In the week before beginning maternity leave, I was trying to write a poignant and expansive essay on what it means to become a mother, but what I kept thinking about was why so many women aren’t having children.

“How Low Can America’s Birthrate Go Before It’s A Problem?” asked a FiveThirtyEight headline last week. “Low Birthrates Beckon New Debate,” read the Wall Street Journal. Both noted the stakes: fewer workers paying into Social Security, essential jobs without bodies to fill them. Our economy hums along based on the idea of growth, both of money and of people, and in the past few years demographers and pundits alike have pondered the decline. Last year was a record low for the American birthrate. Some of that was pandemic-related, some was not: The birthrate has fallen for six consecutive years.

You could, as I do, presume some positives — women with greater access to birth control, and couples choosing the size of their families more intentionally. Or you could, as many commentators have, view this as a terrible problem to be solved, representing a drift from classic family values.

To read the rest of this essay in the Washington Post by Monica Hesse, go here.