Pronatalism isn’t just for illiberal freaks

The liberal case for summoning children from the void

Liberalism means getting to walk off into the sunset with your family. Kieferpix/Getty Images.

When our first child was old enough to understand, we explained that we had summoned her out of the void to this world because we liked it here and hoped she would too. Then we asked the question: did she approve of our decision?

She did, emphatically so.

Should we make it again?

Yes, she said, definitely.

Inasmuch as I’m a pronatalist, that is what the word means to me. I’m glad to be here. I am grateful for this life, and for this world, and I try to repay my gratitude by leaving the place a bit better than I found it. I think it is a positive good to invite more children into existence. I expect they, too, will like this place and be glad we’re here. People make the world a better place. Yes, we produce carbon emissions, but also we invent batteries and solar panels. We fill landfills, but also libraries and art museums. I think we’re worth it.

Right now, all over the world, fewer and fewer people are having children. Is that a bad thing? Should we change it? Are personal choices any of our collective business? It’s a debate that liberals have been a little reluctant to face head on, even though I think it has obvious answers: Yes, the rapid collapse of the working-age population in every rich country in the world¹ will have bad consequences, and yes, this can be addressed while protecting individual rights. Doing so will require a sustained and significant focus on building more housing, providing high-quality child care, and protecting basic reproductive and health freedoms. But it will also require liberals pushing back against a suffocating culture of antinatalism.

In a recent piece for The New York Times, David Brooks, responding to a piece I wrote for The Argument,² explained why he is “not a liberal.” The core of his argument is that liberals are too committedly materialists and expect too much from policy while neglecting the role of culture. Brooks can’t join us, he writes, until we acknowledge that “manners and morals are more important than laws. You should have limited expectations about politics because not everything can be solved with a policy.”

Indeed, it is very important that anyone looking to govern be aware that not all problems can or should be solved by the government. But I think Brooks is not giving liberalism its due.