the declining fertility rate of the United States as an example of eroding family values, a moral catastrophe in slow motion.
JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, recently came under fire for saying in 2021 that the nation was run by “childless cat ladies” who “hate normal Americans for choosing family over these ridiculous D.C. and New York status games.”
Last year, Ashley St. Clair, a Fox News commentator, described childless Americans this way: “They just want to pursue pleasure and drinking all night and going to Beyoncé concerts. It’s this pursuit of self-pleasure in replace of fulfillment and having a family.”
Researchers who study trends in reproductive health see a more nuanced picture. The decision to forgo having children is most likely not a sign that Americans are becoming more hedonistic, they say. For one thing, fertility rates are declining throughout the developed world.
Rather, it indicates that larger societal factors — such as rising child care costs, increasingly expensive housing and slipping optimism about the future — have made it feel more untenable to raise children in the United States.
You’re right, I’m looking for the right phrasing here.
It’s not that these kids who identify as queer are temporarily embarrassed straight people who haven’t found their soul mates. But if you are a young woman these days, and all the men you encounter are incel brats, it’s quite easy to decide you want nothing to do with them. Women can do just fine on their own now, they don’t need a man for validation. Some of them might discover that, for them, sexuality is a spectrum, and they’ll be fine either way, but if all the men they encounter don’t respect them then that leads them in the other direction. Does that mean they would be 100% straight if they found a man who was compatible? They may not feel that way, but very few external observers would describe a woman who is with a man as anything other than “straight”.
What I’m trying to do is point out that all of these self-described “Alpha Males” who complain about the fertility rate are themselves the problem, because they are so insufferable that women would rather be with anyone else than with them.