Birth rates in the U.S. have been falling for years and, even though last year’s numbers show a tiny uptick, researchers are hesitant to say it’s a trend. Mainly because the small rise was attributable to one group of women only: Hispanic women.
Overall, fewer people have been choosing to have kids. That got Amil Niazi, a mother of three and a columnist for The Cut who writes about parenting, wondering — why?
Niazi says, it all began with a simple post on X that said: “Thinking about low birth rates, I’m curious, what’s keeping you from having a kid/having more kids?”
"I mean, I was just genuinely curious as someone who has kids, who, who really wanted kids with my partner. I just wondered, what is driving people to have fewer kids? What could governments, or workplaces or society in general do to sort of encourage people who might want, or, you know, even kid curious to, to go down that path because I care about this, and I care about making a world where my kids want to have kids," Niazi said.
Well, the responses came fast and furious — sometimes literally furious. Niazi joined The Show to discuss.
Full conversation
AMIL NIAZI: Everything from like, you know, really sort of angry vitriol about like, “how dare I ask? Isn't it so obvious,” like the cost of living and housing and the world is on fire. I got some really thoughtful, clearly very emotional answers from people who I could tell were really struggling with this, you know, who, who either really wanted to have kids but felt they couldn't, or, you know, were on the fence about whether it was practical or feasible to have another one or have one. I was sort of taken aback by how much it was clear that people were really wrestling with this subject.
Maybe it's something that would surprise older generations, how much we don't take for granted having children or having as many children as we want to have. Like, this is very, very real for us and it's very emotional and it's something that I think more people need to contend with because this is, kind of, the fate of humanity in many ways lies in how we approach familyhood.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, OK, I want to talk a little bit more about some of the answers you got, some of the trends within this, right, because they were very revealing, as you said, lots of anger.
I want to read you one that stood out to me, someone said, “I think any child of mine would likely experience more suffering than joy over the course of their life. So, it would be unethical to bring them into the world.” I wonder about that idea of, of the ethics of this. That came up a lot, it seems.
NIAZI: Mhm. That is something that came up a lot, that comes up a lot anytime people have this conversation, online in particular. And I completely understand why someone would say that. It's something I sort of explored in an earlier column about, you know, having kids in an age of climate devastation. And of course, we're going to need to wrestle with the kind of world that our children are born into and inherit. That should always be part of the conversation.
But this is such a murky idea when you bring ethics into something like this. My assumption, as a mother, has to be that I'm going to fight to make the world better for my kids. And I think that, whether you have kids or not, that is how I think we need to approach the world going forward. Of all the the scientists, and climate researchers and really, really smart people, when I pose this question to them, they always say, “as people who are steeped in the ethics of population and, you know, whether or not it's OK to bring more people into this world,” for them, having kids gives them a reason to keep fighting, and they have all told me it's not about having one kid or two or three kids, that you are not making the difference tipping the scales on a 1 degree of warming. So you don't need to look at it like that, you know, I just don't think ethics, I think it's often used as a hammer to stop the conversation.
GILGER: Yeah, which is so interesting. So I am pregnant now with my third child. I know you just had a third child who's not even 1 year old now. I wonder, this is a personal question, so feel free not to answer it, but I wonder like, did you experience this? Like, I have felt throughout my pregnancy a level of judgment about this ethical question and about whether or not I should be doing this. Did you?
NIAZI: Yes. Well, first of all, congratulations.
I was really surprised. It was a level of judgment that spanned many different areas. Other women were sort of like, “well, there goes your career.” There were people who, yeah, we're like, “well, are you going to move into a bigger place, get a bigger car,” you know, like people who are very judgmental about the kind of space that I was bringing a third child into. Of course, people who are like, “well, three children, you know, in this day and age, like with this economy in this state of the world, like how selfish.”
So, yeah, I was surprised because not, but one generation ago, it was entirely normal. The ability to choose the size of your family these days does feel under threat. And I think on both sides, you know, whether it's not being able to choose not to have a child, in some places, because your ability to choose has been slowly eroded and taken away. Or on the other side, feeling like you can't have more than one or more than two, it's a very loaded thing these days, the size of a family, your ability to choose whether or not you can have children. It's a really, really sticky conversation, but I think it's very important to have because it seems so fundamental, right?
GILGER: Yeah, right, and I was interested in talking to you about this because you're coming at this from a different point of view, like you're not coming at it from a religious point of view or a particularly conservative point of view, or, you know, like a trad wife kind of point of view. I wonder, like, coming at it from the liberal side of the spectrum, has that changed the conversation, you think?
NIAZI: I think more and more on that side of the spectrum, on the liberal side of the spectrum, I guess this conversation is changing. I think for a long time, what you've heard from someone like me was more on the, like, “can women have kids and also have a career?” But also really pushing, “if you don't want to have kids, that's also OK,” and really clearing the path for that. And then, when I sort of came of the age where I was starting to think about kids, what I heard a lot was honesty about how hard motherhood is, about how difficult juggling a career and motherhood is.
So, it started to feel very negative, the conversation about motherhood and about parenthood. And so I went into it really like bracing for something very overwhelming and terrible and dark. And then I got into it and I was like, “oh my God, this is the best.” Like, making a family with someone that I love, that makes me laugh, that I have a great time with, who really is an equal player in this, that's very important, it's so fun.
I think more liberals have let the other side dominate the conversation about familyhood, about parenthood, about motherhood, and I think that that is a huge mistake, because so much of what is real, what is driving people when they get to voting at the polls, is their family, is their kids, is the future. Why have you let the other side completely dictate the conversation about it?
GILGER: OK, so I want to end with, I think the most poignant thing that you've written about this from my perspective, at least. You wrote this phrase, you said, “hope is the currency of parenthood.” What do you mean by that? Tell us the moments that led you to believe that.
NIAZI: When someone says, “if I were to have a child, there would be more suffering in their life than joy.” That to me is the saddest thing that you could ever say. But I don't believe that. I don't believe that there will be more suffering in my children's life than joy.
Do I believe that things are hard right now and probably going to get harder? Yes. But does that mean that I give up and lose my hope and lose my optimism? No. It means that I commit even harder to making things better, because I believe in my kids' future.
