The Train Coming Down The Tracks

Do we have any reasonable concept that Gen Z or later will be able to actively parent, as opposed to simply using tech and entitlement as a crutch?

A little over a year ago, I guess I wrote this on if anyone “deserves” to be a parent.

Just so you have some context on it all, my wife and I experience infertility (I believe that's the term), and I am sure a lot of people in my casual orbit think I write stuff like that just because I am bitter about not getting there biologically. I am sure that is part of it. I’m self-aware enough to know that. At the same time as I’m bitter, though, we have a moral panic about the “live births per woman” rate, commonly known as the birth or fertility rate, to the point that some are now claiming we are having less babies because we have less hope as human beings.

I still think people have hope, and I very much still think people want babies (I have lived this dynamic for four-five years now, with some of my wife’s friends currently giggling about Kid №3’s soonish arrival). I think the fertility crisis — if you want to call it a crisis — is more about money (kids are expensive and people feel pinched as is) and health issues, including later age of marriage. It’s harder to knock out three kids if you start at 33 vs. 26.

While this has been going on, though, we’ve had a few other social theories enter the chat: