This op-ed was originally published in the Union Leader January 19, 2026.
Why are so many couples choosing not to have children? With birth rates falling and populations aging, leaders are scrambling for fixes. If finances are the main barrier, then incentives — tax credits, subsidies, even “baby bond” accounts — sound like the answer. Helpful as they may be, I doubt money alone reaches the root of elective childlessness.
I recently watched a lecture by Catherine Ruth Pakaluk, economist and author of “Hannah’s Children”, titled “Why Children Became Useless: Faith and the Future of the Family.” She described asking her students, “What would I have to give you to make you buy a horse?”
Horses were once essential. After automobiles, they stopped “making sense” for some. Today, they are a luxury — owned by those who want them enough to accept the time, care, and cost.
What about children? Like horses, children once served an obvious economic function. They provided labor for farming families, built-in companionship and support for parents in old age. And, as Pakaluk notes, they were often the predictable result of sex. Today, machines replace manual labor, government programs replace much family reliance, and birth control separates sex from babies. Functionally, we no longer “need” children — so having them is a choice.
Many couples ask, “Why?” A 2024 Pew Research Center poll found that 48% of 18- to 34-year-olds without children either did not want children or were not sure they did. They cite cost, career ambition, and the fear that children will crowd out self-development and self-care. As Aftyn Behn, a former congressional candidate in Tennessee, put it, “I don’t want children. I want power!”
Yet children do not negate accomplishment. There are successful women who build careers outside the home while also being devoted mothers — Justice Amy Coney Barrett, mother of seven, is one example. There are also women who prioritize the home for a season (or a lifetime) and flourish there, too. Sacrifice is real, but so is joy. As one friend said to me, “I credit having children with giving me a sense of humor.”
Pakaluk’s most helpful insight is to ask a different question: not “Why aren’t people having children?” but “Why do some families still choose them in abundance?” In “Hannah’s Children,” she interviewed women with five or more children, asking why they embraced large families. What she found was not an economic equation. For these women, children were to be welcomed, a belief often grounded in deep faith, a sense of vocation, and viewing family as a calling rather than a lifestyle accessory.
As a mother of five sons, I relate. If my husband and I had tried to “do the math” as newlyweds, it would not have added up. Yet here we are with sons ranging from 9 to 29 — our older boys launched and our youngest still at the breakfast table. Each brings a distinctive richness to our family. I cannot imagine my life without them.
So what should we do, specifically?
Churches can rebuild strong support systems: serious marriage preparation and mentoring, practical help for new parents, and wraparound care — meal trains, child care swaps, and intergenerational friendships that reduce isolation. Pastors and lay leaders should also honor faithful mothers and fathers publicly, including those who step back from career advancement to invest in children.
Businesses can make family life less punishing: predictable scheduling, flexibility where feasible and work cultures that do not penalize employees for having children. Where possible, employers can create incentives that make it feasible for one parent to stay home — such as family-wage compensation, dependent benefits, or child care stipends that a family can apply toward the option that best supports their household.
Philanthropists, donors and civic groups can invest in a pro-family culture beyond sermons and slogans. Fund local storytelling — films, essays, plays, podcasts and art that portray children as a blessing, not a burden, and that celebrate the dignity of motherhood and fatherhood. If we want a culture that welcomes life, we need culture-makers who can make that life look beautiful and meaningful.
And neighbors can recover something simple and powerful: practical friendship. Welcome a new baby with meals, offer an hour of child care, invite young families over, and treat children as a gift to the whole community — not as an inconvenience to be managed.
Policy should remain on the table, too. Government cannot manufacture love, commitment, or faith. But it can remove penalties and obstacles that discourage marriage and childbearing, and it can study which approaches have had measurable effects elsewhere.
In the end, Pakaluk’s horse question forces a hard admission: incentives alone won’t persuade people who have come to believe children are purposeless. The deeper work is spiritual and cultural. It’s time to put faith and God back at the center and to rebuild communities that make it realistic — and compelling — for couples to welcome life. Children are the future we are meant to build.