Talk to Me Nicely

How many times in the last few weeks have I heard the broad strokes of the same story: “No one is having babies”? Millennials are paralyzed by narcissism and indecision. J.D. Vance thinks there’s too many childless cat ladies who don’t have a stake in the future of America. The discourse on childlessness and feminism is vast, but still I felt alone in my personal understanding of the fertility crisis. Though I belong to that same indecisive generation, my upbringing guaranteed that I never felt any uncertainty about motherhood for myself. By most measures, I am both the target audience and a champion of the pronatal goals of the Right: I am religious, unmarried and still of childbearing age, raised both to expect and desire a life married with children. Why then do I feel so alienated by the Right, when I might otherwise be useful to their cause?