Don’t Have Children

A feminist anti-natalism

It’s the most predictable thing imaginable: the Trump administration, co-helmed by the rabid pro-natalist Elon Musk and the sadsack pallbearer of patriarchy, J.D. Vance, wants to convince you to have more children. The internet has erupted in jeers to the tune that the forecast inducement of 5000 dollars is ludicrously inadequate. And that’s entirely justified. But my message is stronger. Don’t have children, or more children, under the current administration. Maybe don’t have children, or more children, whatsoever. You are not being selfish: you are acting in your self-interest. There is a difference. Don’t let this administration, or anyone else, make you forget it.

Yes, there are caveats. But they are narrow and can be canvassed later. Because the truth is that, if you really want to have a child, deep in your heart, then that desire will rightly silence everything I have to say here. You will not be misled. You probably won’t even keep reading—and that is fine with me, although some of the following does have implications for risk minimization. No: I write for those who are resistant or on the fence, but are feeling guilty or conflicted. Here are five reasons why having children under the current administration is a losing proposition. Some of them apply, at least in this country, far beyond the present political moment.

1. Pregnancy is far more dangerous than it ought to be: the US has the worst maternal mortality of any developed nation, with an estimated 80% of maternal deaths being preventable. The situation is particularly bad for pregnant patients who are Black and indigenous—Black women, for example, face three to four times the risk of dying during or shortly after childbirth compared to their white counterparts, regardless of their income level. And, in red states, maternal mortality has worsened sharply across the board in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision (the advent of which was my impetus to start this newsletter). The lack of adequate reproductive healthcare doesn’t just mean that you can’t get an abortion because you don’t want to have a baby—as important as that is, and has been, including for yours truly. It means that, if you’re miscarrying, you may have to go septic and risk death before you can get the help you need, even if the fetus is not viable. In states like Texas, the risk of sepsis is skyrocketing as the result of second-trimester miscarriages, where the fetus is dying but still has a heartbeat.

As awful as all of this is, it’s not frequently adduced as a reason not to get pregnant in the first place. Somehow, women and other people who can get pregnant are expected to just wear these risks and not factor them into our decisions about whether or not to have a baby. This is, in two words, sentimental madness: one can want to have a baby without being prepared to undergo significant risks of entirely preventable death and severe illness. And one can quite rationally decide that the risks to life and limb are simply not worth it.

2. Men do not help nearly enough, and having children is why and when women find themselves with a second shift problem: The majority of women who have children will do so with a male partner (which is not to erase, of course, the significant number of people who have children by themselves or in queer families, among other possibilities). And, despite flattering perceptions of involved fathers, the second shift problem hasn’t budged in twenty-five years: where, on average, he will do less than half the childcare and housework compared to a female partner when both partners work full-time. Tellingly, this disparity in domestic labor tends to begin upon the birth of the couple’s first child. Whereas women acquire vastly more in the way of household responsibilities after having children, many studies show men somehow doing less after the arrival of his firstborn. Moreover, there is only one context where heterosexual couples with children will begin to approach parity: when she works full-time, and he is unemployed. Even here, the operative word is “approach.” She will still do a bit more by way of domestic and childbearing labor, on average.

Again, this is maddening, and a perfectly good reason to refuse to become part of this exploitative, misogynistic system.

3. Heterosexist norms within relationships mean mothers don’t get cared for: As I’ve written about before, it’s not just that health care for pregnant people is lacking, or that, after the child has arrived on the scene, a male partner typically won’t do his fair share of the demanding and constant labor of caring for a newborn. He will also tend not to help in your recovery, by tending to you or caring for you in the way that you would surely care for him, were he the one recovering from devastating pelvic trauma and, often, major abdominal surgery—not to mention, massive hormonal shifts that can contribute to post-partum depression, anxiety, and psychosis. All of these bodily and hormonal changes—some of which persist for years post-partum, as a recent groundbreaking study showed—demand that the recently pregnant person themselves get sympathy and care and moral support from their partner. This would be, I hazard, a powerful antidote to the risk of severe post-partum health problems.

The fact that we very likely won’t is a perfectly good reason not to have a baby.

4. Social support is nil to non-existent: After birth, did you enjoy attentive and frequent follow-up medical care? Free physical therapy? Government-provided classes and home visits for infant care support? An extended paid medical leave? Nope, me neither. Luckily, I was privileged enough to be able to pay out-of-pocket for at least some of these services—but it was often too little, too late. The only reliably provided support that I tend to hear about, anecdotally, is a six-week follow-up medical appointment and lactation consultation: geared, respectively, to whether you can have sex with your husband safely(ish) and breastfeed your baby without (too much) pain and suffering. In other words, the only support that most recently pregnant people tend to get post-baby has little to do with them, and much more to do with whether they can quickly and effectively mete out feminine-coded services in the form of fucking and feeding.

Again, this is an entirely valid reason to eschew childbearing.

5. Childcare is ludicrously expensive, and often unavailable or unreliable. Until your child is approximately five years old, and they can be enrolled in a public school, you are likely to pay through the nose in this country for childcare. Childcare is also, quite reasonably, not an option when your child is sick—as they will be, constantly, for at least their first year of exposure to other children. Childcare is off the menu during weekends and at least a fair number of school and federal holidays too. This costs many women their jobs, and many others their productivity and likelihood of being able to earn promotions and raises. (Tellingly, the notoriously gendered pay gap typically kicks in most strongly, and consistently, for mothers versus fathers, and has a much lesser effect on child-free men and women.) Little wonder so many women ended up dropping out of the work force during the height of the pandemic.

Women are, as the sociologist Jessica Calarco puts it, America’s social safety net. We are the unheld holders. We are not cared for and helped ourselves, but overburdened with care work of a kind that everyone should take part in. Yes, caring for young children can be a wonderful, rich, and meaningful experience. But it can also be soul-crushing and life-ruining—including economically—if you have to do it constantly and more or less alone. This is the fate of many mothers in America.

Again, this is an excellent reason not to have children.

These reasons not to have children all concern the interests of the people who can get pregnant and tend to be the default primary caregivers—predominantly, although again by no means exclusively, girls and women. I haven’t even canvassed environmental and other ethical considerations not to procreate, many of which are also valid and important to consider. What makes this a feminist anti-natalism, specifically, is that it is centered wholly on the bodies and minds and interests of those who can get pregnant and who are likely to be overburdened with the care work that ought to be shared, socially, and within relationships. These are the people who ought to be—yet rarely are—centered in this conversation.

I am going to include the inevitable caveat: I have a child myself, and I love her more than anyone or anything. I am so glad I had her (under the last Trump administration, just before COVID hit, for the record). However, two points: my situation was very unusual. I had secure employment (in the form of a tenured position as a professor), stellar health insurance, could afford to take the career and pay hit, and, most unusually of all, a male partner who I trusted to do at least fifty percent of the childcare (an agreement which he has, happily, more than made good on).

Another point: even if this didn’t apply, it’s perfectly possible to recognize that we love our children and that it was a huge risk, even potentially a mistake, to have had them in the first place. Yes, even if we are glad that we made that particular mistake, and even if the gamble worked out beautifully. Just as one can recognize that we made a bad move in a poker game, even if it luckily turned out to our benefit, there’s no contradiction in saying that I’m glad I did it and that Rationally, I was mistaken.

So, to my daughter, in the unlikely event you are reading this, years from now, in whatever has since become of the internet: you are my light. I am so glad I had you. But my situation was unusual. I dearly hope things are better now. If they aren’t, however, as I fear, I hope you read the above list, take it to heart, and keep yourself safe and well. I hope you follow my advice. I hope you don’t give me grandchildren.