Why aren't people having kids anymore? (ft. Derek Thompson)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "NO SUCH THING"

Episode: Why aren't people having kids anymore?
Date: June 3, 2026
Hosts: Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, Devin Joseph
Guests: Anna Louie Sussman (journalist, author), Derek Thompson (writer, The Atlantic)

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Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Manny, Noah, and Devin investigate the dramatic decline in birth rates across the US and globally. Prompted by both personal reflection and headlines about demographic crises, the trio explores why fewer people are having children, what barriers exist, and whether society should be concerned. Through candid discussion, data, expert interviews, and a dose of humor, they unpack economic, cultural, psychological, and policy factors shaping modern family decisions.

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Episode Structure

• Opening Discussion: Hosts explore their own attitudes about parenthood and reflect on generational shifts in family planning.
• Expert Interview #1: Anna Louie Sussman delves into affordability, uncertainty, government policy, and cultural narratives.
• Expert Interview #2: Derek Thompson discusses the meaning and tradeoffs of parenthood, the arithmetic of population decline, and the transformative experience of having kids.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Why Talk About Birth Rates?

(02:49–06:44)

• Birth Rate Basics: The "replacement rate" (2.1 children per woman) defines the fertility level at which a population replaces itself. US is currently at 1.5, down from 3.5 in the 1960s.
• Global Trend: Declines are not just a "Western" issue; 71% of the world's population lives where fertility is below replacement.
• China Example: Could lose almost half its population by 2080 if current rates persist.

"In 2024, our rate dropped to 1.5. That's the lowest ever recorded according to the CDC."
— Manny (05:03)

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2. Hosts' Personal Takes on Having Kids

(06:44–15:52)

• Manny: Has a newborn; values the experience but doesn't think societal worry should force people into parenthood.
• Noah: Wants kids (two, ideally), not due to society but personal/family reasons; financial security is a key hesitation.
• Devin: Strongly wants kids for personal fulfillment, not replacement rate concerns; believes fewer people should have kids if they're not enthusiastic.

"I feel like a lot less people should be having kids and I feel like the people who should have kids should, like, want kids."
— Devin (10:12)

• Hurdles: Financial burden, cost of daycare (Manny: $3,000/month for daycare in NYC), housing, job security.

"Just to share a personal number here, our daycare is $3,000 a month. That could be the cost for a one-bedroom apartment."
— Manny (13:19)

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3. Beyond Money: Shifting Societal Goals

(15:52–18:28)

• Changing Norms: Less pressure to marry/have kids, more options especially for women, rising age of first-time parents, growing acceptability of alternative life structures.
• Technology & Careers: Advances in contraception and IVF have expanded options and delayed parenthood.
• Children as Choice, Not Necessity: Industrialization, urbanization, and improved child survival shift parenthood from survival imperative to lifestyle choice.

"Kids are not assets anymore... you having a child is more of a choice than it used to be."
— Manny (18:16)

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4. Why Still Want Kids?

(18:45–20:23)

• Hope & Impact: A desire to ‘raise good people’ and have a hand in shaping future generations.
• Perspective: Hardship isn’t new to parenthood; previous generations managed with less.

"It feels like a way to sort of spin it and, like, well, if you bring great people into the world, maybe they can tackle all these challenges."
— Devin (19:29)

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5. Expert Interview #1: Anna Louie Sussman

(23:24–36:37)

Main Points:

• Affordability Is Crucial:
  • Childcare, housing, and higher parental standards drive cost up. The US lags behind peer countries in subsidizing child-rearing.
  • Rising expectations for early childhood care mean more staff, higher costs—without government help, it’s all on families.

"We've really forgotten how to care for these vulnerable people who live among us."
— Anna Sussman (24:54)

• Policy Gap:

  • Real government support (childcare, parental leave) is lacking, despite political rhetoric encouraging families.
  • Standards for child care have risen, but help hasn't.

• Uncertainty as an Obstacle:

  • Economic instability, climate fears, world events (wars, AI), and existential uncertainty make long-term planning (like children) daunting—even for affluent, well-educated people.

"There's this kind of… existential thing that's very hard to measure… but I think a lot of us, especially younger people, really feel that."
— Anna Sussman (29:19)

• Right-Wing Narratives & ‘Cat Ladies’:
  • Conservative arguments about ‘decline of the family’ are simplistic, ignore actual barriers, and are often more about who gets to be a family.
  • Scolding or shaming isn't helpful; real support matters.

"Women ultimately will control how many children are born. Doing things that make them feel more and more unhappy... is not going to help."
— Anna Sussman (33:04)

• Overpopulation vs. Consumption:
  • The planet’s resource problems are about inequitable consumption, not sheer headcount; telling people not to form families misses the point—more sustainable living is key.

"Instead of telling people not to pursue these very human, very fundamental relationships… how about we put our heads together and think about how to do that more sustainably?"
— Anna Sussman (36:01)

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6. Expert Interview #2: Derek Thompson

(39:39–56:39)

Why Have Kids? Tradeoffs & Joy:

• Freedom vs. Fulfillment:
  • Parenthood means losing spontaneity, but the gain is profound purpose and joy.
  • Life’s happiness is rooted in limitations—commitments like marriage, faith, and family, not maximum freedom.

"Some of the best things that happen to you aren't the full expressions of absolute freedom, but actually are the embrace of certain limitations that make you a fuller person."
— Derek Thompson (41:17)

• Physical & Emotional Highs:

  • The simple joy of your child recognizing you is "the best feeling in the world."

• Population Arithmetic & Societal Effects:

  • Below-replacement fertility leads to shrinking populations, economic depression, and political instability.
  • Immigration is a partial solution, but triggers backlash.

"Given stable productivity... if you reduce the number of workers, you have a local recession. And no one thinks that a recession is good."
— Derek Thompson (48:40)

• Is Decline a Problem?
  • Not about coercion; about recognizing the real, material impacts of demographic shifts.
  • Policy (child allowances, daycare) helps, but alone may not turn trends.

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7. Final Reflections: The Roller Coaster of Parenting

(52:46–56:39)

• Parenting is a ride in the "amusement park of life"—unique, challenging, transformative.

"You are locked in this amusement park for just a small period of time. And I feel like you might as well ride the rides. This is something you were practically built to do."
— Derek Thompson (54:04)

• There’s no single, permanent transformation—parenthood is a continual becoming, door after door, as you and your child both change.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the new economics of child-rearing:

  • "Having a child is more of a choice than it used to be." — Manny (18:16)
  • "Our daycare is $3,000 a month. That's more than my rent." — Noah (13:31)

• On policy & cultural narratives:

  • "Women ultimately will control how many children are born. Doing things that make them feel more and more unhappy... is not going to help." — Anna Sussman (33:04)

• On the lived experience of parenting:

  • "Those are the best moments of life. So the loss of freedom is real, but I think that true happiness has found in limitations." — Derek Thompson (43:20)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | | ----------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | | 02:49–06:44 | Explanation of birth rate trends & replacement rate | | 06:44–15:52 | Hosts’ personal views & financial realities | | 15:52–18:28 | Changing social incentives and historical context | | 23:24–36:37 | Interview with Anna Sussman: economics & uncertainty | | 39:39–56:39 | Interview with Derek Thompson: personal/philosophical/ macro perspective on birth rates and parenting |

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Conclusion: The Takeaway

The declining birth rate, both in the US and worldwide, isn’t simply about personal choice; it’s the product of intersecting changes in economics, values, policy, and culture. Affordability, uncertainty, and new life options make parenthood both less imperative and more inaccessible. While some mourn demographic decline and others see freedom from old norms, the podcast ends on an honest and optimistic note: having kids is one of life's "roller coasters," deeply transformative but not necessary for everyone. If you're on the fence, you might ride the ride for the unique experience, but society at large needs to address real barriers—material, emotional, and existential—that make that choice harder.

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For more information, check out Anna Louie Sussman’s book Inconceivable: The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty (September release) and Derek Thompson’s writing at The Atlantic and on Substack.

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Listen every Wednesday for new episodes of "NO SUCH THING."

Transcript

[Manny]

Hey everyone, Manny here. And before we get to today's episode, I have a quick call out. We are looking for diet soda drinkers. If you are a diet soda aficionado, call the number in the show notes and tell us three things. Number one, what your diet soda of choice is. Are you a diet Coke drinker? Diet Pepsi? Coke? Zero. Number two, why do you drink diet soda? Is it for health reasons or do you just prefer the taste? And number three, how often are you drinking a diet soda? How many do you have per day or per week? Again, call the number in the show notes and your thoughts might make that diet soda themed episode. That's all for now. Hope you enjoy today's episode. But first, we have to pay some bills.

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[Devin]

What's up y'?

[Manny]

All?

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[Kal Penn]

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[Manny]

Kaleidoscope. I'm Manny.

[Noah]

I'm Noah, this is Devin, and this

[Manny]

is no Such Thing. The show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research on today's episode. Why aren't people having kids anymore? I'll ask Noah and Devin about whether they want kids before hearing from a birth rate analyst, then stick around to hear my dad's rule conversation with writer Derek Thompson. There's no. No such thing.

[Kal Penn]

No such thing.

[Manny]

No such thing. All right, fellas, once again starting an episode of this podcast by asking somewhat intimate personal question and get out of my neck. But before I do that, I do want to just kind of set up the premise of this episode a little bit. The birth rate is declining, and it has been for some time now, and experts predict that it's going to continue to decline. Basically, the. The number that everyone is concerned about is what's called the replacement rate. The replacement rate, which is the amount of kids you need to have to replace the two parents who birth the child, who birth the child, is 2.1. The reason the replacement rate is 2.1 instead of 2.0 is because the point 1 compensates for two factors at a societal. The first factor the point 1 covers for is child mortality, so the amount of kids who don't make it to adulthood. And the second thing the point one covers for is the fact that for whatever reason, human biology produces more men than women. 2.1 kids is the number needed for a generation to replace itself without relying on immigration, for example. And we have not been hitting that number for a long time, since the early 2000s.

[Devin]

What's our rate?

[Manny]

Our rate is 1.5. Okay, so we're having one and a half kids, and we need to be having 2.1 kids.

[Devin]

Makes sense. To replace two people, you need two people.

[Noah]

Yeah, at least.

[Manny]

So in. In 2024, our rate dropped down to 1.5. That's the lowest ever record reported, according to the CDC. And for context, in the 1960s, our birth rate was around 3.5. Now, you might think that this is kind of a Western issue, but actually it's more global. According to the UN, around 71% of the world's population now live in countries where the fertility rate is below replacement level.

[Noah]

Wow.

[Manny]

And just to give you an idea of what that might look like In China, in 50 to 60, 70 years, they could have half the population that they have today if they don't have

[Devin]

more kids, if the birth rate.

[Manny]

If their birth rate remains where it is. Yeah.

[Devin]

Wow.

[Manny]

So there's a lot of. There's A lot of.

[Noah]

A lot of people.

[Manny]

That is a lot of people. I mean, I don't know what the current number is, but we grew up knowing that there was about a billion people in China, Right?

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Anna Sussman]

And.

[Manny]

And we're saying in 50, 60, 70 years, that might be 500 million, which is way closer to what the US is today. Wow. Kind of insane numbers. Yeah. There are a lot of reasons why the birth rate is declining, and we're going to get into those. But as I mentioned at the beginning, I want to know what you guys are going to be doing to contribute to the birth rate or if you even want to.

[Devin]

Well, I guess we should first make clear that you have contributed to the birth rate.

[Manny]

I'm doing my part right now, almost. Yeah. Yeah. I need another. Technically, I need two more kids because it's 2.1.

[Noah]

1.1.

[Devin]

You need two and one.

[Derek Thompson]

Just.

[Manny]

Yeah. I had a child recently. Four months ago.

[Noah]

Congratulations.

[Manny]

It's been a very beautiful experience. But, you know, just because the birth rate is declining, I don't think means people should feel more obligated to have kids.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

And so that's where I'm coming from when I'm asking you guys, like, what your desires might be or what your hesitations might be, even. So who wants to go first? I guess we should go with the married one.

[Devin]

Yeah. Hey, Big. That it's.

[Noah]

It's legal for you to have a

[Manny]

kid, but

[Noah]

for me, I. I do want to have kids.

[Devin]

How many?

[Noah]

You know, you never know what the future holds, but in my head, two sounds nice. Yeah. I grew up with siblings. I think it's good to have siblings.

[Devin]

You grew up with two other siblings? So three total?

[Noah]

I'm one of three. Yes. Yeah.

[Manny]

So your parents, they did a replacement level? Yeah. Yes, they have fully replaced them.

[Noah]

Thank you to them. Yeah. Thank you to my parents for your service. Yeah. So that's all us being equal. That's what I envision. But that's not because I think I have a duty to replace myself. I'm not. You know, the broader concerns about world population is not factoring in. Let's say to my desire for kids.

[Manny]

Got you.

[Devin]

So you would want kids. Say, even if our replacement rate was a four or five.

[Noah]

Yeah. If the numbers Manny was feeding us said we needed to hit six kids per family, I wouldn't be like, oh, I need to hit. Yeah, I want six kids.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Kal Penn]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Right. Similarly, if it was like, you know, there's way too many people having kids,

[Devin]

you would still want kids.

[Noah]

I would still want kids? Because I, you know.

[Devin]

Well, I think that was the conversation.

[Noah]

That's what I was thinking of this

[Devin]

where it's like when happens.

[Noah]

I remember. Yeah, I remember. I feel like when we were growing up it was always like, oh, like, you know, the population has exploded so much that it's going to. Yeah, there's going to be resource. Well, there's still going to be problems with resources anyway. Right. But yeah, like, yeah, there's going to be too many people on the globe. So it's interesting that now the conversation is flipped in a way.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

Yeah. There are essentially a lot of like economic benefits to being at replacement level or more that a lot of analysts are concerned about if we do. If our population does decrease by X amount. Yeah. It could put pressure on certain industries.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

But yeah. Devin, curious your thoughts as well.

[Devin]

If I want kids.

[Manny]

Do you ever want kids? Is it not that big of a deal to you?

[Devin]

No, it's pretty big deal for me. I want kids. I feel like there's a lot in my life that I feel like I would negotiate or change or, you know, be open to. It's like that's one of the things that like I thought about as a kid that I, in standing by is that I want kids. I'm also pretty selfish in that respect. Like, no, I said it has nothing. I don't care what the replacement rate is.

[Manny]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Devin]

I actually think less people should be having kids. There are a lot of parents out there who I'm like, I can tell you're really not into this.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

People just do it because it's status quo or executive. Of course.

[Devin]

I feel like a lot less people should be having kids and I feel like the people who should have kids should like, want kids.

[Manny]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Devin]

I feel like growing up I had a lot of little cousins. My brother's much younger than me. Right. So like, I like being around kids. I like hanging out with kids. I think I'd be a pretty good dad.

[Noah]

I think so too.

[Manny]

That's beautiful.

[Devin]

Thank you.

[Manny]

Are there for the two of you? That's over for the two of you. Have there been any kind of like hesitations or obstacles or has just not really the right time yet for me?

[Noah]

It's not like I have, you know, I haven't like tried to have kids. Expressed way there's always like, am I ready? Meaning, like, am I stable enough in my work or career or financially is kind of the biggest factor to think about.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Where it's like, okay, what would it actually cost to have a kid, let alone then two kids. I live in an apartment. There's only so much space. So then it's like, it's hard to think long term about having one kid in my current apartment.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Let alone two.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And then as they grow and become bigger and need more things and space.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

So that's kind of the. The biggest quote unquote block.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

As far as, like, okay, how do I weigh this to make sure I'm. I'm doing something responsible for myself and the other people involved in this?

[Devin]

So would you say financ as your primary, like, thing that you're thinking about in terms of like, the readiness? Yeah, I do feel like, I think so.

[Manny]

Like, if you won the lottery, would that be a catalyst?

[Devin]

Yeah, this blew up.

[Noah]

Yeah, I think it would. It would alleviate some of the concerns, I think, because it's like, lifestyle wise, I think I'm ready for whatever that might entail as far as like, you know, quote unquote giving up, like traveling or going out or whatever. Like, that's, that's not a big deal to me. It would be more like, okay, can I actually provide what I would want to.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

For this family. So, yeah. If suddenly I just didn't have to worry about money ever, it would definitely take away some of that because I'd be able to move into a bigger place and be able to make sure, okay, I can afford. I guess I maybe wouldn't even need daycare because I would need to work. But, you know, it's like. Yeah, it's like all these things that would make that a lot simpler in a way.

[Manny]

And that tracks with one of the biggest, if not the biggest reason why people who want kids don't have kids is this affordability question, like just how expensive it is to have children. And obviously I can speak to some of this.

[Noah]

Speak on it.

[Manny]

We had my daughter in the. The hospital bill. This is before insurance, to be clear, but 30 to $40,000 just. Just for popping the kid out, just

[Devin]

to get her out here, just to

[Manny]

get her out into the rest of it, you know, and then obviously that comes down a bunch with insurance, but still leaves you with an amount that's like, yeah, you have to be prepared to pay. It's not free to have large amount. Yeah. At least in the hospital now, four months on, we've got her into. Into daycare now. Daycare now. This is the one that everyone I think is really kind of concerned about. And maybe, maybe this is a little bit my fault because we Live in Park Slope versus like a cheaper neighborhood. But just to share a personal number here. Like our daycare is $3,000 a month. So that's, you know, and that could be the cost for a one bedroom apartment. Two bedroom even.

[Devin]

It's more than, I think both of our apartments.

[Noah]

More than my rent.

[Manny]

Yeah. Now just think about how much more work you have to do for. I mean, I'm lucky enough that I make a decent amount of money, but like, if you want a kid in Barista, for example, how much more work you have to do to be able to cover daycare, that's a huge obstacle to having a kid. You literally can't afford it.

[Devin]

I think about this all the time as someone. Like you said, we've been, I think, blessed in our sort of work lives that we get paid well. Maybe not now, but in the past. Share this podcast with some friends. So this could still be true, but in the past we've made a decent amount of money doing something that, you know, like we, we very much have white collar jobs.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

And I think about it all the time where I'm going to the grocery store and like, literally just buying groceries for myself. And I think about how expensive it is to especially to live in a place like New York. You know, I have a dog, his vet bills are expensive sometimes. And I think about, what if this was a damn kid?

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Devin]

You know, like, how expensive that would be. I think I got a lot of other things, you know, to sort through before outside of expenses. But expenses is a big thing that I think about in terms of having a kid, especially because I would want to live in New York still, at least in the city, not even in the suburbs when I do have a family. So part of me just like can't even think about that because I think, like, if I were to logically think, like, okay, I want to live in a city, I want to have a partner, I want to have a kid, how much is that going to cost? It would just prevent me from ever having kids.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Manny]

Yeah. Like, I know I have friends with kids, but I think Mia and I were the first in our kind of closer group of friends to have a kid. And that has, I think, set off kind of like a ripple effect of people thinking about whether they want to do it or not. And that, yeah, the affordability thing ends up being still the kind of number one concern. But if you had to guess, what are some other factors that are leading to a decline in the birth rate not just in the US but around the world.

[Devin]

I think stamina is just like societal in terms of individual people's goals. Right. I feel like when our parents were growing up, it was like you get a good job, you know, you get a husband or a wife and then you have kids. That was just.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Devin]

You hopefully get a house somewhere.

[Noah]

Standard.

[Devin]

Yeah, I was just like everyone's goals and everyone worked towards that and I feel like now. Yeah, that's not everyone, you know, it's just that there's a lot more flexibility about what's you can do in life. Right. Not everything is so like family oriented. People are not like immediately getting married. People aren't, you know, people are really into their careers and doing other things. So I think like part of it is like there's just more options, especially for women. Like there's just especially more options now of like what your life can be outside of like, you know, bringing someone else into the world.

[Manny]

Yeah, that's a good point. Because we can look at the declining birth rate and say some of this is for bad reasons like affordability, but there are also reasons why the birth rate is declining that are good. Which is like, you know, women feel like they have more options in life than they used to. Contraception is, I was going to say,

[Devin]

I think birth control. There's also, I think with advances in this stuff, like some people feel that they can wait longer to have kids. Right. Like it used to be a big deal for someone in their late 30s or early 40s to have a kid. Right. Well, even if it was, you know,

[Manny]

possible at the time. Yeah.

[Devin]

Now you can, you know, there's ivf, there's. You can, you know, save embryos. There's a lot of advancements that allow people to put off that decision till later now too.

[Manny]

Yeah. I think a pregnancy in your mid to late 30s is considered, quote geriatric pregnancy. But those are just so much more common today than they used to be, like you said, because of these advancements in and healthcare.

[Noah]

Another thing, and this is more longer term, but you know, people used to have tons of kids because they would work.

[Devin]

Oh yeah.

[Noah]

You know, so like a farmer would have 10 kids. Not because they just wanted.

[Devin]

We need 10 kids.

[Noah]

It's like get to work literally to replace their work. Yeah. You know, or to add on the work. So that's like a immediate pressure to want kids for a utility, a utilitarian reason, not like a nice.

[Manny]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Kids are not assets anymore.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Manny]

It's like that you having a child is more of a choice Than it used to be.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Manny]

It's not as like a predestined.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Or like, I need. Yeah.

[Devin]

Farm. Actually, it's an investment. I need this.

[Noah]

Yeah. You know, because otherwise you'd have to hire people or whatever. Yes. So, yeah. Free labor. So, I mean, that's. I'd be curious how that factors in.

[Manny]

So here's a question for you two. You both want children eventually. But I've got to ask, despite all of the kind of concerns and obstacles we just discussed, why do you still want to bring a child into the world?

[Devin]

I think I'm going to sound a little bit like an asshole saying this, but it's true. I just feel like I will be a good dad, and I feel like if I'm a good dad, hopefully I raise a good kid. It's my way of, like. Yeah, the future seems scary, and it seems like it's moving in the wrong direction, but it feels like a way to sort of. Like, it feels like a way to sort of spin it and, like, well, if you bring great people into the world, maybe they can tackle all these challenges.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

And if you raise people with empathy and sympathy, like, maybe that will help.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

It's one thing you have some sort of control over.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

In. Even in the small, small way.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And for me, just to build off that, like, as far as fears about, you know, what the future holds or can I afford this and all this, it's like, well, I just always think, like, people have certainly had kids in far worse circumstances than me.

[Devin]

That's very true.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Like, no matter what sort of money troubles I might be in, people are certainly in way worse situations and have been and figured it out. So I'm like, okay. Certainly people generations before us have had harder times to have kids. People currently have kids right now in way worse circumstances than me. That's kind of what I. I tell myself is like, yeah, I'll be able to find a path forward through that.

[Derek Thompson]

Yeah.

[Devin]

As daunting as it seems.

[Noah]

Yeah. Like, okay. Surely between me and my wife, we'll be able to. And our families and everyone else, we'll be able to. I'll have something out. Devin will help me out. Yeah, I got him with my tin can.

[Derek Thompson]

Yeah.

[Manny]

Well, I'll tell you what, boys. We're going to hear from some experts about this. This broader issue later on in the episode. I'm going to talk to writer Derek Thompson about why he wanted to have kids and about what he thinks human beings can extract from that experience. But first, we're going to talk to Anna Sussman. She's the author of the forthcoming book Inconceivable the Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty. That's after the break.

[Ad Voice]

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[Kal Penn]

Hey, everyone, it's Kal Penn. I'm the host of Irsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project, Hail Mary Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Devin]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that that deeply, emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to Irsay the Audible and I Heart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ad Voice]

Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now? Really? I can get super specific with dealer listings and see cars based on my budget. You can really have it delivered or pick it up.

[Noah]

Mommy's walk.

[Ad Voice]

I think kid is walking up the slide.

[Anna Sussman]

Really?

[Ad Voice]

Autotrader? Buy your car online? Really?

[Manny]

All right, we're back. I'm Manny.

[Devin]

I'm Noah Devin.

[Manny]

And we're about to hear from someone who has been doing a lot of analysis on the decline of the birth rate, not just in the United States, but around the world. I'll let her introduce herself.

[Anna Sussman]

My name is Anna Louis Sussman. I'm the author of the forthcoming book the Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty, which will be published this September. And I'm a contributing writer at the New York Times opinion section.

[Manny]

So Anna is going to school us about why the birth rate is actually declining. There's a bunch of reasons, but you're going to hear about kind of the biggest ones. My first question for Anna was about this problem with affordability. It's one of, if not the biggest obstacle a lot of people feel when they want to have kids. And so I wanted her to just kind of lay out what exactly the issue is.

[Anna Sussman]

The affordability question has been really salient for families. There's certain things that have gotten much more expensive even vis a vis overall in inflation. So childcare is absolutely one of them. And one of the reasons for that, and I think it also goes hand in hand with this overall question of rising standards for parenting, is that we've learned a lot more about early childhood education, for example, and the importance of those early days of a child's life. And the Wharton economist Corinne Low has pointed out that once you know that children benefit from a higher ratio of caregivers, especially to infants, well, then you have to staff a daycare center with more caregivers. But when the government doesn't step in to subsidize that, as, for example, they do in many other rich countries, then everything is on the parent. And so it becomes this almost zero sum game where, like, every dollar raise that you give per hour to a caregiver is just a dollar coming out of your pocket or, you know, $1.50 in earnings, and then you pay your taxes. And then so it just gets really. And I think that's where the idea that, you know, raising children is something that people do on behalf of society as well as on behalf of their own family, and that we all benefit when there's healthy children who've been loved and cared for and given the attention and stimulation they need. And so I think we all should be invested in that. I mean, especially given the fact that it's very easy to forget this, but we were all children ourselves once, and if we were lucky, but, you know, people cared for us and invested resources in us and that opened up opportunities for us. And I feel like we've really forgotten that and forgotten how to care for these vulnerable people who live among us.

[Manny]

So Anna makes this point about that it's kind of a criticism of governments in that governments aren't doing enough to step in and subsidize the things we need to pay for in order to Have a kid.

[Devin]

I mean, I think it's wild that so many people in government are pushing for people to have kids without having a real answer to the cost of raising kids. And so much of that is childcare, especially, you know, to raise a kid is expensive.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

A lot of people have to work.

[Noah]

Yes.

[Devin]

In order to have the money to raise a kid. In order to work, you have to have somebody watch your kid. And as she mentions, like, obviously our standards now are higher than when, you know, when our parents were kids, even when we were kids. In terms of what those places should have. Right. They shouldn't just be spots where a bunch of kids are just hanging out. Like, you know, they should be educated in some way. Like is a prime time for your child to be learning. So, yeah, I think the government, like, it should be free. It's weird to me that, like, we think that childcare starts at kindergarten in the U.S. where, you know, from kindergarten up into high school, like, at least for most of the year, you can go to a place that will, you know, school that will watch your kid for free, a public school. But even within that, Right. It's like, okay, what are kids supposed to do for the summer? Right. Like, someone watching a child should not cost money if you want people to have kids.

[Manny]

Yeah, yeah. Even if you're an individual who doesn't feel like the government needs to help you, if you're a government and you want people to be birthing at replacement level, there's obvious things you could do.

[Devin]

That's an easy, like, sort of thing to address. Right.

[Noah]

And then things just like maternity leave, paternity leave.

[Derek Thompson]

Yes.

[Noah]

Like having those things be supported in a way where it's like, okay, you can afford to have the kid immediately, you know, and like, okay, take care of the kid in those immediate months, at least for some normal amount of time or a good amount of time.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

At least as a start. And then we just get somewhere else.

[Manny]

Yeah. I mean, look at my ass. Because we're freelance.

[Derek Thompson]

Yeah.

[Manny]

You know, we had our kids kid. And then I took off, like, three weeks. Yeah. Because I couldn't go any further without, like, you know, then it becoming a problem with our finances. So it's really. I mean, it's. It's definitely something now. And it tells me that there's one thing contributing to the decline in the birth rate that we don't talk about as much because it's harder to measure. And that is a general sense of uncertainty about the world.

[Anna Sussman]

So the researchers who study why people do and don't have children. And population figures are demographers. And since the Great Recession, this group of scholars has honed in on this notion of uncertainty. So if you look at Europe since the Great Recession, fertility has been falling and falling now, usually when economies recover, so do birth rates. But that cyclical trend has been broken since the Great Recession. And the question everyone was asking, you know, whether that's in Italy or in countries with amazing family policies like Denmark or Norway, is why? Why is that happening? Why aren't young people having children anymore? The economy is better, unemployment's low. And I think they've stumbled on this idea of uncertainty and they link it to accelerating technological change and globalization. So you may be living in the US but you're seeing war in Ukraine, you're seeing war in Gaza, you're seeing, you know, economies failing all over the world. You're seeing AI coming here and there. You're hearing, you know, bellicose rumblings from China. And all of those things combine to give you this sense of, gosh, you know, the world doesn't feel stable at all. And there's very little I can do about that because I can't affect, you know, what's happening overseas or a climate disaster, you know, somewhere in Southeast Asia or something like that. So I feel like that's something that it's a psychological, it's an emotional, it's a sort of existential thing that's very hard to measure and wrap your head around. But I think a lot of us, especially younger people, really feel that in our own lives, for some people, it might be they're just facing a huge student loan burden and that's something that's standing in their way. But everything else is in place. You know, I interviewed people who are in that situation. But I think, you know, what was interesting to me was speaking to people who are married. They have professional white collar jobs that until recently felt fairly stable, you know, and the college wage premium had typically guaranteed people decent earnings, you know, for having invested in that human capital. But they still felt a sense of uncertainty. You know, there was one couple I spoke to where they lived in Los Angeles, and they had started last year with a huge wildfire tearing through part of their city. The husband is of Mexican descent, so even though he's a US citizen, he felt really concerned about really aggressive IC deportation efforts. He had basically a target on his back. The wife has a public health background. You know, never in her life did she think that she could have a child who would have to go to school with other students who, for example, didn't have measles, vaccines. So there's all these factors that I think, you know, even when a lot of the things seem to be in place, there's this kind of X factor or missing piece that for some people is very hard to address, you know, via policy or just telling someone, no, don't worry, things are going to be okay. And that kind of thing, I think, is becoming more and more salient. Just this feeling that, you know, a child is a lifelong commitment, and how can I make that commitment when I can't even tell what's going to happen tomorrow, if I'm going to have a job or, you know, what the economy is going to look like, you know, those kind of things.

[Manny]

So, yeah, it makes total sense that if someone feels like they don't have that much control over their own lives, you know, imagine bringing another huge human being into the world that you're responsible for.

[Devin]

You know, like, day to day feels a bit scary. So I can imagine, like, any sort of, you know, future planning for a kid, think about it logically, feels like one of the things that feels like

[Manny]

a bit insurmountable because I also feel the same way. It's like we actually don't know if Russia is just going to nuke us one day. Like, what we. That's becoming more and more likely.

[Devin]

Well, yeah. Is AI going to be doing this next week?

[Manny]

Yeah, exactly.

[Devin]

You know.

[Manny]

Right, right, right.

[Devin]

I mean, how are we going to make a living?

[Manny]

Yep. There is an argument from the right, from politicians on the right, that the birth rate is declining because of, like, a societal decline, like a departure from family norms. Traditional value. Yeah, the traditional values. We remember J.D. vance's comment about, like, the cat ladies.

[Kal Penn]

We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.

[Manny]

And so I wanted to get Anna's perspective on that argument, that line of thinking.

[Anna Sussman]

You know, looking at the data, there are more births within marriage than outside of marriage. So on some level, they're not wrong. But I think that scolding people doesn't help. Calling people, you know, childless cat ladies and blaming them for something isn't really helpful. You know, tanking the economy, which our current administration is doing, also doesn't help boosting AI. You know, this is something that there's actually interesting gender divides both on the economy. Women actually feel a lot worse about the economy as measured by consumer sentiment. And women are also really, I think, a lot more skeptical of AI. If women ultimately will control how many children are born, I think doing things that make them feel more and more unhappy and uncertain about the future is not going to help. But when people want to have children and they feel like there's something external to them that's getting in the way, I find that really heartbreaking. It means that there's a relationship, there's, you know, a lot of love that they really want to express, and they're not going to have the opportunity to do that. So that's where I come from. And that's what I feel like if politicians did a better job listening to that group of people and understanding the barriers they feel stand in their way, we could get a lot farther in this discussion.

[Manny]

She kind of, you know, as the kids say, she kind of snapped there, and she ate. She ate. Really going hard at this current administration for things that they've done that she feels like makes it harder for people. People to want to have kids.

[Devin]

I also think to her point, it's like they want a very specific type of people to have kids, and they have a very specific idea of what a family looks like. Yeah, right. They're not talking about, like, two gay guys having a family. You know, it's like.

[Ad Voice]

Right.

[Devin]

So it's like, yeah, you can't be upset that people aren't having kids, but then have this very narrow viewpoint of what you view a family to be.

[Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Manny]

You know, finally, there's this line of thinking that the world's already overpopulated.

[Devin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Manny]

We have decreasing resources. Things are becoming increasingly scarce, and so maybe some of y' all should stop having kids. Or maybe it's not so bad that the birth rate is declining. So I asked Anna about that.

[Anna Sussman]

So, you know, we've talked a lot about why the birth rate is falling in a lot of countries. I think one thing that's interesting to think about, too, is there's also a lot of discourse that, you know, well, the world is already overpopulated and it's already crowded, and we shouldn't have more kids. And again, I think this is one of those things that there are a lot of people in the world, and some of us consume at a much higher rate than others. But I'm not sure that that's a reason to tell people, you know, don't pursue these very human, very fundamental relationships. Instead, if we think about it as, like, okay, you know, there's a lot of us here. We're all sharing the same planet. How about we put our heads together and think about how to do that more sustainably? And in fact, what's amazing is we actually know a lot of ways to do that. We know how to use the sun's energy to power things. You know, there's a lot of tools that we already have. And unfortunately, we see a lot of politicians standing in the way of that or even reversing progress. And those are the kind of things that I think so actively make people feel worse about the future and less inclined to have a child.

[Manny]

All right, so that was Anna Sussman, author of the upcoming book Inconceivable the Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty. Now we've learned why the birth rate is declining. We've learned about all the obstacles that are kind of preventing people from feeling comfortable having a child. After the break, I'm gonna talk to writer and fellow dad Derek Thompson about what people can expect from being a parent. Some of the things that he feels like are really incredible experiences.

[Ad Voice]

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[Kal Penn]

Hey, everyone, it's Cal Penn, host of Irsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast I'm sitting down with Lily Chu, the author of the Audible original romantic comedy Just Kiss Already. It's a story about a forensic anthropologist who secretly writes mystery novels, an actress who adapts his book into a film, and what happens when a meme and a media tour collide with a slow burn romance. It's performed by Simu Liu and Philippa Hsu, and it is an absolute blast.

[Ad Voice]

When you actually hear the performance, you

[Anna Sussman]

realize that other people are taking your word and what you thought was kind of a straightforward sentence like the cat in the corner is black. In my head, it's the cat in the corner is black, not the dog, not the gerbil. But someone else might say it, the

[Ad Voice]

cat in the corner is black.

[Anna Sussman]

That's always fascinating to me how they just bring in all these different nuances and really make it fun and interesting and distinctive.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ad Voice]

Are you really buying a car online on AutoTrader right now? Really?

[Derek Thompson]

At a playground?

[Ad Voice]

Yeah. Really? Look at these listings from dealers. Wow, your search can really get that specific. Really?

[Derek Thompson]

And you just put in your info

[Ad Voice]

and boom, car's in your budget.

[Anna Sussman]

Mom needs a second.

[Ad Voice]

Honey, you can really have it delivered. Really? Or I can pick it up at the dealership.

[Anna Sussman]

One sec, sweetie.

[Ad Voice]

Mommy's buying a car. I think your kid is walking up the slide, Kyle.

[Derek Thompson]

Again?

[Anna Sussman]

Really?

[Ad Voice]

Auto trader. Buy your car online? Really?

[Manny]

All right, Derek, thanks so much for joining. No such thing.

[Derek Thompson]

Yeah. Great to be here.

[Manny]

There's a ton of different ways we could take this conversation, but I want to start first by asking a question that I actually have struggled to answer, which is, you know, why did I decide to have a kid? Just to give you some context, I had a baby girl a few months ago, and shey.

[Derek Thompson]

How old is she?

[Manny]

She's four months.

[Anna Sussman]

Ah.

[Derek Thompson]

Mine is five months.

[Manny]

Oh, really? Congratulations. Is this your first kid?

[Derek Thompson]

This is her second.

[Manny]

Second kid.

[Noah]

Great.

[Derek Thompson]

The other turns three this summer.

[Manny]

Okay, so you're well versed in, you know, in all of that.

[Derek Thompson]

You look tremendously well slept.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Derek Thompson]

Either that's genetic. That's. That's maybe just genetic. Or maybe you just have a. You're blessed with a good sleeping baby.

[Manny]

I think it's the latter. I think it's the latter. We've been lucky with her. I think she's just a relatively chill baby, but. Yeah, I've had friends of mine ask me, you know, what. What led you to this decision? I think I had kind of gained a reputation of valuing spontaneity in my life. Just the kind of ability to do whatever I want, whenever I want. And this is kind of antithetical to that.

[Derek Thompson]

Yeah, sure is.

[Manny]

I just wanted to posit this question to you. You know, I feel like you're smarter and more articulate. You might have an answer that's much more meaningful than the one that I had.

[Derek Thompson]

You know, I feel like there's things you absolutely lose when you have a child. You lose a certain kind of freedom, you lose a certain kind of spontaneity. There's a huge opportunity cost. I mean, I love cocktails. I love wine. There's nothing that I like more than going out with a friend at 7pm, 8pm, 9pm, getting a cocktail, gossiping at journalism the future of media, like I love that shit. It's just much harder to do when you've got one baby that has to be put down at 7:30, another kid that has to be put down at 8:15. One of them might wake up, you're exhausted at the end of the day, having worked a full day and also taking care of two kids, it's just a lot harder. So there's real costs to having a kid. To me, the costs are worth it. To me. There's something profound in this idea of choosing which freedoms you're willing to sacrifice. I'm married to my wife. We're married. There's a freedom that you give up when you are married. There's a freedom that you give up when you choose to have kids. There's a freedom that you give up when you pick one job. Life in many ways is about making peace with the fact that some of the best things that happen to you aren't the full expressions of absolute freedom, but actually are the embrace of certain limitations that make you a fuller person. And you know, my friend David Epstein just wrote a book called Inside the Box, which is a beautiful book about the ways in which limitations make us stronger, limitations make us more creative, limitations make us happier. If you look at a survey, the people who tend to be happiest, yes, they tend to be richest, that's important to say. They also tend to be married, they tend to go to a church, they've taken a leap of faith. They believe in one specific God, not a range of gods. And they tend to have children, they have families. It's a lot of limitations on a life. And I think there's something interesting and chewy about the fact that the people who are happiest sometimes have the most limitations on their life rather than those who have the most kind of unbridled freedom. So that's maybe a philosophical justification for having children. I love having children because they are really, really adorable. They're butt heads, they're annoying sometimes, but they're really, really adorable. My youngest has just these enormous cheeks. Her face is like wider than, her head is long and God, I just love coming home and seeing that cheeky, cheeky smile. My three year old is starting to talk and starting to be able do bits. So I'm not just the monster that's hunting her around the kitchen island table. Now she wants to be the monster to hunt me and jump on me and tickle me. That's the fucking best. Those are the best moments of life. So the loss of Freedom is real, but I think that true happiness has found in limitations.

[Manny]

Yeah. And I was kind of struck by my initial inability to answer the question. But I think I landed on something quite selfish, I think, which is that I imagined myself as a father looking down in my arms and seeing a baby. And I was deriving, like, such joy from that, from that image. And it is exactly what happens if the first thing my daughter sees when she wakes up in the morning is me or her mom. She just gets this, like, insane joy on her face. And that is the best feeling in the world.

[Derek Thompson]

Yeah, it really is.

[Manny]

Yeah. So there's been a lot of discourse about the decline of the birth rate, not just in the developed world, but also internationally. And there's a range of reasons that people point to, whether it's affordability or the kind of crumbling of the dating scene, even. I'm curious if you have any thoughts about why the birth rate is declining and if it's even really a problem that it's declining.

[Derek Thompson]

I'm definitely gonna get to the second, because I think that's probably the more controversial and maybe more interesting part of this conversation. But why is the birth rate declining? I kind of feel like the best way to talk about this is to divide the history of declining birth rates in two. Phase one is roughly between 1800-2000 in the west, and phase two is the 21st century. So the birth rate in the United States, for example, sort of the completed birth rate, the number of surviving children that people have, because child mortality was so high before the 1700s, 1800s, that women were having five, six kids, but, my God, like, two or three of them were dead before they turned 15. And so, you know, that's one reason really why the fertility rate was so high. One reason the fertility rate declined is that kids live longer. Another is that an industrialized economy created jobs that tended to be more easily done by women. A service sector economy. So women went into the workforce, they went to school longer, they got more education, and as a result, between sort of the 19th century and the early 21st century, you know, female empowerment, everything I just mentioned, plus contraception, just made it easier for women to have control over their bodies and determine the number of children they wanted to have. And that, I think, brought the overall birth rate down from the fours and threes toward the twos. But that still leaves open the question of why is the birth rate under 1, around 1 or under 1 in Thailand, in Japan, in Korea, in China, probably in Mexico City, probably in many major cities, probably In San Francisco and even New York there. I think you have to talk about more modern phenomena and maybe Anna spoke to some of this. I think there's a lot of economic anxiety about the ability to afford an adult life, to afford a house, to afford child care. Those are real things. We don't have enough houses in this country. Wrote a whole book about that abundance with Ezra Klein. The cost of childcare has gone up. One reason for this is a phenomenon in economics called Balmol's cost disease, which basically says that as productivity increases in an economy, wages tend to become more expensive, which means that labor intensive services increase in cost faster than things that can be automated or can be shipped overseas. Think about childcare. You can't do that with a robot and you can't send your child to, you know, I don't know, Malaysia to be cared for every day and then get her back every afternoon. So this is a, this is something that's gotten expensive faster than wages have increased. You add all these things together and I would say as a big picture, like it's, it's turned having a kid from a necessity or even a predestination into a choice. My wife and I, we chose to have a child. No one was making us do this. The agrarian economy wasn't making us do this. We chose to have a child. Having a kid is a choice now. And almost inevitably, once something becomes a choice and isn't essential, well then some people are simply going to choose. No.

[Manny]

I had seen so many articles and pieces about this declining birth rate and I think my initial reaction was like, okay, so what? I want to have a kid. And that's great. And I did have a kid. But I'm also curious about, you know, big picture, societally speaking, should we even endeavor to have children at more than a replacement rate? There is that kind of like annoying pronatalist wing of this conversation.

[Derek Thompson]

Totally.

[Manny]

That I think, like, you know, that's not really where I'm at with it. But I feel like, okay, there seems to be an urgency here. What exactly is the urgency?

[Derek Thompson]

Yeah, the urgency is arithmetic. China has a replacement rate of about 1.0. Given the population distribution of China and the average age of someone in China, which is about 80, the population of China is going to decrease by approximately 50% in the next 50 to 75 years. If you don't think that's a political and economic calamity, consider literally any city or state in America that shrinks even 5%. How do we talk about the Rust Belt? Do we talk about cities in the Rust Belt that have depopulated as being places where, oh, it's good. Depopulation is fine. No problems happen when places depopulate.

[Manny]

No.

[Derek Thompson]

Given stable productivity on a per worker basis, if you reduce the number of workers, you have a local recession. And no one thinks that a recession is good. So I would encourage people not to approach this subject through the lens of Handmaid's Tale. Should men force women to have babies? Of course men shouldn't force women to have babies. That's barbaric, right? But the same way that climate change is a slow moving long term trend that fundamentally is the outcome of human progress, our energy prosperity is cooking the planet. In the same way, the ability of individuals to decide to have fewer and fewer children is going to have long term implications for economic growth and politics. And so the things that I worry about, the two things I worry about the most when it comes to the inevitable population decline that comes from any generation failing to replace itself generation after generation after generation is this. Number one, you're likely to have economic decline. And there's really no example of a country enjoying economic decline having no political or social problems from long term economic decline. But that's what you get if you have a country with fewer and fewer people. Maybe the second order effect to think about is political. Countries in Europe that have faced low growth in their populations have realized that they can't afford their welfare states, they can't afford universal insurance and Social Security or pensions with the working population that's native born. And as a result, they've had to bring in more immigrants to pay for their social safety net. All right, so far so good. I'm certainly not anti immigrant, but a lot of people are. And the populist right that has grown, I think in Europe over the last few decades has been a reaction to the size of the immigration influx that many people in Europe think is necessary in order to keep the labor force an appropriate size to pay for welfare. So now you're at a little bit of like a Chinese finger trap. If you let the population simply decline because the birth rate is under replacement, you have economic decline. If you try to supplement the native born population with immigrants, you get a right wing populist backlash. So that to me is why over the next few decades there is no way that a birth rate below the replacement rate in two thirds of the world won't create a range of economic and political problems. It doesn't mean that we should get anywhere close. We should not get within a Country mile of forcing families to have children. We could make it easier for families to have kids by supplementing child allowances. We could try providing things like universal daycare. It should be said that countries like Korea that have offered rather lavish benefits to parents have really failed to increase the birth rate significantly. We can try these things, but really, it's just a little bit like climate change. And the same way there's lots of ecologists and environmentalists that will say, you know, if we keep doing the thing we're doing, the seas are gonna rise and Miami's gonna be underwater. To me, it's very similar to, say, if China has a replacement rate. If China has a birth rate of 1.0 for the next 60 years, its population will decline by 50% or, you know, 40 to 50%. And that will be an unbelievably significant story for the entire world.

[Manny]

So, Derek, you've been very clear that you're not advocating to force people to have kids or that people should consider having kids they don't want to. But for people who are on the fence, or even for people who want to but feel like there are some obstacles in the way, why do you think they should, based on your personal experience?

[Derek Thompson]

In my 20s, I was single for most of my 20s. And I did a lot of dating and staying up until midnight drinking with friends and. And smoking with friends until 1 2am and having whiskey way too late with my roommates. And I did all of that, and it was great. And it's sort of like in my 20s, I rode this ride, right? I'm like, I'm in this amusement park, and the amusement park is my life. And in the 20s, there was this roller coaster called Drinking Martinis until 1am in the morning and then getting a little bit of high before going to sleep. And it's a great fucking roller coaster. I rode it over and over and over again, and I loved that roller coaster. But there's these other roller coasters. In the amusement park of life, one of them is being a dad. And it's an incredibly unique experience to bring something into the world that would not have otherwise existed and to raise him or her, and to watch them change and to watch their personalities change behind their little face that looks a little bit like you or no, maybe your partner or if you've adopted then someone else, but you love them just the same. It's a genuinely magical experience. It is its own roller coaster. And I feel like, you know, life is this beautifully small and finite thing. You are locked in this amusement park for just a small period of time. And I feel like you might as well ride the rides. This is something you were practically built to do. Like, what were we built to do biologically? Like, we were built to breathe. We were built to, you know, hunt and eat and drink and yes, procreate and have sex. We were also built. We evolved to parent. If we weren't evolved to parent, we would not exist. Babies, as you well know, are among the most pathetic creatures on God's beautiful earth. They can't do a fucking thing for themselves. So if parents aren't evolutionarily honed to parent, the species does not replace itself. But so you are built to do this. And I think a lot of moms and a lot of dads sort of beautifully or discovered to their own surprise that there was like this person inside of them that hadn't been activated, that is activated upon the moment of becoming a father. And that's a really, really lovely self discovery. And you're not gonna have that self discovery if you choose not to have kids. I'm not gonna say that that's gonna make you miserable forever. I'm not saying that you've wasted your life. I am saying there's this ride and it's in the amusement park and you're only in this park once and then you die and it's lights out forever. Give it a shot. Ride the rides. That's my feeling.

[Manny]

I do see my life now in before and after. And it's only been four months since my daughter was born. And I feel like I've kind of changed tremendously in some ways, but also feel like a lot of my life hasn't changed as much as I thought it would.

[Derek Thompson]

And it'll change again because your child's gonna keep changing, right? My oldest is only three, so it's not like I'm speaking to you like an 80 year old who's raised like seven kids in their own. In their 40s. Yeah, but it's, it's just, it's going to keep changing, right? I. I think when I first became a dad, I thought, there's this door that I'm going to walk through and I don't know who I'll be on the other side of that door, but I'll be someone else. And I can't wait to meet that guy. But now, three years later, I see it's just one door after another. Like, they turn one, it's a new door, they turn two, it's a new door. They learn to sleep by themselves. That's a door. They stop sleeping because they learn how to talk and become afraid of the dark and say mama, mama, dada dada seven times a night. Another door, a new challenge. It keeps changing and there's a sort of like meta lesson of life there, right? That there's no arrival fallacy, there's no finishing the game, there's no final door that you walk through and then you become the final person you'll ever be. You're always in the process of becoming someone new and meeting that new person. And I think that in a way, being a father has sort of made that aspect of life clear to me.

[Manny]

No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangesh Hatikadur. The show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman and Devin Joseph. The theme and credit songs are by me Manny and the mixing was done by Steve Bone. Thank you so much to our guests this week. Anna Sussman, the author of Inconceivable the Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty, coming out this September. Be sure to pre order her book at the link in our show notes and Derek Thompson, the writer and contributor to the Atlantic who also has a Great substack@derek thompson.org Be sure to check us out at nosuchthing show and watch. We will see you next week. Such thing.

[Kal Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast Hearsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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