there is no such thing as society

I've been thinking of Margaret Thatcher, actually, when it comes to Douthat's birthrate concerns. The problem with the conversation is that Douthat is talking about what he perceives to be a societal need to have more babies, but children are going to be had by couples, and more accurately by individual women. The problem is that even if you agreed with him that we need higher birthrates, you're stuck with the fact that individuals are the ones who are going to bear the burden. And in particular,  individual women are going to have to sacrifice a great deal in order to make this rise in birthrates happen.

Thatcher was speaking about the idea of societal obligation to provide to those who couldn't provide for themselves. Her point was that while we might talk about a societal obligation to provide, it's individuals who get taxed. For a lefty like me, that's an okay tradeoff, but her point remains important, which is not to let talk of society obscure individual desires. Here, we're talking about a burden that falls unequally on women, and one that is far more personal, physical, and invasive than paying taxes. The continuing failure of Douthat and other conservatives to recognize that as a burden at all speaks volumes about why single women remain such a reliably liberal constituency. If only men were expected to pay taxes, I'd understand them being specially concerned with the issue, and paying taxes is hardly as extreme as pregancy.

It's simply the case that women have special interests when the topic is child rearing, and anyone discussing the issue should take pains to recognize those special interests, and the paramount importance of women's opinions on the topic.

Douthat, of course, is not talking about coercing anyone into having children they don't want to have. But then, that's part of the difficulty with this issue: what do we want to do, and to what extent and effect? I'm not pulling a wonk and saying "where's the policy angle, here?" I am asking, though, for a more concrete understanding of what kind of pressures Douthat wants us to apply, and how extreme he thinks that pressure should be. Like a lot of people, I intuitively believe that when it comes to the highly personal decision of whether to have kids or more kids, the answer is none.