Three is the largest number of children it is normal to intend in America today, and thus four is the largest number of children a normal couple can have.
If you have more than four children, or if you have four without twins or a surprise baby, then something’s going on there. You are probably a religious weirdo or part of some cult.
Into this culture enters Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance‘s fourth child, now in utero.
“A real-life Handmaid’s tale,” Washington Post commenters declared. “Might be time to have a conversation with JD about birth control. Perhaps a meeting with Planned Parenthood would be in order.”
“Like good Nazi wives should,” a prominent account piped in on BlueSky, the liberal X ghetto, “with four children she will be eligible for the bronze motherhood medal(there will surely be a Trump version soon).
“Usha, Katie Miller, and Karoline Leavitt all pregnant at the same time,” feminist commentator Laura Bassett fretted on BlueSky. “They’re spawning.”
Very recently, it was not weird or Nazi to have four children.
Democrats Joe Biden and Al Gore, the two most recent vice presidents who were fathers, both had four children. The elder George Bush had six children. Former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford all had four children.
But the Vances are having their fourth baby in a very different world. The average American woman has fewer than 1.6 babies. Only 11% of women in their 40s have four or more children, according to the most recent data.
Usha Vance will be the first second lady to have a baby while in office since Ellen Colfax in 1870. And this may make her the most consequential second lady ever.
Eschewing the traditional Republican aversion to social engineering, Vance and others in the Trump administration have called for policies that could reverse the baby bust. While a baby bonus, playgrounds in airports, and a larger child tax credit would not hurt, the only way to change our trajectory is to change our culture.
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION IS RIGHT: THE AMERICAN FAMILY NEEDS SAVING
And on that score, a successful couple having a fourth child will do more than any suite of public policies.
Pregnancy is contagious. The liberal feminists of Blue Sky may plug their noses at the Vance baby news and be radicalized against family formation, but plenty of normal folk might just catch the bug and embrace the unusually large family.
