Choose Kids Over Cats

But Respect Those Who Chose Poorly

The ancient Egyptians deified cats until their civilization disappeared. Correlation or causation? Source: Internet Book Archive

Vice-presidential candidate JD Vance’s comment that the US is run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made” does not help solve the global fertility crisis.¹ But his name-calling, insofar as it involves a value judgment, does point to the solution.

Christine Emba

provides some background to the war over words and wombs in The Atlantic: “Birth rates in the United States have been trending down for nearly two decades, and other wealthy countries are experiencing the same.” Moreover, “the share of American adults younger than 50 who say they are unlikely to ever have children rose 10 percentage points between 2018 and 2023, to 47 percent.” To call this a “crisis,” of course, is to make another value judgment. What’s wrong with more adults having fewer or no children? What’s wrong with being a “childless cat lady”?

Emba notes that policies meant to boost fertility, such as monthly stipends for parents and extended parental leave, have not reversed birthrate declines in countries like South Korea and France. Their failure, she suggests, points to a more existential reason that fewer people are having kids: a crisis of meaning. To wit, “Many in the current generation of young adults don’t seem totally convinced of their own purpose or the purpose of humanity at large, let alone that of a child.” While financial concerns, difficulty partnering up, and careerism play a role in young people forgoing children, all of these “externals” conceal “a loss of stabilizing self-confidence among recent generations, or to the lack of an overarching framework (religious or otherwise) that might help guide people toward a ‘good’ life.” Unlike Vance, many young adults do not view parenthood as more essential to the good life than owning cats.

As a father of two children and the owner of no cats, I agree with Vance on the superiority of flesh babies over fur babies. But I also agree with the headline of David French’s piece in The New York Times: Mockery Won’t Increase Fertility. Making parenthood into a culture-war issue will not increase the number of parents. What may increase the number of parents is making the case that there is such a thing as a good life, and that parenthood usually plays a role. (Public policy can also contribute in tandem with social norms.²) Usually is a key qualifier. People who biologically can’t have children (and choose not to adopt), or who are temperamentally unfit for parenthood, are certainly not doomed to unhappiness. But for those who are able and suited for it, parenthood adds a richness to life that even the most charismatic cat cannot. Moreover, many more of us are suited for parenthood than we might think.

It is on that last point that the solution to the fertility crisis, and the broader crisis of meaning, rests. The most deflating and simultaneously liberating mantra we can repeat to ourselves is: I am not so unique. Or, as phrased more positively by the Roman playwright Terence: “I am human, I consider nothing human alien to me.” For most of us, there is not some special life path that we need to discover independently for ourselves. Instead, there is a shared human nature, recognized by both ancient philosophy and modern science, which suggests certain universal values. In broad strokes, your good life is going to look like any other good life: a loving partner, a stable home, a supportive community, close friends, an outlet for your passions or creativity, faith in something bigger than yourself (not necessarily God), and, yes, kids if possible.³

Of course, that rough sketch leaves many details to be filled out. For example, it is not prescriptive of any one faith or community. It is not an endorsement of the Christian presumption that “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12). Instead, as a general rule, I’d suggest reversion to ancestral defaults. If you descend from generations of Hindus or Jews, then stick with Hinduism or Judaism, interpreted in light of modern science as needed. They worked well enough to motivate your ancestors to live long enough to have children, hence your current existence. Also note that many of your ancestors, by virtue of being your ancestors, raised children into adulthood, who in turn did the same.⁴ Since you share their genes, there is a very good chance that you are also capable of raising children, regardless of any self-doubt.

We shouldn’t just blindly follow the path of our ancestors. We don’t share the exact same cross-section of genes with them, nor the identical circumstances with which those genes interact. But we should reject the false, yet culturally prevalent, notion that we are sui generis blank slates, ex nihilo consumers with an endless menu of equally valid life choices. If we feel connected to our lineage and history, we will naturally wish to have children to carry that heritage forward. If we feel that each human life starts from zero, cursed to an anxiety-ridden quest for a self-actualizing career, gender identity, and social media profile, then why bother continuing the human/rat race? The illusion of total autonomy alienates us from our collective past, which, in turn, triggers a loss of faith in our collective future.

We can and should debate the contours of what exactly a good life looks like. According to Western philosophy (Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living”), to do so is in itself central to a meaningful existence. But some preliminary conclusions—based on reason and data, supported by religion and tradition—are nevertheless in order. For example, it is in our nature to create and raise children. Therefore doing so makes our lives seem worthwhile.⁵ (Religion would say they are worthwhile; reason must stop at “seem.” But the two agree on the basics.) Cats evolved to manipulate our parental instincts so we will care for them and demand nothing in return. Insofar as there is any inherent goodness grounded in human nature, it is to be found more in having children than in owning cats. A fulfilled and fertile society will favor this eternal verity. But it can do so while still upholding the dignity of childless cat fanciers.⁶

1. For my earlier tractate on JD Vance’s verses, see America: A Great Idea for a Nation.

2. As a Vox article notes, “some experts and advocates believe that it’s possible — if the incentives are large enough” for public policy that reduces the cost of parenting to help voluntarily increase birth rates.

Consider Israel, the only OECD country with an above-replacement fertility rate. Here, culture is inextricably linked with policy. From SAPIR Journal: “linkages among religious traditionalism, familism, and nationalism are seen, for example, in extremely generous public subsidies for assisted reproductive technologies (ART). . . . broad public support for subsidultized ART in Israel is based on the widely held belief that the opportunity to experience biological parenthood is a kind of civil right.”

3. An outlet for your passions or creativity may be a unique need of the psychologically WEIRD.

4. I use the qualifier “many” since your ancestors could also include cads, rapists, or simple victims of circumstance who only contributed genetically to their descendants. (On that last point, my paternal grandfather died while my father was still an infant.)

5. Religions like Buddhism and Catholicism sanctify pathways for the childless (eg, celibate monasticism and priesthood), but do not extol voluntary extinction for laypeople (with some exceptions).

6. Or as

Ross Douthat

puts it, “one can argue that pro-natalism need not be in conflict with feminism and female agency, that much of the recent collapse in birthrates reflects women falling short of their desired fertility as opposed to deliberately deciding against having kids, and that pro-natalism can seek a more marriage- and child-friendly culture rather than a coercive birthrate-obsessed state.”