Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1079 | When to Stop Having Kids | Guest: Dr. Catherine Pakaluk

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

Today, we sit down with Dr. Catherine Pakaluk, professor of social research and economic thought, to discuss her book, "Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth." We also talk about how having children is one of life's greatest callings for women, despite society's hostility toward mothers and children. What's really behind the falling birth rates, and how do we reverse the trend? Dr. Pakaluk argues that having kids could even potentially be good for combatting depression. And balancing work, life, and having kids may not be as hard as you might think.   Order Catherine's book "Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth" https://www.amazon.com/Hannahs-Children-Quietly-Defying-Dearth/dp/1684514576 Pre-order Allie's new book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": https://a.co/d/4COtBxy ---   Timecodes: (10:44) How do I know when to stop having kids?  (16:00) Work & education with kids (22:50) Women in the workforce (25:10) Falling birth rates (34:25) Overpopulation myth (38:35) Paid maternal leave (41:24) Childlessness and mental health   ---   Today's Sponsors:   A’del — try A'del's hand-crafted, artisan, small-batch cosmetics and use promo code ALLIE 25% off your first time purchase at AdelNaturalCosmetics.com Good Ranchers — get a bonus $25 off with code ALLIE! Go to Go.GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE to get the Allie Box. Seven Weeks - Experience the best coffee while supporting the pro-life movement with Seven Weeks Coffee; use code ALLIE at https://www.sevenweekscoffee.com to save up to 25% and help save lives. Jase Medical — Go to Jase.com and enter code “ALLIE” at checkout for a discount on your order. Carly Jean Los Angeles — Go to https://www.carlyjeanlosangeles.com and use code ALLIEB to get 20% off your next CJLA order (one-time use only) and start filling your closet with timeless staple pieces.   ---   Relevant Episodes: Ep 935 | Ballerina Farm, 'Breast Is Best' & Biblical Womanhood https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-935-ballerina-farm-breast-is-best-biblical-womanhood/id1359249098?i=1000642014035 ---   Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Dr. Catherine Pacholic is a mother of eight and an economics professor. She wrote the book Hannah's Children. And she tells the story of women across the country that are defying the birth dearth by having lots of kids. She's looked at this from all different kinds of angles, scientifically, economically, morally and spiritually. The conclusions that she has locked away with are just amazing and I think really compelling for everyone, but especially those of you out there who are considering whether or not to have more children. You guys are going to love this conversation. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go.com.com code alley. Go.com.com.com. Catherine, thank you so much for joining me. If you could just tell

everyone who you are and what you do. Sure. My name is Catherine, Pacholic. And I teach at the Catholic University of America. I'm an economist by training. And I also have eight wonderful children. You know, that's a funny combination to some people, because a lot of people cite economics as the reason for not having a lot of kids. And yet you have written this book, which basically makes the case for having a lot of kids. It's called Hannah's Children.

And as we'll talk about, it's even been reviewed by the New Yorker. So let's just start with your. your book, why you wrote it what it's about. Sure. Well, I wrote my book because as an economist, I've been, like many economists, studying birth rates because birth rates feed into the labor force, right? Who is available to work in a country? So just in my training as an economist, I was aware of the fact that people are worried about falling birth rates. But meanwhile, my personal life, I knew many people in my church and other churches who've welcomed, you know, sizable families. And I thought, is there something we can learn from these kind of unusual families all around the country?

So I wrote the book to provide a kind of little peek into the world of people who are defying falling birth rates and then try to draw some conclusions about that. So the subtitle is the women quietly define the birth dearth. So even that subtitle, that is saying that there are women who are purposely having a kids when typically we hear, you know, even I think it was Emmanuel McCrone, who said, well, no woman wants that. She's being forced to or, in very crude terms, she's too dumb to know how not to have kids. Right. And you're saying that's not the case. That's not the case. Right. I mean, didn't we see this with the coverage of Hannah Neelman and the ballerina farm recently? I mean, that article,

the interviewer just went and talked to her and kind of, you know, walked away concluding, it must be that deep down she's being kind of forced into this life. So no, I went out to talk to people who said their family sizes were purposeful and to find out what their purposes were. And what did you find out? Yeah, I found out that by and large, these purposes are connected to being women of faith. I'd like to sum it up as saying, there are all these women who believe that children are expressions of God's goodness, the purpose of their marriages. and blessings from God in the most old-fashioned sense. Right.

And we hear a lot that if women were more educated, they would have fewer children. Yeah. These women who you're saying, you know, they trust God with their childbearing, therefore they're having children. Are they just uneducated? Are they just following religious feelings? Yeah. Well, so it's fair to say that around the world,

it's a very strong predictor of lower birth rates is how much education women have. So, of course, that was a question I had. That's why I was really looking to find women who are college educated, not because I think college education is a great norm for human society, but because I was looking for people who kind of beat the odds or defied that norm. And so, of course, no, it wasn't a story of women who don't know what they're doing or kind of accidentally ended up with a bunch of children. And these were women with, I think, really compelling stories.

And so while overall it was kind of a story of biblical faith, I would say, or love in one case, a woman who really just loved her husband and he really desired a large family, what I try to explain is that each story is a story of meaning and purpose and very beautiful and stands on its own. I love this picture that you posted. You're kind of responding to Emmanuel McCrone. I think this is full screen seven. where you are clearly in graduation garb and you are holding, let's see, how many of your six children at this point? And I'm guessing those are all the children that you had because the youngest looks like a sweet little baby. So you were a very educated person and you are still in education and you chose with all the education in the world to have as many children.

And so talk to me about your decision making, you and your husband's decision making to have Disney children. Yeah. Well, I grew up in a large family. So I remember as a child, I was oldest of nine, and I remember as a child just thinking the most wonderful time, the most magical time, it was like Christmas was when a new baby came into the house. So I was launched into adulthood with that very strong sense that children were sort of the greatest gift you could receive. And so while I did feel, and I still do feel that God was calling me to use my intellectual gifts in a way. way to serve the church, to serve the world, to help pursue truth and help people live better lives, I always felt that I wouldn't want to put that off. So I wouldn't want to put off having

a child to do something in the world. I always thought, well, you know, I can do those things later. So when we got married, my husband was a widower, and he just lost his first wife to breast cancer. And there's something about loss, which I think oftentimes helps you see the value of of life, value human life. And we thought, well, we'd just see if we could have a family right away. And when my first child was born, I like to say, well, he was the best baby in the world. And I thought, well, well, how soon can we have another one? And that, you know, that's more or less continued. Of course, there's, there's, you know, stories, ups and downs in there. But ultimately, we were super blessed with eight children. And now, really, honestly, it seems like a, I can't even believe that

where that time went. It's. Yeah. And how old is your oldest? and how old is your youngest? My oldest is 24 and getting married in December. My youngest is just turning eight this month. Oh my goodness. So you have such a wide range of life because you have a grandchild who's six months old and then you've got an eight-year-old. So an eight-year-old is like second grade. I mean, still going through elementary school. How does that dynamic, I've heard from a lot of moms in that same situation, either that it keeps you young or it makes you feel like, wow, I can't believe that we're still in the thick of this. I know. I think, well, I think it's a bit of both. I do think it keeps you young. I mean, there's something wonderful. My husband says this all the time about

the times we get to sit with our eight-year-old or I take him on bike grads and he just chatters away. And so it does. It keeps you feeling a little bit closer to what it was like to be a young mom. And at the same time, when I go to church and I look at the young moms, I realize, well, I'm not in that same stage of life anymore. My children are getting married and having babies. So, but it's just wonderful. Also, I want to just emphasize to the relationship between those oldest children and the youngest children. What a rich life my eight-year-old has because he has siblings, you know, working and out of college, in college, in high school, in middle school. And those relationships are really so precious. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I only have three, but, and there are challenges to every transition. There's challenges transitioning from zero to one, one to two, and two to three. And every child, of course, adds another logistical hurdle just when you're thinking about transportation and nap times and schedules and things like that. But in some ways, I thought that this was the easiest transition because my confidence

as a mom is skyrocketed, whereas my anxiety has really plummeted. Not that I worry about nothing, but you learn through experience that more things are going to be okay than you think. Not that everything works out perfectly, but fewer things are. are a big deal than you originally thought. And that confidence has made motherhood this time around much easier. Was that true for you? Yes. I mean, times a lot more, you know, than what I have. And I think it's not widely known. For me, it was my fourth. I remember a very specific moment when I thought, this is really not like it used to be. You know, you're kind of waiting

for the shoe to drop or something. You know, a couple months in thinking there's no shoe to dropping. My life hasn't changed and I'm just enjoying this baby. She was my first girl. Oh my goodness. It's really special. But yeah, I think that's been, at least among the women I talked to and studied, it's really common. And because it's not widely known, you worry, if we don't share that truth with people, they may stop when it's still so anxiety producing when they might have enjoyed knowing that, you know, it gets easier. Yeah. It does get easier. sponsor for the day is Carly Jean, Los Angeles. You guys know how much I love CJLA. I've been wearing CJLA for years. It's just so comfortable, so versatile, so classic. I still have pieces that I bought from CGLLA five years ago.

That's the beauty of all of their pieces. They last you through so many seasons of life, as well as so many seasons of the year. Get yourself a capsule from Carly Jean, Los Angeles, mix and match those pieces. You'll be good to go all year long and beyond. Plus, this is a company that shares our same value, so you can feel really good about sending your money there. Go to Carlyjean, Los Angeles.com. Use promo code AllieB for 20% off your next order. That's Carlyjean, los Angeles.com, code Allie B. I get this question a lot. And so I'm so interested to know how you would answer it. The question is, how do I know when to stop having babies? Start is one thing.

That's maybe an easier question to answer. But stop is another. What would you tell someone? What would I tell someone? I guess I would say right off the bat, keep the door open. Don't stop. Don't close the door forever. Wait till you're ready.

But I think the culture has really pushed us to have this idea that we can know fully. But we know that our hearts change and that God speaks to our hearts at different times in life. your capacity to have a baby is limited. It's fleeting, and we know so many cases and so many cases of hardship. So it's a great gift to be able to receive life. And if you're not ready today, you might never be ready again, in which case you'll look back and you'll say, well, that's when I was done. But what I heard from so many people was how much you change.

And you can think today you're done. And I know I've been there where you think, okay, never again. that was too hard never again but then time passes and you know so the main thing i would say is um to to keep the door a little bit open yeah um and not to make permanent decisions of of being done yeah just to be you know a little vulnerable i had three really hard yeah births and my first and third postpartum were really hard yeah my second i don't even know why it just wasn't it was fine but my first and third postpart is really hard for different reasons physically hard emotionally just a lot of different things going on. And for the past year, my husband and I have been like, we're good.

We've got these three healthy babies. We're good. And just the thought of putting my body through it again. Yep. Because it was really, and it wasn't just, oh, that was hard. That was scary. I don't want to go through something hard again. It was like real physical distress. Yeah. I'm like, I don't want to do that again. Right. And then it's just even, even though, you know, that's not, we don't know. Yeah. Basically, we don't know if we're done. But I will. say you already, after being a year postpartum, you feel your heart start to open a little bit. Like, well, maybe, maybe, maybe one day. Yeah, maybe one day. Whereas, you know, it's so closed off. And I think there's even something hormonally about that where your body is telling you for that

first year, we're good right now. And then as the hormones start to change, it's, you know, God's way of, you know, creating the mechanics of your body to say, well, it might not be so bad at some point. Yeah. But I do wonder how many women make permanent decisions when they're in the thick of postpartum, thinking I can never do this because you're sleepless, your body hurts. Yes. But then you've made this permanent decision and maybe a year or two or three years later, you're thinking, gosh, I actually could do it again. Right. Right. Or financial circumstances change or whatever the thing that seemed too much at the time. And that to me seems like a simple way to give it to God and to say, you know, God changes us and he changes our opportunities and our capacities actually. So I think that's a beautiful, like, simple idea just not to make a permanent decision. But the doctors and the medical industry, they do really, they do really push us, especially

in a vulnerable moment. Like we know many women are offered permanent solutions right after having a baby. Yeah. I think that's the worst time to be making a permanent decision. Oh, yeah. I remember my doctor after my first, I had two C-sections, and then I had a V-back after the two C-sections. And I remember my doctor who pushed me into a very unnecessary C-section. I remember asking him, well, you know, what if I want more?

And he said, you know, well, I really don't recommend more than three C-sections, but who has more than three kids anyway? And I was like, what? Excuse me? I thought that was such an odd thing to say. Even if that's true, then a woman doesn't want more than three. Who are you to give them that kind of limitation? And so you're right. Even women who get pregnant with twins or triplets are very often pressured to do a selective reduction and kill one of their babies in the womb. We live in such an antinatalist society. That's right. That's right. I think that's 100% right. And it's these little, it happens in little ways, right? You're not going to go out to lunch and have somebody just, you know, talk to you about how it's terrible to have kids. Okay, it happens sometimes. But it's these little things that we don't even notice, right? Being encouraged to decide. when you're done. I mean, I would say, how many times have I been asked if I was done? Because people

see four, they see five and they go, oh, aren't you done? Well, in a sense, isn't that pretty personal? Isn't that between me and my husband and God? But they want to know as if it's really fascinating to them, well, they know they're done and how come you don't know that you're done? You know, so I think these are all little ways in which the culture is pretty antinatalist. Yeah. You know, you mentioned that you went to school and you worked, even as you had children, can you talk through what those seasons looked like? Because there are such different seasons and different stages of motherhood. And how did you decide what your work and education looked like as you were raising these kids? Yeah. I'm glad you said seasons. I think when I talk to young women, I think that's the thing that

you really want to stress is that I think we're as women made for seasons. Our bodies are cyclical and seasonal, right? And so, yeah, I think that's right. For me, when I was having my babies, when, you know, they were coming more close together. My last couple were spread out. I was still a student. And so it's a kind of work, but it's not a kind of work where there are close deadlines and, you know, hours that you have to be in the office. So looking back, you know, you might say that from my first six children, like when you saw that picture, that was kind of very part-time work. Right. And I could control the hours that I was out of the house. And I could lean into the seasons of my children too, right? So when you have a baby and you're nursing and you're kind of close to home a lot. And then was my last couple for my last couple kids. I was working as a college teacher. And for me, it's been important to have a job where I could do much of my work from home when my kids were little. And I, you know, I'm blessed to be able to do that. My husband also. is a college teacher and so he also works from home and we can sort of trade off hours.

So, I mean, those are big blessings. That's the kind of work that we do is pretty flexible. I was going to ask just how kind of you logistically managed that. Was it just kind of you and your husband trading hours and making it work? Yes, yes, mostly. I mean, of course, we've had older children be babysitters from time to time. And occasionally we've always worked at colleges. So we've had college students come and help from time to time.

But for us, that was the best decision for us was to be with our kids, but to take turns. Yeah, I think there is, especially in the Christian world, such a debate over stay-at-home mom versus working mom as if there are these, like, two clean-cut black and white categories, as if you can't do both. And it's like moms who say have a professor job or a podcasting job, even if they spend a ton of time at home, are still considered working. moms, whereas, say, the mom who has an Etsy shop from home is considered to stay at home mom, but both might spend equal times with their kids, but we've kind of created these categories that makes women think it's all or nothing at any time. And that's, I don't know if throughout history, that's necessarily what motherhood has looked like. No, I think motherhood has throughout history looked a lot like the kind of thing we're describing a kind of, there's need, your children

make demands on our time. But of course, women have always engaged in the enterprise of the home, whether it was their husband's occupation, their own occupation, making textiles or clothing at home, right? And I think it's maybe a byproduct of the industrial revolution when we think that work involves going to a factory. And we're just, we're kind of still struggling with this, but we're really in an economy now that doesn't look like that anymore. So we have this kind of odd dichotomy between there's work and there's home. And yet a lot of the work I do I'm doing right with my kids in a sense, right? Exactly.

My husband is also a college teacher. So what work looks like for us a lot is reading books. Yeah. And so actually, you know, this is the life of our home and it's almost the family business. Yeah. Yeah. And there are certain jobs and certain ways to work that are not really conducive to being present with kids, but not all work has to look like, as you said, going to a factory for 10 hours a day.

That's right. Well, and that insight, I think, leads to the kind of thing that I think women in my stage of life, it's good to say to younger women, look, I mean, if you have choices when you're young and you know you want to have children, you know, think about the kinds of options for your professional work, which will be flexible in that way that you could do partially from home. You could blend with your motherhood. It's, you know, because of the way our modern life is and the culture, you have to plan for having children. Right? They aren't just going to be a part of life that we plan around. I think like our grandmothers did. And so if you plan for it, it can be much easier. I mean, I knew as a college student and so that I'd like to have children. So I thought, well, there's a lot of ways I could use my talents that would be, that would put me in a position of having to choose between an office and my home. And I don't want to do that. So you were strategic in choosing the kind of work that would allow the flexibility. which is what I, you know, I would say that too. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, exactly. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's something that if we don't, if we don't encourage each other to do it, you know, nobody else will. Nobody in school or my college or my university ever suggested, you know, you have a degree in math and economics. You could go into finance or Wall Street or something at bank. But maybe you should also consider options that involve more blended work. So if it hadn't come from my family background, I don't think I would have known it.

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Or they'll talk about, oh, so many women left the workforce during COVID as if it's, you know, this horrible thing. But women working full time and either putting off motherhood or not being with their children is not necessarily a sign of economic health in a country, right? Right. Wow, this is very interesting. At the moment, where we are many countries with their falling birth rates, we really kind of, we view it's almost a Marxian view. We view kind of full employment of every able-bodied man-woman and child, except we don't employ our children anymore. We'd like to have all the bodies, you know, in the workforce. But no, the life cycle for women, of course, is very interesting.

I like to think about some of the Olympic athlete stories that we know of women who, you know, had their babies and then came back to participate in track and field events or whatever. And sometimes you see these cases where women who come back after having babies achieve personal best later. And I think actually that's a good model for us because women often after having children are very productive. So the productivity of our life cycle is, again, it's seasonal, can be seasonal. And then one more thing on that, right? When a woman has babies, she's contributing workers in the next generation. And so what we often see when we hear policymakers, say, talking about keeping women in the workforce or protecting women in the workforce, it's a little bit of a short-sighted vision, right?

Right. Right? Because women spending more time in the workforce, say, in ways that make it harder for them to have children, reduces the available workers in the next generation. And I think we're kind of, I think we have to accept that the crunch we're seeing now in birth rates has something to do with that. Yeah. Yeah. Because you said there are so many falling birth rates around the world. It's not just the United States, but obviously Canada, we see that in many Asian countries.

And as you're writing your book and as you've looked at this, what do you think is really driving that? Yeah. Well, I guess I would like to say that I think the thing that's driving it is big and sort of, it's big and structural. And it's obviously something that's common to all the countries, right? It's not just the socialist countries or the Western more free countries. It's happening everywhere. So it really is, I think, best explained, the fall is best explained by the sort of the economic logic. going against children today. What do I mean by that? I don't mean that anybody, it's sort of an evil genius,

is up in an office saying, you know, we're going to penalize people for having kids. But kids aren't labor for the household anymore and they aren't our old age support anymore.

Right? So for each individual household, children don't add any sort of economic rationality. And then, you know, once you had the sort of, we'll say the women's revolution of the 20th century,

opening up all these different job opportunities, maybe a more fine-tuned ability to control our reproductive lives, they introduce a new cost, not a budgetary crunch, but an opportunity cost. So women are choosing between two, let's say, great things, two great things. So how they rank those two things will be the difference. So overall, you have that children are less valuable to the household, and that's true everywhere you go because of old age programs, because children don't work for the household. And then now, they're a cost in terms of women's income.

And so that's what's driving falling birth rates. And it's pretty, it's pretty universal. It's happening in every continent that we know of. And so this is where this inquiry became important to ask, well, is it, is it, does it have to happen this way? Or where, who are the people still having children? Right. And so in that, in the face of that kind of economic logic against children, what I discover

is a spiritual logic in favor of children. Yeah, and that's what I was going to ask. Is it possible to change the falling birth rates without a spiritual reawakening? Because you mentioned the spiritual aspects being the driving force between women or behind women having children. Well, I have to imagine that the increased secularism has also contributed to this anti-natalist mentality, replacing kids with pets or with careers or whatever it is. So I just because we're not going back to pre-industrial America where We're in an agricultural society where you need your kids, you know, milling wheat for you and all of that stuff.

Right. Milking the cows. Yes. Most of us are going to live in the post-industrial world unless you're someone like Hannah Nealman and you're living on a farm. Most of us are still going to be, you know, in this technological world where parents, constantly feel overstimulated. They constantly feel distracted. They constantly feel pulled in a million different direction. So it's hard for me to see how we're going to reverse that trend. That's right. Well, I think spiritual renewal is the reversal. I mean, I don't see another way. I say at the end that after talking to all of these people, I'm just really struck by the extent to

which we might just call it old-fashioned biblical values seem to be inadequate and not just adequate, but actually a super impressive motive to have children. Kind of a simple trust that God says children are blessings. And as one woman said to me, well, the three big blessings we have from God are health and wealth and children. And the greatest of these is children. And she paused and she said, and I don't think you could have too much of any of these things. And I thought, oh, that's a really beautiful way of putting it. So if you really did view children as wealth, which is what the scriptures say, right, then you would arrange your life to get more of that kind of wealth.

Right. And so when I say this is the spiritual awakening is a viable path, it seems like this is the case among women of many faiths, but who are all anchored in those biblical truths. And they really, they believe them in a simple way, but in a very serious way. I think that's good news, though. I think it's like really good news and very interesting.

And it's also always comforting to think that all of the issues that we're talking about, whether it's anti-baby culture, anti-natalism, they're not new. They take on new forms. That's right. But even if you look back at the early Roman Empire, the babies who are abandoned through exposure because the parents couldn't take care of them. And then Christians came along and said, nope, we're not doing that anymore. We're going to value these kids. So it does seem like it is still 2,000 years later, the Christian responsibility. to oppose the culture of death, the culture of childlessness, and the culture of antinatalism. I think that's so correct. I'm so glad that you mentioned the history because I think that people naively look back and they say, well, in the past people valued children, and today we don't. And I think there's a way in which that's true. There was more economic value that children had. But did people value children always forever for their own sakes? And I think that that's always been a note of Christianity, right? Because God came to earth as a human infant. He didn't have to do it that way. We know that. He's God. But he chose to have a mother and to come into our midst as a baby.

So, yeah, Christianity has always stood for the value of the child as a weak, you know, needy, crying infant. Yeah. And I think it's like a great time to rediscover that. Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. I'm thinking just as you're talking about how God's people were always the one standing against the destruction of children, like even going back to the Hebrew midwives, when the Egyptians were trying to kill all the babies, you know, under two years old. And they would, the Hebrew midwives saving those babies when you think about God instructing the Israelites not to fellowship with the people who were giving their babies to Malak. And then of course, as you said, Jesus, coming to the earth as an embryo, heralded by the kicks of John the Baptist in Elizabeth's stomach. And then even, you know, Jesus chastising his own disciples, disciples products of their time who said, we don't want the children bothering this. That's right. You know, our teacher. And then he said, no, no, no, let the little children come to me for such as these belong the kingdom of heaven. Like Christians who carried, who followed that man, that God man, that mentality. Right.

bursting on to the scene of the Roman Empire, which said, oh, people are, you know, valued by their logos and kids don't have that. Well, the capital L logos, the word made flesh who dwelt among us said, no, that doesn't determine their worth. I do. That changed the world, and it should still. It should still and it can still. That's why I think this is really good news, right?

It's actually still possible to arrange your life to welcome life today. And we know it's possible for women who are in crisis pregnancies. It's possible for those of us facing, you know, high housing costs or whatever those things are. And that's a new, that's a gospel. Like, it's a kind of nugget of good news. I really feel that. And if we talk more about that and encourage it more and, you know, lean into our evangelization, we could see these things improving.

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It makes your life so much easier and healthier. If you go to go to ranchers.com, actually go. Goadranchers.com slash alley. You can get my box. You get $25 off any order that you make with my code alley. Go to go. Goadranchers.com slash alley code alley. You know, it's so, it's sad when I see on social media whenever there's a picture of a mom with a bunch of kids. Yeah. Typically if it's more than three. The comments, a lot of the comments are happy, of course, but then comments like, are you not done yet? Are you finished? Do we really need more kids? It's this, you know, same age old Malthusian dread. And, you know, Satan hates children. So it goes back forever. I think it does. But, you know, Thomas Malthus and Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Margaret Singer, all these people believed in, you know, this overpopulation myth.

Right. Yeah, I think it's important to recognize it's of a peace with Satan. And it's it goes all the way back. but when I think about Malthus and Margaret Sanger and eugenics movement, I think that what kept coming to me when I talked to all of these women and represent the other thing was the substitution of human wisdom for divine wisdom. Right? And I thought, well, it seems, you know, so Malthus is there saying, well, you know, what do you mean we can just welcome all the babies? Like we can't welcome all the babies, right?

Of course we see this later and then, of course, it gets very dark. cool. Well, who are the right babies to welcome? Right. Eugenics. Right. Who are the right babies to welcome? Who are the right people to have children? And all of that's, you know, terribly evil. But, you know, God is asking us to trust him. Right? He's asking us to trust him. It might look as if you can't afford that child, but the child is wanted by God and loved by God and God's providence will provide for that child. So that's really, I think the smarter we get as a society, we can, you know, I don't, I don't know what the most smart thing we do today is, right? But we have all of this technology and all these neat things.

It becomes, I think, a little bit harder to trust that God's wisdom is really vastly superior to our wisdom. Yeah. And obviously, Malthus didn't take into account that human beings actually were contributors. We're not just to drain on resources, but we come up with more efficient ways to distribute resources. We're a credit to society, not just a debit. But even beyond that, because humans aren't measured by their productivity or their innovation. That's part of it. But this concept of the Amago Day is just really tough for the secular world to understand. And they really also don't

understand that it is uniquely the United States who understood that we were all created as just being a creation by God. We were endowed with this certain inalienable rights. Other societies really don't measure someone's rights or humanity or value based on the fact that they just exist. But America at least understood that fundamentally

and that's what changed Western civilization. That's right. And people just don't make those connections, but it's really all connected. Yeah, it is connected. I was also thinking when you were talking about how children aren't just consuming resources, they're contributing, right? And one of the neatest things that I heard when I was talking to women

was the way in which unexpectedly children didn't just bring, you know, maybe arrive with a, what they say the proverb, children arrive with a loaf of bread under their arms. But that sometimes that loaf of bread or the way they contribute is also spiritual. So I heard all these stories of people welcoming babies, perhaps in unexpected times, and then discovering their babies brought, right, not just an augmentation of resources, sources, but joy or healing for, you know, spiritual, psychological healing. And that was something that really took my breath away. It's not something I expected to hear. And again, it just kind of protted me to this idea. What are we missing? When we substitute our wisdom, you know, this is what I

can afford. This is what we can afford. This is how much, how many children the country can have, right? When we substitute that idea, our wisdom for God's wisdom, what are we missing? Yeah. A lot of people say, well, the reason why women aren't having children is because there's not paid maternal leave in the United States are mandated paid maternal leave. And we need more, we need paid maternal leave, we need baby bonuses, we need what's seen as kind of these pronatal policies. What are your thoughts on those things? Do they work? Well, they haven't really worked very well in the past. So countries have tried these for almost 40 years. years, you know, notably the countries like in Asia where the birthed earth has come sooner,

came sooner, countries in Europe. And, you know, so all over the place, the different types. They haven't worked well. There's not, to my knowledge, any example of a country that's meaningfully reversed its birth rates through baby bonuses or, you know, other kinds of policies. That doesn't mean that some of these policies might not be good to implement. They might be family friendly or they might be, you know, good for, good for people at a particular time and place, but they aren't going to be particularly useful

for reversing the birth rate because at least my research suggests it's the way people value children. It's the willingness to see the good of a child as bigger than all of those sort of personal costs and hardships, the ones we talked about earlier, they're real, they're tough. So what drives you? So I guess, you know, in an economic language, I'd say it's like a question of demand, women around the country having children against the odds or against the trend, I mean, they face a lot of the same costs as other women. So again, it might be a very good idea to implement some of these policies. I'm somewhat agnostic about most of them. I don't study them directly, but I have studied the way in which they haven't really worked to turn birth rates around.

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resources to pregnant moms and need. And so your coffee can actually serve a higher purpose. Plus, when you join their heartbeat club, you save every month on that coffee. And then when you use My Code Allie, you also get an additional, you also get an additional 10% off. So if you go to 7weeks.com code Ali, you'll get that discount, 7weeks.com code Alley. Do you think that childlessness is contributing to just, it seems like, the explosion of dependence on SSRIs, especially among women, anxiety, depression, deaths of despair? I mean, it's women over 40 that really are taking, it seems the lion's share of these anti-depressant, anti-anxiety. medications, do you think this, that childlessness and those mental health issues go hand in hand?

I think we really need to ask the question. So I'm not an expert on the connection between those two things, but it came out of my conversations with so many people that I think the language a lot of people used was sort of like a baby is like a sun lamp. I definitely suffer from lack of sun in the winter. You know, I feel that maybe I would be better off in Texas. Florida. But, you know, that idea that sort of there's something about babies who, I mean, what do you need when you're depressed in a sense? You need unconditional affirmation. And babies, I mean, boy, they unconditionally love us. We're weak and we're not perfect moms and not perfect dads, but babies do. So, you know, it's hard not to see those two trends as being

certainly occurring at the same time. We've seen, and of course, you know, there's other contributing factors. I certainly love the research by Jonathan Haidt on smartphones and technology. I think there's multiple factors here, but I looked at my testimonies and I thought, wait a minute, what the women are saying is that they have lots of anecdotal evidence from their families, that their children are a source of anti-anxiety, that their children are a source of peace and joy, especially for the people in their homes that are most likely to be struggling. So who we think about, like, young teenagers who are lacking confidence, struggling with acne for the first time, wondering if their friends still like them at school.

And worse, you know, of course, I'm just touching the surface. And so I scratched my head and I thought, well, is anybody looking at this question? Yeah. And I don't think it's being looked at. So I think it's certainly worth asking. Yeah. Yeah. I think anytime we replace, we replace something with something lesser. So we have a desire. And instead of fulfilling that desire with the object of our desire, we get a less thing. And C.S. Lewis talks about that. And for loves, there are higher loves and there are lower loves. Like lust is not a replacement for love, even in marriage that, you know, hot and steamy romance that you feel. at the very beginning, you literally can't, that cannot be sustained forever else you'll never

eat or never sleep. It's replaced with something much deeper. All of our desire for heaven to be known, to be loved, to be fully seen, that really can only be found in God. We're constantly looking for it in the wrong places. And I also see this in motherhood. I think that all of us, I mean, maybe there are some exceptions, but generally speaking, and, you know, I'm a mom of three girls and I have lots of nephews. And so I see the differences with my girls. Everything turns into a mommy, daddy baby. It doesn't matter if it's three rocks. Everything is a mommy daddy baby. Whereas with my nephews, everything is a gun. Like, it's just so funny. The differences. But from such a young age, it's caretaking. It's homemaking. It's arranging. And I didn't teach them these things. They have plenty of access to all kinds of toys and stuff. But all, I mean, I was like that too. Loved dolls, loved, you know, arranging the families and thinking about my wedding and all of the stuff from such a young age. There is this mothering instinct in virtually every girl. And either by choice or maybe just by the circumstances of their life, many women, probably more women than ever from, you know,

contrasting to our human history, they're not getting married and they're not having kids, but that mothering desire and instinct that you've had since being a baby doesn't go away. And so you either acknowledge that and say, I don't have what I want, but I trust God, which I think is the best place to be when you're disappointed, or you're suppressing that. And you're saying, I don't even really want kids. and I'm going to replace it with my career. I'm going to replace it with my dog. I'm going to replace it with myself and self-care.

Yeah. And that's going to lead. I think this is just personal opinion to depression and anxiety because nothing. And I think a lot of people don't realize they are channeling their natural mothering instinct into their dog. Yeah. And they don't think of it that way. Right. But I even remember that before I had kids, like how obsessed I was with my pets.

And then my kids came and I was like to my cats. Like I don't even care. Yep. Yep. So I think that that's a lot of what's happening too. Well, yeah. And if I can go a step further, you know, I think women also mother at their workplaces. Yes.

Totally. They mother through politics and sort of social justice causes. Yes. And to borrow a phrase, kind of toxic empathy. Yes. Right? Because we are meant to have these incredible empathy muscles, right? I mean, this is part of being a great mom is, you know,

know, you can just look at that three-year-old and like, oh, I get it. You're having such a rough day. Yeah. Oh, that is the worst and most disappointing thing that's ever happened to you. You didn't get the cheese chunkies that you wanted. Yeah. Yeah. So, but when we take that empathy that's meant to really identify with our children as they're young and immature and help them nurture them into adulthood, we start to apply that to other things. I think that's a big piece of the kinds of problems that you've talked about and that I think we're seeing. being parts of this, you know, misplaced social justice movement, I think, is it's women mothering in a way that, you know, that they can't mother. We have the exact same thought. I think that that misplaced mothering absolutely manifests itself. And a lot of women who would probably call themselves liberal women thinking that they

are defending the least of these are the most vulnerable because they believe that whatever victim or proclaimed victim that the media hoist up needs their defense, needs their nurturing. And yeah, I think that that is a huge part of it. Yeah. I also think for women, because there will be women that God doesn't give children. Of course. Or they don't marry. And they might be thinking, well, what about me?

I'd love to have kids, but I don't. But there are kids still that need your love, whether it's at church or mentorship programs. There's lots of ways to do that. During an adoption, I mean, this country, we are a Christian country and we should have no children left in foster care. We should be, we should open our homes as much as we can. I agree with this completely. And of course, the sad thing is that if you are exercising your empathy muscles through social justice causes or whatever they might be or at the workplace, those things don't, they're not as naturally fulfilling to us, which leads us back to where you started this question of, is this fueling our anxiety?

in our depression a little bit. Now, these are really big questions, but I think their questions we're not asking and to our peril. They're also very awkward questions, I would say, for a country that has been committed to abortion rights. Exactly. Yep.

And I just think that motherhood in general just like makes us better. I have, you know, before I had kids, worked in a lot of different kinds of jobs. but nothing has made me better at customer service or team building or management or time management or organization or communication or true compassion than having children. You got multiple personalities, sometimes competing against each other, sometimes in one child. Yes, yes.

And you are learning all day, every day, which battles to pick and, you know, where. to draw boundaries, how to solve problems, how to put out fires, and then also trying to make them into people that other people like. And it's a lot, but I feel like motherhood just matured me so incredibly much. I think I am so much better. So much more patient. Yes. So much kinder as a person and so much more understanding of so many different kinds of people since becoming a mom. Right. And people don't think that, but it stretches you. It does. It stretches your mind. your ability to multitask in ways that it's just hard to even explain. Right, right. I certainly heard that. Early on, I used the language. I used to say, well,

you know, the moms talked about how their children rescued them from selfishness and individualism. Yes. And people said, well, that's kind of harsh. You know, like are you saying people are selfish? And I'm saying, I said, well, this is what women said of themselves. What they said is when I looked back, I didn't know that I was selfish. And maybe it was a kind of accidental selfishness. I mean, you're just looking after yourself because that's all you have to do. And then when you have, you know, all of these personalities and all the things you just described, all the sudden, you realize you actually have a, you can grow an incredible capacity to think about other people and still to get your needs met because that's, you know, kind of a multiplication of the loaves of the fishes, I think.

And then, but then you're so grateful, right? You look. back and you go, wow, I really grew. I mean, because which of us doesn't long for growth experiences that are really quite positive. It's just that it's pretty scary to sign up for that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So right now, we're seeing all of this craziness with the port strikes and you might be worried about getting medication you need. It's going to affect so much. You need an emergency supply kit, an emergency medicine supply kit from Jace Medical. Go ahead. Go ahead. head and get a Jace daily kit. That is a year-long emergency supply of the prescriptions that you and your family rely on. So you go through their confidential telemedicine process. They get you a year-long

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I was definitely surprised. I didn't know anything about it. I was teaching my classes and I got an email message that I didn't want to open until my class was over. And so, yeah, it was a big surprise. And I thought that the author was, yeah, very positive. And actually, I'll just say this, loud and clear. She pulled some of my favorite quotes out of the book that nobody had yet pulled out of the book. And so I thought that was really wonderful.

Yeah. Yeah. I was really happy to see that because you don't really expect a place like the New Yorker to even pick this up or pay attention to it. Yes. I think that moms are caricatured in a way that. our society kind of gets, but doesn't really have a counter image for it. And the reason this was so satisfying is because I think that you may not agree with the things and the sentiments and ideas of every woman in my book. You may not find it like something that you want to do, but it certainly

replaces a caricature with a real human being or flesh and blood human being that you can kind of think, well, I don't know if I, I don't know if everybody reading The New Yorker wants to do that or to be that, but they could at least say I could see how somebody would want to do this if they believe what they believe. And I understand where they're coming from. So that made me very happy. Right. Well, I'm so thankful that you wrote this book and that you talk to all these women. This is a fascinating conversation.

And people can get it wherever books are sold. I'm guessing. Yes. Oh, yes. Yeah. Of course, Amazon Barnes & Noble. I love it. It's beautiful, too.

Hannah's children, the women quietly defined the birth dearth. And of course, you're one of those women. And it's a very easy to read book, but it's just jam-packed with all these very meaningful stories and facts as well. And this is at least, at the very least, the conversation starter we need as we talk about reversing this literally existential crisis that we're in. So thank you so much for writing it. I really appreciate you.