Is Ambivalence Killing Parenthood?

矛盾情绪是否正在吞噬母爱?

Good on Paper

新闻

2024-11-26

54 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Last year, nearly half of childless adults under 50 told the Pew Research Center that they didn’t want kids. As the birth rate in the United States continues to decline, the philosopher Anastasia Berg wanted to know: Where is this ambivalence coming from? Share understanding this holiday season. For less than $2 a week, give a yearlong Atlantic subscription to someone special. They’ll get unlimited access to Atlantic journalism, including magazine issues, narrated articles, puzzles, and more. Give today at TheAtlantic.com/podgift. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  • In 2023, nearly half of childless adults under 50 didn't want kids.

  • That was a 10 point jump from five years earlier, according to Pew Research Center.

  • In that time, the public conversation about having kids has felt dominated by conservative voices,

  • whether it's Elon Musk,

  • who has at least 12 children with three different partners and called the birth decline quote,

  • one of the biggest risks to civil or JD Vance,

  • who seems to have a particular disdain for the childless, is.

  • That we're effectively run in this country via the Democrats,

  • via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives

  • and the choices that they've made.

  • And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.

  • And it's just a basic fact.

  • You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg,

  • AOC the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.

  • As a result of all this,

  • I've seen many on the left begin to disengage from caring about this issue at all.

  • My name's Jerusalem Dempsis.

  • I'm a staff writer at the Atlantic and this is good on paper,

  • a policy show that questions what we really know about popular narratives.

  • This is a very different conversation than our usual episodes.