The general fertility rate for the United States reached its lowest number this year, continuing a years-long slide. In provisional data released in April by the CDC, the general fertility rate (a measure of births per 1000 women ages 15-44) was 53.1. That represents a 1% decrease from the 2024 data, and a 23% decline since a peak of 2007.
The downward trend in births has aroused no shortage of responses. Some see a looming economic crisis as governments and economies must cope with fewer workers and taxpayers. For individuals concerned about ecological issues, some praise the decline as a wise measure for sustainability. Lawmakers and policy advisors look to factors such as rising costs of healthcare, student debt, and childcare in forcing people to delay childbearing. This has birthed a cottage industry of proposals aimed at either alleviating those burdens or providing incentives in spite of them. Finally, many cultural conservatives argue that these policies, though helpful, are not aimed at the real issue underlying fertility, namely a loss in trust in the family as worthwhile institution.
Underlying all of this discussion, is an often assumption that childbearing is an unqualified good. It is that undelying question (“Is the decision to have children by default a good thing? If so, then why?”) that Mara van der Lugt seeks to explore in Begetting: What Does It Mean to Create a Child. Van der Lugt asks readers to question what it means to decide to perform an act of creation, particularly for the child who is not consulted before he or she is brought into existence. While her philosophical pessimism often causes her to push against the intrinsic goodness of having children, she raises questions with which anyone concerned about the decline in fertility should reckon.
Begetting: An Act of Hope
The attention of media outlets on pro-natalist couples has often focused on those who seem most interested not only in having children, but the right kind of children. Thus, figures like Malcolm and Simone Collins, who describe themselves as “hipster eugenicists,” are held up as representative of a pro-natalist tech-right. They are joined by figures like Elon Musk, the father of 14 children, many through IVF procedures.
However, aside from those bemoaning the falling rate, few are looking to understand the questions of anti-natalists, those who for various reasons oppose childbearing. Van der Lugt’s Begetting offers an introduction to some arguments advanced by philosophical pessimists Peter Zappfe and David Benatar. The book though is not just a philosophical treatise, but an interaction with literature, cultural artifacts, and the worldview behind questions of creation and birth. Lord Byron’s Cain, the monster of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and even the Loki of a play written by a young CS Lewis are all given space to speak as created beings, and voice their questions at their creator about the injustice of their estate.
While the book raises a number of important questions, one of the most interesting is to consider those who abstain from procreation for the good of the child. Van der Lugt notes that this view is often related (though not equivalent) to those who choose not to have children for the good of the planet. However, while the latter asks, “What will be the effect of adding another person to the population on the planet?” the former asks, “What kind of world am I bringing this child into?” This is a question which any parent faces in the months leading up to the birth of their children. In my own case, as my wife lay in the hospital preparing to give birth to our first born in late January 2020, I watched as the initial stories of a novel virus in China were circulating on the internet. Little did I realize at the time that the end of her maternity leave would coincide with the March lockdowns in the United States.
Told in the context of her section on climate change and anxiety, Begetting offers a mild response that having children during times of despair can be an act of hope (though Van der Lugt argues that not having children can also be an act of hope as well). To bring a child into the world is to say that the future is not so dire or dark that it cannot be improved for the better. This is a sense that the youngest cohort of Gen Z expressed in the IHW study, Understanding Their Path to Choose. When asked if having a baby changes the mother’s life for the better, the youngest cohort of young women (13-17 y/o) were optimistic about it. Yet the older cohorts were decidedly less so. While it is fair to question whether a 15-year-old understands how a child makes life more complicated and brings its own hardships, I am not inclined to think that they are wrong in their optimism about children generally.
This is a sense that the youngest cohort of Gen Z expressed in the IHW study, Understanding Their Path to Choose. When asked if having a baby changes the mother’s life for the better, the youngest cohort of young women (13-17 y/o) were optimistic about it. Yet the older cohorts were decidedly less so. While it is fair to question whether a 15-year-old understands how a child makes life more complicated and brings its own hardships, I am not inclined to think that they are wrong in their optimism about children generally.
If as Van der Lugt asks, we are to evaluate the narratives and scripts around us concerning childbearing, it is not enough to interrogate those that treat an absence of children as a deficiency. We also must interrogate those that question whether children are themselves a good, regardless of circumstance, ability, or future. And if the scripts we have communicate the difficulty and hardship of children, that they are a drain on resources, and that they are impediments to a good life, then we should think seriously about how to overcome such pessimistic thinking.
Asking the Right Questions
At the beginning of Van der Lugt’s project, she points to the conclusion of Reuven, a character in a Chaim Potok novel. Speaking of another individual, Reuven says, “He asks very good questions. I don’t like his answers. But he asks some very important questions.” Van der Lugt points to the anti-natalists to say that though she may not agree with all their answers, they do ask the right questions.
I find myself in the same position in evaluating Van der Lugt’s work. She asks entirely appropriate questions about our duties to our children, what role we play in not just treating children as an object of our desire, but as persons with moral agency and obligations upon us. She asks us to evaluate our underlying assumptions. However, her larger conclusion, in which some lives are better unlived is a bridge too far. It requires a level of prescience about the future of a person, or it boils them down to probabilities. So while her questions are entirely good questions to ask, her philosophical pessimism is insufficient for addressing the underlying issues or even properly responding to the problem of declining fertility rates.