Baby Bonuses, Trad Wives & The Pronatalist Movement
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What is the pronatalist movement and why is it gaining attention?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Have more babies or civilization dies. That's the rallying cry behind a once fringe ideology that has made its way into the mainstream. Pro-natalism has been in the news lately, with Trump policies underway to increase birth rates by giving away a $5,000 baby bonus for parents and a National Medal of Motherhood for moms who have six or more children. Pronatalists warn of an apocalyptic future, that if birth rates in the U.S. keep falling, we might be headed towards economic collapse, even extinction. They're pushing ideas like genetic engineering, limiting access to contraceptives, and the Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory, which believes that there is a plot to replace white populations with non-white immigrants.
One of the more well-known faces of the movement is Elon Musk, who reportedly has at least 14 biological children with several different women, and has called the world's population decline the greatest threat to humanity. But critics argue that this movement isn't solely about increasing birth rates. It's about who gets to reproduce, under what terms, and at what cost. They argue that this movement ignores the skyrocketing price of child care in our country, our broken parental leave systems, and a woman's autonomy over her own body. Well, today we're joined by two people whose work explores this movement and the motivations behind it. Dr. Karen Guzzo is a sociologist and fertility expert serving as the director of the Carolina Population Center and a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And Lisa Hagan is a reporter for NPR who has been covering the pro-natal movement and attended last month's second annual NatalCon conference in Austin. Lisa Hagan and Karen Guzzo, welcome to Fresh Air.
What was NatalCon and who attends this pronatalist conference?
Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Well, I want to start with you, Lisa, and I want you to take us inside of this conference that you attended in Austin. First off, kind of set the scene for us. How big was it and how would you describe this overarching message you heard this year?
Well, there were about 200 attendees. This was the second ever natal con. The first one was held two years ago and it was half the size. Still a pretty small conference. And I think what's interesting. interesting about it is that there were a lot of different kinds of messages. The tone had also shifted quite a bit from the first iteration of the conference. So you heard everything from people saying, you know, we should have a child tax credit increase to, you know, our enemies are the enemies of humanity and that sort of language.
I'm just curious, what was the breakdown of men versus women at NatalCon?
Oh, 95% men, absolutely. 95% men? Yeah. Yes. So another interesting thing to note there, right, is like some there were supposed to be some women speakers. They have lots of kids. So some of them, their kids got sick or child care, like whatever. Right. Things fall through. I think there are some natural ways in which it ends up being a lot of dudes who are talking about this. The other thing is this was a very, very white crowd. And I say that as someone who's been in a lot of sort of right wing spaces. They're not always this white. There weren't no people of color there, but it's just important to sort of say that about who was gathered there.
What kinds of policies or incentives were seriously being discussed at NATO-Con? Now that there is a real understanding and almost a wind in this movement's sails by the Trump administration's priorities with pro-natalism.
You know, NatalCon is a bit of a, I would say, pie-in-the-sky kind of gathering. It's very open to a lot of ideas that would take a lot of political change to actually bring into being, like parental voting, for instance. You know, having parents vote on behalf of their minor children. That was suggested, I don't know... I think that would be very hard to bring about.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the pronatalist movement and why is it gaining attention?
0:12–2:06
2
What was NatalCon and who attends this pronatalist conference?
2:06–6:00
3
Why are U.S. birth rates declining according to experts?
6:00–10:26
4
Who are the Collinses and what role do they play in the pronatalist movement?
10:26–16:44
5
How does race and politics intersect with the pronatalist ideology?
16:44–20:01
6
What are the different factions within the pronatalist movement?
20:01–25:06
7
How does immigration affect U.S. population trends compared to birth rates?
25:06–27:53
8
Who is included or excluded from the pronatalist movement and why?
27:53–49:08
Speakers
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