“What if lower birthrates are a good thing?” asked feminist attorney and writer Jill Filipovic. “For a great many individual women, reconsidering motherhood doesn’t reflect hardship or unmet desire, but rather a new landscape of opportunity.”

This is the common rejoinder to worries about our current baby bust: Sure, we have fewer children in America today than a decade ago, but this is a good thing because people are getting what they want and are liberated from the shackles of parenthood.