Pronatalism, or the promotion of procreation, as an ideology emphasizes creating new humans. Its insidious propaganda machine conditions people to believe they won’t be complete, won’t be fulfilled, won’t know love, or won’t be truly happy unless they have a child. “It’s easy! It’s fun! You’ll be lonely and miserable if you don’t do it!”
This pressure has a long history.
Pronatalism-to-Procreation
· In 1969, Joseph W. Maxwell (Head of the Department of Family and Child Development at Auburn University) and James E. Montgomery (head of the Department of Management, Housing and Family Development at Virginia Polytechnic Institute), in their article “Societal Pressures Toward Early Parenthood” published in The Family Coordinator, cite M.M. Hunt’s finding in “The Case Against Having Children Too Soon” (published in a 1968 issue of Redbook) that
“young couples have children only in part because they want them, and in larger part because they want to play the role of parents. ‘They often bring forth children, not for themselves, but for other people. Relatives, neighbors, and friends all exert subtle but continuous pressure to “join the club,” to do the proper thing, to accept adult responsibilities and settle down like everyone else. In trying to win approval and acceptance, many husbands and wives become parents before they are emotionally ready.’”
· Orna Donath, in Regretting Motherhood (2017), found that … pressure on women that makes them feel they won’t be fully accepted by society if they don’t have a child leads them to have children even if they aren’t sure it’s the right decision. (NIH)
· Forty percent of women and twenty percent of men in a 2022 YouGov survey say they (still) face pressure to have children.
· In the Reddit group /r/Regretfulparents, feeling pressured to have children is cited among the reasons for having them. In answer to the question, “Why did you have a child,” answers (in Sept. 2023) include the following:
“I was scared that I would miss out on the ‘motherhood’ experience” (just_nik)
“because my in laws wanted grandkids and husband wanted one. I also thought it would give me closure from previous miscarriage and a sense of belonging” (Unbasic_Betty)
“Because you're considered ‘successful’ if you have kids and having lived ‘real life’ if you've had kids. I realise now what a lie this is” (stagesheep)
“i wanted an abortion but my ex talked [me] out of it” (miabby93) (Reddit).
The impact of being pressured to parent
“You should have a kid” doesn’t only affect the person whose life is being manipulated into forever-parenthood.
· In Regretting Motherhood, Donath found that parental regret is often caused by the pressure on women that leads them to have children they aren’t even sure they want.
· Dr. Jonathan P. Schwartz, former Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Houston and former President of Division 51: Psychology of Men and Masculinity of the American Psychological Association, said in a personal interview,
“Someone who’s not ready for [parenthood] will experience all kinds of psychological symptoms — depression, anger, resentment. You have to be not only chronologically ready, but emotionally ready. There’s not a much more important thing we can do to make the world a better place than to have active, engaged parents. Going into having a child without both partners’ engagement and consent is, to me, dangerous.”
Unwilling/Unprepared Parents and Child Maltreatment
· There were 600,000 victims of [child] maltreatment in the United States in 2021(Children’s Bureau/Department of Health and Human Statistics; National Children’s Alliance)
“For FFY 2021, a national estimate of 1,820 children died from abuse and neglect”
“More than 80 percent (80.3%) of child [maltreatment-related] fatalities involved parents acting alone, together, or with other individuals”
· Whether a child was intended is one of the factors considered when predicting the risk of child maltreatment (PubMed; Drexel University; Brookings; Irvine)
· Almost half (45 percent) of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended –either unwanted or mistimed (Guttmacher Institute; CDC; Brookings). Among the 15-19 year-old age group, 75 percent of pregnancies are unintended (CDC)
· “Although the research on parental regret is still nascent, some evidence looking at adolescent mothers suggests an association between regretting parenthood and a harsher, more rejecting attitude toward their children” (International Psychology Clinic)
· “The [unwanted] child faces psychological suffering that continues well into adulthood and may set the stage for problems in future generations” (Washington Post)
· Family therapist Kara Hoppe, in an interview for The Atlantic, reported to the journalist that “her work with patients suggests that children might feel emotional neglect if the parent consistently really does not want to be there” (The Two Reasons Parents Regret Having Kids)
· “Research from a variety of sources suggests that being unwanted and unloved can have a lasting effect on a child’s development” (Trias M. The unwanted child. Draper Fund Rep. 1982 Dec;(11):8-11. PMID: 12264604)
· Abortion legalization “led to a reduction in the number of ‘unwanted’ children; such a reduction may have improved average infant health and children's living conditions” (Irvine; Guttmacher Institute)
· “[A]dvocates for reproductive health, social support and legal services have cautioned that the revocation of abortion rights would bear direct and indirect consequences, including the likely increase of [reproductive coercion—a form of domestic abuse]” (PBS)
“There is a strong relationship between unwanted pregnancy and interpersonal violence” (APA)
“[S]tudies indicate that spouse abuse increases the risk of child abuse, both physical and mental” (National Center for Health Research)
“In an estimated 30 to 60 percent of families in which either child maltreatment or exposure to adult domestic violence is occurring, the other form of violence also is being perpetrated” (Resource Center on Domestic Violence), showing a relationship between domestic violence and child abuse
“The incidence of the unwanted child could be drastically reduced by extending to all families the wide variety of modern contraceptives now available and by offering medical abortion services to those who want them.” — NCBI
It could be further reduced by changing the procreation conversation, presenting parenthood not as a foregone conclusion or as a necessary step to adulthood, but as one choice of many an individual can make—and a life-altering (not only for themselves), irreversible choice, at that.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy my post-Roe novel The Age of the Child (2017), in which a woman who desperately doesn’t want children finds herself pregnant as the last abortion clinics are shuttering their doors.
“Reading the news these days is terrifying enough for women concerned with bodily autonomy — why would I invite that into my leisure reading?! What I hadn’t counted on is how compelling Tsetsi’s storytelling is, and also how darkly hilarious some of the scenes are. This is a book that begs to be discussed and dissected.” — Amazon Reader Review
“Scathing social commentary.” — Goodreads Review
“The Handmaid’s Tale and The Farm, to name a couple, have opened the dystopian genre to questions about reproduction; however, The Age of the Child is one of the first I’ve read to really consider the issue of reproductive rights and attitudes so deeply.” — Rebecca Maye Holiday, author of The Beaches
Putting to words everything I've known in my body and heart to be true. Thank you.