It’s tempting to say humanity is on a downward slide.
The declining birth rate is unable to replace our generation. And if you extrapolate that out long and linear enough, humanity will go extinct.
It’s become so worrisome that eccentric billionaires are offering their genes to make up the shortfall.
To help, President Trump floated an idea to offer $5,000 to new mothers for each baby born.
Seems straightforward. But what can go wrong when government incentivizes something?
What do incentives do for childbearing?
And does this really solve the problem?
No good intention unpunished
Let’s start with government incentives. The truth about them is they create artificial demand.
Yes, some things are worthy causes. If only they could scale faster, they could serve more people. But inflating demand can attract more supply than a system could naturally hold.
Instead of doing what’s right for you, you change your behaviors to chase dollars. And when those go away? Well, you’re on your own.
Think about it this way: when the Inflation Reduction Act offered an $8,000 credit to toward a new electric vehicle, automakers raised their prices. By $8,000.
So look at the cost of child care and ask yourself if subsidies have made it more or less affordable.
The good news is we live in an abundant system capable of taking care of more than we could imagine. But throw subsidies in and you risk parents viewing children as liabilities.
Conflicting values for new parents
How else have we come to view children as liabilities?
When chasing our ideal of them having more opportunities and a better life than we did, we ended up narrowing our focus of how to make that happen.
As much joy as they bring us, we worry to much about them learning enough, getting a good job, and supporting themselves to grow their own family. Is it any wonder Gen Z thinks they need a half million dollar annual salary to meet their needs?
The truth is we’re all growing. At different rates, sure. But growing nonetheless.
And that growth can manifest in a LOT more than our kids having a more advanced degree and climbing higher on the corporate ladder.
Growth is baked in to human nature. And we’re choking it down with our expectations.
While we’re busy making those expectations the priority in our lives, we lower our own value. And that can lead us to lower the value of everyone else.
Human life has more than monetary value
What do I mean by that?
Rather than having intrinsic value by just being, we’ve built ideas around what children should mean to us.
Here’s a list of what children have come to mean:
- A status symbol
- Filling an emotional void
- Satisfying a hormonal need
- Affirm your worth
- Access to social circles (I’ll admit, play dates are fun)
- Pass on your genetic code or leave your legacy
- Make you grow into more than you are now
Kids are simply there for their own value. That they can do any of those things is an added benefit of their existence.
But when we chase those ideals first? Our desire has culminated in a black market for human embryos.
Satisfying any of those needs as an end became an excuse to pursue it all costs.
Think about that. We recreated human slavery so we can “feel normal.”
Is that where we want to be?
No incentives? No legions? Now what?
That leaves us on how to overcome the baby gap without incentives.
Let’s start by recognizing the unique value of children. Outside of what we constructed around them.
if your children have their own unique value, then so do you. And if you can recognize that, you can be a much better parent for them.
Maybe it’s time to relax a little and let things happen. Forcing more babies with incentives makes baby factories, not families.
It’s more expensive time wise than incentivizing birth or childcare, but it’s more sustainable for relationships and strength of families.
We don’t need a $5,000 incentive. We don’t need a legion of billionaire offspring.
We need more families.
What are your thoughts on incentives and having children? Leave me a comment below.
Affiliate Corner
Want more examples to share with your kids on how central planning creates unintended consequences? Get a copy of The Tuttle Twins and the Road to Surfdom today.
Want more articles from this series? Read these next:
Liberty Begins At Home 
Leave a reply to IVF and…what? Other Treatments?! – Liberty Begins At Home Cancel reply