Mothering is going away as an institution and as a way of life.
Various government efforts to reverse the plummeting birthrate haven’t proven effective. For instance, Taiwan spent more than $3 billion to incentivize families to have more children, including six months of paid parental leave, a cash benefit, tax breaks for parents with young children, and investment in day care centers. These kinds of incentives are important, but to really move the needle, incentives have to emerge from within, from “the reasons of the heart.”
I suppose it boils down to some sort of deeply held thing, possibly from childhood — a platinum conviction — that the capacity to conceive children, to receive them into my arms, to take them home, to dwell with them in love, to sacrifice for them as they grow, and to delight in them as the Lord delights in us, that that thing, call it motherhood, call it childbearing, that that thing is the most worthwhile thing in the world — the most perfect thing I am capable of doing (Quoting Catherine Pakuluk).
Centuries ago, children had economic value; for example, they provided help on farms. People tended to have more children for a tragic reason, too: because the rate of child mortality was so high. As the economic value of having lots of children in a household decreased, and health outcomes drastically improved, couples needed a new motivation for having lots of children.
(The mothers interviewed) described their choice to have many children as deliberate, chosen rejection of an autonomous, customized, self-regarding lifestyle in favor of a way of life intentionally limited by the demands of motherhood. To these women, children were “expressions God’s goodness and blessing” and were desirable for their own sake.
It’s about having a very important reason to do this, and the reason to do it then outweighs the costs, which are very significant.
But the challenges the women described unfolded alongside moments of great happiness and they were accompanied by the belief that their self-sacrifice would be repaid in a “divine economy of goodness and joy." In losing themselves, she said, the women found their identity.
(https://www.deseret.com/family/2024/04/23/birth-dearth-catherine-pakaluk-fertility-rate-utah/)
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