My good friend Robert Stacy McCain fisked an article from The New York Times, one which tried to make the case that American women postponing childbirth might still have children later in life.
“Fertility delayed is fertility denied” is one of the great maxims of demographics. As a matter of statistical average, postponing parenthood means reducing the total number of children. It requires a few more sentences to explain why this is true, but the fundamental fact is that every woman begins her fertile years at puberty (menarche) and concludes her fertility at menopause. Biology establishes a window of roughly 30 years (roughly ages 15 to 45) during which pregnancy can occur. Let us suppose that the reader is among those who feel a sense of horror about “teenage pregnancy.” While I could argue that this attitude is irrational, I’ll not belabor that point here. But in seeking to eradicate teenage motherhood, what you are attempting to do is to subtract five years from the potential baby-making years of the female population.
Stipulating, then, that no woman should ever give birth before age 20, you still have (in theory) a 25-year period during which births can occur. Ah, but biological fertility declines significantly after age 30, and the risk of birth defects (particularly Down syndrome) increases after age 35. The window for successful childbearing, you see, is actually narrower than the menarche-to-menopause span of 15-to-45 would suggest. That five-year delay you demanded to prevent teenage motherhood has consequences down the line, which is why in recent decades we have had so many 30-something women in crisis at the ticking of their “biological clock.” We cannot go back in time to take advantage of opportunities we have already passed up — fertility delayed is fertility denied.
Liberals don’t want to acknowledge this reality, and for many years have been selling false hope about egg-freezing, IVF and other advanced medical treatments as a panacea for the problems created by attempting to beat the biological clock. Even if you are buying what they’re selling — i.e., that becoming a mom at 45 is medically feasible — does it make sense that any large number of childless women would pursue these expensive procedures? You’ve gone childless for decades, and now at middle age, you’re going to pay tens of thousands of dollars to make a baby? Do you want to be the only 50-year-old mom at your kindergartner’s PTA? And then you’ll be eligible for Social Security by the time this kid graduates high school. This kind of choice just doesn’t make sense, which is why very few women actually do it.
There’s a feminist attitude that strong, smart career women have to build their careers early, along with the accurate-enough problem that career women having children are sometimes “mommy tracked,” making getting that C-suite office unattainable. Of course, most men fail to gain that C-suite office as well.
The feminist attitude also ignores something rarely discussed: while women are now in the labor force just as much as are men, most women, like most men, have jobs, but not anything the feminists would see as careers. But the career-woman ideal, pushed by so many of our friends on the left, and the public school teachers creates another issue which stifles fertility.
In 1975, the age of first marriage for women was 21.1 years; in 2025, it was 28.4 years. Assuming (hah!) that most women want to wait until they’re married to get knocked up have children, that’s another 7.3 years out of fertility.
Then add the fact that in 1975, 66% of all households were headed by a married couple, while only 47% were in 2025, we have a huge population of unmarried single women, women who are (supposedly) less likely to procreate.
Then there’s this. A lady on Twitter styling herself skum wrote:
My boomer mom told me I spend too much on food.
“Just cook at home like we did.”
Mom: Your groceries in 1987 cost $180/mo.
Mine cost $420/mo.
Same items.
Same store brand.Your kitchen was in a house you owned at 29.
Mine is in apartment I share with a roommate at 34.
I’m not eating out too much.
I’m eating in a different economy.I passed the salad.
Said nothing.
Being the [insert slang term for the anus here] that I am, it’s unsurprising that I responded with the absolute truth:
“Your kitchen was in a house you owned at 29. Mine is in apartment I share with a roommate at 34.”
Translation: your mother was married by age 29, was being a grown-up, while you’re still playing a being a kid at 34. Marriage is greatest contributor to economic well-being.
Skum didn’t mention having a child, but that she was sharing an apartment with a roommate, so I assume no kids, at age 34. I suppose it’s great that she hasn’t got a bastard child, bastardy being one of the major contributors to poverty, but it also means that if she meets Mr Right, as opposed to Mr Right Now, tomorrow, and gets married, she is still unlikely to get knocked up have a child before age 36. That’s a major factor in the declining birthrate, because a first child at age 36, even if he’s healthy, is still unlikely to be followed by a second child.
Our demographic decline, other than seemingly by illegal immigrants, is a natural result of liberalism.
__________________________________
Follow me on Twitter! Check out my website, The First Street Journal, for stories not on American Free News network.
_________________________________
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
_________________________________
Substack: American Free News Network Substack
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA