Tea at Trianon: Women Are Having Fewer Kids Because They Don’t Want Them

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, May 3, 2026

Women Are Having Fewer Kids Because They Don’t Want Them

From Chronicles:

Most conservatives are too afraid to admit what many feminists proudly own: The decline in fertility rates is the direct result of the feminist project and women prioritizing careers over childbearing. Since the 1970s, when the feminist movement transformed gender dynamics and women entered the workforce by the millions, the fertility rate has been below replacement, and there is no prospect of this changing. In 2025, the fertility rate hit another record low, according to CDC data.

Women in their early 30s now have the highest birth rate of any age cohort, a profound cultural shift without precedent in history. This pattern aligns with the feminists’ ideal timeline: Climb the corporate ladder early, have kids later, or not at all. Roughly 85 percent of women aged 20-24, and 63 percent of women aged 25-29, are now childless.

The high cost of housing, healthcare, and childcare are the usual culprits cited in the fertility discourse. There is something to this, of course, and sound policy initiatives to address it should be implemented. But it should also be remembered that having a family has never been easy or cheap. Moreover, fertility was already in sharp decline when housing was much more affordable, and the Boomers were buying their homes. So something more than that cost explains declining fertility. The extraordinary cost of childcare, though also real, is an entirely newfangled problem that seeks to rectify the severe, and vastly underreported, shortage of full-time mothers. (Read more.)