In idea, Savannah Downing would like to be a mother. At 24, the Texan actor and content material creator is nearing the age at which her mom had youngsters. A few of her buddies are beginning households. However having youngsters in the US is wildly costly – and so when she noticed the information that the Trump administration was contemplating giving out $5,000 “child bonuses” to persuade ladies to have youngsters, Downing was incensed.
“Possibly folks will need to have youngsters extra typically if we weren’t struggling to seek out jobs, struggling to pay our scholar loans, struggling to pay for meals,” she mentioned. “5 thousand {dollars} doesn’t even start to even cowl childcare for one month. It simply appears actually ridiculous.”
Trump officers have made no secret of their need to make America procreate once more. In his very first tackle as vice-president, JD Vance mentioned on the anti-abortion March for Life: “I would like extra infants in the US of America.” Weeks later, a Division of Transportation memo directed the company to deal with tasks that “give desire to communities with marriage and delivery charges larger than the nationwide common”. Then, in late April, the New York Instances reported that the administration was brainstorming insurance policies to encourage folks to get married and have youngsters, equivalent to giving out these child bonuses or awarding medals to ladies who’ve at the least six youngsters.
All of those strikes are proof of the rising energy of the pronatalist motion inside US politics. This motion, which has gained adherents amongst each conventional “household values” conservatives and tech-bro rightwingers equivalent to Elon Musk, considers the falling US birthrate to be an existential risk to the nation’s future and thus holds that the US authorities ought to enact insurance policies designed to incentivize folks to present delivery.
However most of the ladies who’re, in idea, the targets of the pronatalist pitch have only one response: Have infants? In this financial system?
After the New York Instances report broke, social media exploded with indignation on the proposed insurance policies’ inadequacy. “Go forward and inform Uncle Sam what he wants to present you to make him daddy Sam,” a girl rasped on the digital camera in one TikTok with practically 1m likes. “Common – ?” she began to say, in a presumable reference to common healthcare. “No. No. The place did you even hear that?”
“5 thousand? That doesn’t go very far!” one 24-year-old stay-at-home mom of 4 complained in one other TikTok, as her youngsters babbled within the background. “It prices 200, 300 bucks simply to purchase a automobile seat for these youngsters. I simply really feel prefer it’s actually simply insulting. If you’d like folks to have extra youngsters, make housing extra reasonably priced. Make meals extra reasonably priced.”
Though the price of elevating a toddler within the US varies tremendously relying on elements equivalent to geography, earnings stage and household construction, a middle-class household with twin incomes can anticipate to spend someplace between $285,000 and $311,000 elevating a toddler born in 2015, a 2022 evaluation by the Brookings Institute discovered. That evaluation doesn’t issue within the worth of faculty tuition, which additionally varies however, as of final yr, price about $11,600 per yr at an in-state, public college.
The price of merely giving delivery is dearer within the US than in virtually another nation on the planet. An uncomplicated delivery lined by non-public insurance coverage. which is principally the best-case situation for US dad and mom, tends to price about $3,000, in response to Abigail Leonard’s new ebook 4 Moms.
Paige Connell, a 35-year-old working mother of 4 who usually posts on-line about motherhood, had an extended record of pro-family insurance policies she wish to see adopted. For instance: reducing the price of childcare, which runs Connell’s household about $70,000 a yr. (An April Trump administration memo proposed eliminating Head Begin, which helps low-income households receive childcare, though the administration seems to have just lately reversed course.) Or: preserving the Division of Training, as Connell has youngsters in public faculty and a few of them depend on specialised training plans. (Trump has signed an govt order aiming to dismantle the division, in an obvious try to get round the truth that solely Congress can shut federal departments.)
“They need to incentivize folks to have youngsters. I don’t suppose they’ve an actual stake in serving to folks increase them,” Connell mentioned of the Trump administration. “Many ladies that I do know – ladies and men – do need extra youngsters. They really need to have extra youngsters. They merely can’t afford it.”
Lyman Stone, a demographer who in 2024 established the pronatalism initiative on the right-leaning Institute for Household Research, argued in an interview final yr that “most of lacking infants in our society are first and second births” – that’s, that individuals keep away from having a second baby or having youngsters in any respect. Pronatalism, he mentioned, ought to deal with serving to these folks determine in any other case.
“The misunderstanding is this concept that pronatalism is about tradwives and large households, when it’s actually about, on some stage, serving to the woman boss, like, woman boss in her household life somewhat bit earlier and more durable,” Stone mentioned.
Some People might certainly be having fewer youngsters than they want. Amongst adults beneath 50 who say they’re unlikely to have youngsters, near 40% say that they don’t seem to be doing so because of “issues concerning the state of the world” or as a result of they “can’t afford to lift a toddler”, in response to a 2024 Pew survey. A 2025 Harris ballot for the Guardian discovered that the state of the financial system has negatively affected 65% of People’ plans to have a toddler.
However to say that pronatalism is about serving to the “woman boss” have one or two youngsters shouldn’t be fairly correct, on condition that a number of distinguished pronatalists are deeply fascinated about producing “large households”. Malcolm and Simone Collins, who’ve turn into the avatars of the tech-right wing of pronatalism, have at the least 4 youngsters and present no indicators of slowing down. (The Collinses had been behind the medal concept reported by the Instances; they known as it a “Nationwide Medal of Motherhood”.) Musk, maybe probably the most well-known pronatalist on the planet, reportedly runs one thing of a harem and has 14 youngsters.
Republicans are additionally presently exploring insurance policies that may entice extra dad and mom to remain at dwelling with their youngsters, the New York Instances reported on Monday, equivalent to increasing the kid tax credit score from $2,000 to $5,000. Whereas these potential insurance policies don’t specify which dad or mum would keep at dwelling, 4 out of 5 stay-at-home dad and mom are mothers.
Nonetheless, this objective is seemingly at odds with Republicans’ need to slash the US finances by greater than $1.5tn. Certainly, Republicans have proposed dramatically curbing Medicaid – a proposal that would seem to hinder the pronatalism agenda, as a result of Medicaid pays for greater than 40% of all US births.
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Pronatalism has lengthy been intertwined with racism, eugenics and authoritarian governments. Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union gave out medals to ladies who had giant numbers of youngsters, whereas in the US, curiosity in pronatalism has traditionally surged in eras, such because the early twentieth century, when ladies and immigrants had been making an attempt to take part extra in public life. In the present day, fears concerning the penalties of the close to file low US delivery charge are sometimes tied to issues concerning the nation’s shrinking workforce. Immigration may assist alleviate these issues, however the Trump administration is deeply against it.
All this results in a basic query: do pronatalists need everyone to have youngsters – or simply some kinds of folks?
“What I’ve seen on-line of the pronatalist motion, it does appear very aligned with white supremacy, as a result of it does look like a number of the dialog round it’s extra geared in direction of white {couples} having extra infants,” mentioned Madison Block, a product advertising supervisor and author who lives in New York. She’s additionally leery of the Trump administration’s deal with autism, which may translate into ableism: “A variety of the conversations round pronatalism, along with being borderline white supremacist, I believe are additionally very ableist.”
Now that she’s 28, Block mentioned that lots of her buddies are beginning to get married and think about having infants. However Block is afraid to take action beneath the present administration. And when she thinks about doubtlessly beginning a household, reasonably priced healthcare is non-negotiable.
“I personally wouldn’t need to have youngsters except I do know for a proven fact that I’m financially steady sufficient, that I can present them with a fair higher childhood than what I’ve,” Block mentioned. “I believe, for lots of youthful millennials and gen Z, a number of us should not at that time but.”
Maybe the final word irony of the Trump administration’s pronatalist push is that it’s not clear what pronatalist insurance policies, if any, really induce folks into turning into dad and mom.
In previous years, Hungary has poured 5% of its nationwide GDP into boosting births, equivalent to by means of exempting ladies who’ve 4 youngsters or extra youngsters from paying taxes. This herculean effort has not labored: as of 2023, the nation’s delivery charge has hovered at 1.6, properly beneath the alternative charge of two.1. (For a rustic to take care of its inhabitants, ladies should have about two youngsters every.) Extra left-leaning nations, equivalent to these in Scandinavia, have additionally launched into in depth authorities applications to make it simpler for girls to have youngsters and preserve careers – but their delivery charges additionally stay decrease than the alternative charge and, within the case of Sweden, even dropped.
It could be the case that, when entry to applied sciences like contraception give folks extra selections over when and tips on how to have youngsters, they could merely select to have fewer youngsters. In that 2024 Pew survey, practically 60% of respondents mentioned that they’re unlikely to have youngsters as a result of they “simply don’t need to”.
Downing shouldn’t be that involved about pronatalism taking root among the many common public. Personally, she doesn’t really feel like there’s an excessive amount of governmental stress on her to have youngsters, notably since she is Black and far of the pronatalism motion appears centered on pushing white ladies to have infants.
“I really feel like a number of ladies are fed up. I believe that’s why the delivery charge goes down,” she mentioned. “Girls are realizing that they’re extra than simply birthing machines.”
However photos from The Handmaid’s Story – the pink capes, the white bonnets – hang-out her.
“I believe $5,000 and a medal making an attempt to coax ladies into having extra youngsters is a begin,” she mentioned, “and I actually am nervous to see how far they’ll go to attempt to power ladies and have youngsters”.
