90% of america being car-mandatory sprawl means each additional kid is another car seat and more and more time on the road chaffeuring them to schools and activities. the few walkable areas are so pricey you can't afford a 3rd bedroom. no surprise that most people who want kids stop at 1 or 2!

Meanwhile in upstate Manhattan we got to raise our kid here because my partner happened to buy our apartment 23 years ago when that was a five-figure purchase (for real) and the neighborhood is freaking out because they’re replacing a bunch of auto repair shops with partially subsidized housing.

Peter Zeihan talks about this in all his books, as he looks at the cross section of demographic, economic and political trends. He labels kids as “expensive furniture” after your society got off the farm and went to the cities.

Maybe something to this! Certainly there's a feeling that the upper class doesn't enjoy having to compete with a growing upper-middle-class challenging their own rotten kids for opportunities they'd rather hoard. https://bsky.app/profile/trashturkey.bsky.social/post/3k433fn3sdd2b

Don't forget that they made it illegal to not put your 6yo in a car seat even though there is zero evidence that it improves safety after age 4

AND look at the price of a damn minivan / suv that's big enough to pack them all in!

And daycare costs as much as college!

absolutely cars and also our appetite for “stuff” and the endless stream of hulking plastic kid things that immediately overwhelm even a decent sized apartment

also not to sound like a "WE DRANK FROM THE HOSE" boomer but i feel like parents are expected to constantly monitor/participate in events w/kids today in a way that they didn't when i was a kid?