Centrally Planned Pregnancy

Shakespeare’s Sister http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2006/05/parents-dont-get-no-respecthow-about.html snarks on a Glenn Reynolds piece that calls for collective action to make parenting more fun, easier, less expensive, more prestigious, more rewarding. Pro-natal policies will help to increase total fertility. Shakespeare’s Sister takes issue with the suggestion that loosening safety requirements will make parenting more attractive. (I’m not sure that there are a lot of women declining to have babies because the car seat regulations are just too darn onerous, and I don’t know that I want any part in encouraging such a person to reproduce.)

France has been trying to get French people to have more babies for some time now. “France a besoin des enfants!” The incentives provided so far do not seem to be enough to increase total fertility. The US already has many subsidies to parents from the dependent tax exemption to child care tax credits to public schools. This is still not enough to induce many people to have larger families. I don’t know what it would it take to get a significant increase in total fertility rates; however, since any subsidy will undoubtedly benefit families who would have had kids anyway, each additional child would cost the taxpayers quite a bit.

Moreover, any subsidy program will have unintended consequences and may have an unexpected impact on fertility or create new problems.

My problem is with the very notion of centrally planned demographics. I don’t want the state to have a position on whether folks have kids. It is a small step from a universally pro-natal position to discrimination against the childless or to targeted programs in which the state chooses the kinds of folks it wants to reproduce. The very idea that government has a legitimate interest in reproductive decision-making is highly objectionable. To advocate such a position is as good as saying that citizens are cattle to a beefivorous political class. At least leave us the dignity of being prey.

I reckon a lot more folks would have children if the government didn’t take so much from them in taxes and didn’t act as a drag on the economy. If people kept their own earnings and savings, they could afford to have more kids if they wanted to. To add another layer of government programs to funnel money to would be parents and to engage in pro-natal propaganda would just compound the problem.

There are a number of things that Glenn Reynolds and likeminded folks can do to contribute to a higher fertility rate. Number one: get cracking and have as many kids as you can. Even if you can’t afford them, have them anyway and farm them out to infertile families. Increase the prestige of parenting by lavishing constant gushing praise on any parents you encounter. Help a struggling family have another child by agreeing to subsidize its upbringing and by providing free babysitting once in a while. That way you can make sure that your resources go to families “on the margin” or to the kinds of people you would like to see as parents. If white Christian babies are what you’re looking for, you can focus your campaign on white Christians. If it’s some other breed you favor, invest in families of that ilk. Just leave me out of it.