“Population collapse is the biggest threat to civilization,” Elon Musk said on Twitter yesterday, sharing a graph showing the birth rate has been on the decline for 50 years.
“We just need to celebrate having kids,” he said.
Musk is an interesting exception to the antinatalism common among the elite. Overpopulation-prompted societal collapse, a myth based on Malthus’s discredited and historically disastrous idea, is still constantly promoted by elites, like those gathering now at Davos.
While Musk does contradict himself in a couple of crucial ways (Tesla is among the companies that recently promised to fund abortion travel, and Musk has a complicated family with multiple partners), we already knew he wasn’t a conservative. In a culture that increasingly shows its hate for children, his remarks are a welcome change.
As a nation, we fail children constantly. Schools destroy children’s innocence by exposing them to sexual content at increasingly younger ages. The abortion industry kills hundreds of thousands a year.
It’s increasingly socially acceptable to say awful things about your own children or speak of them in derogatory terms publicly on social media. A viral video from a few months ago showed a mother giving her daughter, who was too young to read, a tray of alphabet french fries that read, “U piss me off.” Captioned “love her really,” it drew enthusiastic comments from other parents who saw it as a way to vent. The video isn’t the only of its kind.
Today, many adults don’t want to have children at all. Of childless adults under 50 who say they are unlikely to have children ever, 56% say it is because they “just don’t want to,” a 2021 Pew Research poll found. In the same age range, 44% of all nonparents say they likely won’t ever have children.
Our society has a bad attitude toward children because we have no reason for loving them. The Christian principles that once provided a foundation for our culture, which held that “children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3), have been disregarded.
Now, we’re left with a rabidly secular and selfish culture in which teachers seek validation about their gender from preschoolers. For many adults, children are simply too costly — emotionally, materially, financially, and timewise.
Young adults increasingly push parenthood off because they don’t want the responsibility. Young women are delaying children in favor of careers. They don’t want a child to interfere with their professional aspirations and personal dreams. Parenting requires sacrifice, and few are willing to make it.
It’s not because Americans can’t afford children. Musk also highlighted this in his post.
“Contrary to what many think, the richer someone is, the fewer kids they have,” he wrote.
A recent Brookings Institution study found that abortion rates are lower among single women in the lower-income brackets (less than $11,200 per year) and higher among women earning more (over $44,700 per year). Only 9% of low-income women abort their babies, compared to 32% of those making more.
Hatred of children is a signal of a society on the decline. We should do more than celebrate them. We should care for them, protect them, and put them first, too.
Katelynn Richardson is a Summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow.
