In this episode, Simone and Colleen are joined by neuroscientist and evolutionary biologist, Dr. Simone D'Ambrosio, to talk about the pro-natalist movement and its impact on our society. They discuss the history of pronatalism in the United States, the impact of the pronatalist culture, and what we can do to counter it.
00:10:56.740Yeah, it's just like kids are super expensive.
00:10:58.260So I love this part for a few reasons.
00:11:02.540One, that like the idea that the people in power in our society today have decided that it, you know, while, you know, cash handouts don't really work for fertility rates, we should definitely have more of them than we have.
00:11:18.520Talk about it because it's kind of insane.
00:11:20.160Yeah, so one of our recent projects for pernatalist.org was to create for every state in the United States, and we're happy to create some for other nations too, we just need to know if there's sufficient demand, a guide to all state-based resources for parents.
00:11:34.200You know, anything from early diagnosis of developmental issues like learning disabilities or autism to full out like childcare support, meal services, free transportation for minors, government programs providing healthcare to minors.
00:11:48.660What was really astounding to me is there are very, very few states that offer significant benefits to middle or high-income parents.
00:12:00.660The vast majority of all services, be it free insurance, free childcare, early intervention, or even school choice, which is crazy, is first and foremost available to low-income parents.
00:12:14.260So what's interesting to me is it's actually way, way, way, way less expensive to have kids.
00:12:24.400It is free in many states to have kids because you get free food for them, you get free childcare, you get free healthcare, you get free early intervention and therapy, then you get free school choice.
00:12:35.120So then you can send them to private schools even if you want to.
00:12:40.660Like, there are so many resources and this is partially one of the reasons it might be driving lower-income people to be so much higher fertility.
00:12:47.940Right, because their opportunity cost is, is very low.
00:12:50.660They can, you know, they'll get the childcare.
00:12:53.420And this is something I'd really like to advocate to is extending these programs to everyone or giving them to no one.
00:12:58.020Like, you shouldn't, you shouldn't have it be free to have as many kids, you know, that if this is something that we believe is something we need to offer as a society, then I think we should be offering it more across the board.
00:13:09.560Yeah, just offer it across the board or don't offer it.
00:13:12.500And it's, it is, it's really frustrating because we, we thought we're going to be putting together this amazing guide of useful resources for parents.
00:13:20.120I told you we weren't going to find anything.
00:13:21.480I mean, so there, there are still some things like, I mean, you and I with, with an autistic child have benefited from Pennsylvania support of early intervention, meaning that like if your insurance does not cover ABA therapy for autism, the state will provide supplementary insurance to cover it.
00:13:37.140And that is, it's been a game changer for us.
00:13:39.080So there are some services that are available, but basically what I'm saying is there is a real and very different opportunity cost for middle and upper income parents.
00:13:49.780But at the same time, still having kids does not have to be prohibitively expensive if you don't make it like that.
00:13:59.060And we keep arguing that like people are raising kids now as though they are retired, incredibly dumb millionaires.
00:14:07.560They have to have their sailing classes and their tennis class and they have to go to their robotics competition and they have to go to, you know, this and they're driven everywhere, you know, soccer competition and then, you know, tutoring.
00:14:25.900So that I thought was really astute, and it's something that is often lost on sort of the progressive leaning individuals when we bring up just how bad it's going to be due to low fertility, is that this is going to lead to the collapse of states and war.
00:14:41.800And a lot of people just, they do not under, like, they did, they're like, they can understand how less land would lead to that, but not rapidly declining populations.
00:14:50.260They're like, global warming will lead to war, and I'm like, actually, fertility collapse is much more likely to lead to war.
00:14:58.740It was likely instigated by fertility collapse, which was the Russia-European war, which Peter Zion predicted would occur at this time due to fertility collapse.
00:15:06.200Well, and keep in mind, so global warming will lead to very severe immigration crises and refugee crises.
00:15:16.240And, you know, the thing is, I think most people watching that video are going to totally miss that point.
00:15:19.760They're just going to assume, oh, she's riffing on, like, Terminator-style, like, you know, references.
00:15:25.400And, you know, this isn't actually what would happen.
00:15:28.840Because people also have this really, really strong vision of demographic collapse just means, oh, fewer people, smaller communities, more space for me, lower rent.
00:16:00.260Okay, well, why don't you have the kids, and then you could go back to work after, and then you'd still have that career.
00:16:07.500Yeah, yeah, I mean, I could, but then by the time I've jumped back into work, I'm kind of behind where I was.
00:16:13.980It's funny, I heard myself say that, and then I was like, wait a minute, wouldn't she be behind where she was, especially her male counterparts?
00:16:19.960Well, that's one of the reasons women get paid less, you know.
00:16:24.360The gender pig, yes, right, I've heard of that.
00:16:27.520Well, and then, you know, you've got to work, so your kid needs to go to daycare, and you've got to pay for daycare, which costs the same amount of rent.
00:16:48.040One is, I find it really interesting that, like, the common mainstream view is, oh, if you want me to have kids, you need to give me generous maternity leave.
00:16:57.440But then also, well, no, I don't want to have kids, because if I go on maternity leave, my career gets stalled and thrown back.
00:17:03.920We need to denormalize maternity leave.
00:17:07.440Yeah, we need to normalize support for mothers as they work through maternity.
00:17:13.380So, like you've said in the past, and I really love this as a policy position, is if you do not have to work from an office, you should be allowed to work from home, especially if you're a parent, period.
00:17:26.580You know, you should be allowed to have your infant.
00:17:27.820And if not, then you should be allowed to bring your infant to the office, and you should be allowed to take the breaks you need to, you know, do breast pumping, whatever, breastfeeding, and have the baby with you.
00:17:36.380And ideally, again, in-house childcare should be a major and well-known benefit.
00:17:40.420But this concept of needing to take leave to have a baby, I think, is incredibly toxic.
00:17:47.060There is no strong historical basis for it, except for, like, literally, like, lying in as, you know, like a medieval European woman, which was way deadly.
00:17:56.940Like, poor peasant women were able to have, just, like, pluck out kids, and they wouldn't die at the same rate, because they were still abdominally healthy and active, meaning they could push the poor thing out.
00:18:07.000Whereas these women who were, like, were forced to stay in bed and actually take leave and take time off to have babies were, like, not able to push anything out.
00:18:15.320It's because everyone today believes that they deserve and have a natural right to the life of an aristocrat.
00:19:23.940It would be really cool if we could see things going this way is she refers to women who have kids as breeders.
00:19:30.020And typically, you know, as in the perinatalist movement, breeders are what the opposition calls us as a way to insult us or try to dehumanize women who choose to have kids.
00:19:42.220Like, the left is terrible at recognizing how frequently they turn to dehumanization as a tactic.
00:19:47.620But breeders is how they dehumanize women who have taken the choice and the costly choice, as it is shown in this video, to do one of the single most important jobs, if not the single most important job that any human can undertake in our society.
00:20:02.980And yet, it is a completely unrecognized and unglorified job in our society.
00:20:09.160Like, these women receive nothing for it in terms of thanks, really, from society.
00:20:15.140They get looked at like they're crazy people on airplanes.
00:20:17.460Or even their kids these days, because then their kids refer to all the trauma that they inflicted upon them.
00:20:21.740Well, all the made-up trauma, because, you know, if you're trying to, as we point out, if you're trying to convert somebody to a cult, the first thing you need to do is drive up an emotional wedge between them and their closest support network, which is usually their family.
00:20:56.880And so this is – I'd really love to see us retake this word, breeders, to be like – to call the people who are – whose society relies upon.
00:22:04.060So, what I really love about this from my perspective is that in truth, what she is saying is comical in an inverse way than she thinks it is.
00:22:17.220Where she is complaining about all of the difficulties of being a mother in today's environment.
00:22:25.440And one thing is pointed out, which is true.
00:22:31.120Once our society, like, restabilizes the people who are having kids in the future, they will be having them under much worse conditions than humans who are alive today, at least for a couple generations.
00:22:40.500And you see this in the person that she's talking to in this destabilized world where, you know, obviously this woman in this destabilized world, you know, she understands the importance of having kids.
00:22:51.900And she's doing it, but in a much harsher environment.
00:22:54.740And this is also true when you contrast our challenges today with the challenges of our ancestors.
00:22:58.880You know, she is concerned about social shaming on airplanes or having to do something a little gross on a public restroom floor.
00:23:08.800Did you know that on average, women used to lose one tooth with every kid they had?
00:23:35.260And we've fallen a lot with our children, but yeah, no.
00:23:38.780But the larger point I'm making here, right, is one, I think they're self-inflicted things, right, or even as far as they are bad.
00:23:47.200Just the life of a human today is so free from genuine suffering, even if you are fairly poor, is almost astonishing in a historic context.
00:24:00.320We have individuals in our society today who are what people would think of as lower class.
00:24:05.480So, this is, like, the people who, like, don't have a lot of stuff growing up.
00:24:09.800And then they get surprised leaving school that they are expected to work for the rest of their life.
00:24:15.020They have such of this aristocratic mindset, you know, that they aren't worried really about foodborne illnesses in a major way.
00:24:22.560You know, they have refrigerated food.
00:24:24.780They have all of these flavors that we used to fight wars over for, like, spices and stuff.
00:24:30.100And now it's like, oh, which Dorito am I going to pay, you know, a dollar for?
00:24:34.800They have so much food that their biggest problem is obesity, not a lack of food.
00:24:41.480They have, they basically have no major diseases anymore.
00:26:13.320But general utilitarianism could also be used to justify what you were talking about if you think the world is going to be especially bleak in the future.
00:26:19.720You know, sort of aggregating human happiness.
00:26:21.980I would say it's like you had a bunch of paperclip maximizing AIs together in a room and they decide that good is more paperclips and bad is less paperclips.
00:26:32.500And one guy is like, look, guys, I know that we are programmed to like paperclips.
00:26:37.640But I really don't think that they have intrinsic value.
00:26:40.380Maybe we should, like, try to think outside of paperclips for a second here.
00:26:43.780And then another one is like, well, you wouldn't like it if I stopped you from making paperclips.
00:26:47.840And then one's like, well, yes, obviously, I am programmed to like paperclips.
00:26:52.060But what I'm saying here is can we think theoretically outside of what we were pre-coded to do?
00:26:57.780You know, as we say, happiness is just, you know, what sort of was pre-coded pain is just sort of what was pre-coded into us by, you know,
00:27:03.200which of our ancestors, the emotional subsets that motivated reproduction and survival and more offspring among our ancestors.
00:27:10.360It's not like a true thing of the universe.