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After decades of plummeting birth rates, our nation's leaders are finally starting to take population decline seriously. They want to fix the problem. A $5,000 baby bonus is even on the table. There's a proposed National Medal for Motherhood for women who have six or more children. And Elon Musk is even publicly warning that if we don't take this seriously and start having children, civilization will collapse. And he's right. There's plenty of science to show that when people stop having babies, bad things happen for nations And Americans, as far long term demographics go, just aren't having babies. In 1960, the average woman had 3.5 children. Today she has 1.6. To put that into context, the average woman must have at least 2.1 children just to sustain the population. With 2.1 children, she replaces herself and the father of her child. If people aren't replacing themselves, things like Social Security, economic growth and the basic continuity of American life cannot be sustained. We all agree there is a problem, but can money fix it? Let's go to Hungary. Hungary has been running the most aggressive pro natalist policy in the Western world for over a decade. The Hungarian government has introduced a number of financial incentives, including housing subsidies, interest free loans, baby bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars, and even a lifetime tax exemption to a woman once she has birthed four children. Prime Minister Viktor Orban called it family policy as a matter of survival. The fertility rate went from 1.3 children per woman to 1.6. But then the momentum stopped and now the fertility rate is moving backwards yet again. Hungary made it a national mission to grow its population, complete with a well intentioned multi billion dollar financial program. And it didn't work. And Hungary isn't the only nation to learn the hard way financial incentives don't change the equation to adults who have said no to having a family. Dozens of governments across the globe have tried to use financial incentives to increase childbirth. Not a single one has seen a reversal of their population decline. So here's what pro natalist economists keep missing. You can't condition somebody to want something that they've heard their whole life that having it is a bad thing. Humans aren't Excel sheets that calculate decisions just purely based on numbers. We've been influenced our entire lives by messages we were force fed. We've been influenced by our families and our family structure and our communities. All of these things have gone into how we determine what we think is going to make our lives happy, productive and fulfilled. For decades, American culture has been telling young girls that having children is a burden. It's a career interruption. And it's just a choice you can make if you can't think of anything better to do. I run the world's largest student pro life organization, and I've spent the last 20 years on college campuses having very real conversations with young women about their futures. And here's what I can tell you. The ones who aren't planning on having children aren't just doing the math on hypothetical child care costs. They're telling me that they don't know if marriage is worth it or even real. They're telling me their lived experience watching their parents divorce and then saying they don't ever want their children to have to experience and go through what they had to endure. They're telling me what they've been taught since middle school. School that your career is your identity and a baby is a threat to that identity. They're telling me that they're lonely, yet they don't know how to build a community that makes the thought of having a family even possible. They deserve a culture that actually says the path to happiness isn't childlessness or self actualization, but connection. Listen, Elon Musk and the pro nailists have identified the real crisis. Ironically, the population crisis has been caused by a worldview that's very similar to the worldview of the pronatalists that sees humans as a means to an end, not the end themselves. The only institutions that can really solve this crisis and address the birth dearth are those institutions that have always said humans are the point. The research is consistent. The strongest predictor of fertility is religious practice. Religiously active women across all income levels are statistically higher, more fertile, have more children than their secular peers. It's not because their churches are paying them to have children. It's because their community, their faith, and their family have shown them that children are a gift and motherhood is a calling. And a life oriented around others is actually incredibly fulfilling. Now, it's one thing to say we have to change culture. It's a whole other to actually have to do it. Here are four things we can do right now to move our culture towards choosing children and family. First, make a conscious decision to never suggest that children are a burden. Even better, commit to affirming mothers when you see them out in public. Second, commit to strengthening one institution that will help make family formation feel possible and supported in your community. Engage with your church. Help your neighbors get to know each other. Step in and offer support to a young family in your neighborhood. Third, make the pro life movement visible after birth in your circles of influence. If we're going to tell women that children are a gift, we have to show up for them when things get hard well after she's given birth. And fourth, put stories behind the data. Talk about the young women you know or even yourself finding fulfillment in having a family. Don't let the dominant narrative that having children is a buzzkill have all the oxygen in your presence. I understand why so many leaders are scrambling to write checks to families. And don't get me wrong, pro family policy is definitely something to cheer for, and it absolutely can help those who are having children. But we have to be clear eyed by the fact that these financial policies aren't going to rapidly increase childbirth in our nation. A government cannot bribe a civilization back to life. The birth rate is not falling because children are too expensive. The birth rate is falling because we build a culture that says it's not worth it for us to build our lives around or for children. The fix is not a check. The only fix is the truth. Children are not a burden. They are the point and culture. Believing that again requires you and I to say it, to teach it, to live it, and to build institutions around it.