With all the projections of a pending population collapse, we should probably want these numbers to be even higher.

Being a mother and raising good kids is an invaluable role in society, and a generation of women were brainwashed to see it as a form of oppression. I don’t know what could be more empowering than bringing life into the world, or more rewarding than watching child grow up. What career is going to give that level of satisfaction?

Being a father and raising good kids is an invaluable role in society.

As an immigrant in Sweden, I love that I had so much paid parental leave to be with my babies.

In the US, where I used to live, parental leave is a joke. There are generations of people brainwashed to believe fathers aren't involved in taking children to the park, changing diapers, and so on, and brainwashed to think that seeing single men in children's spaces is abnormal and suspicious.

I don't see what can be more empowering than letting both parents have time with the new life they brought into the world, and working together to watch the child grow up.

What career is going to give that level of satisfaction to men?

After the Butlerian Jihad, my backup plan is to work at the preschool.

My sister thought to be a stay-at-home mother until the kids started kindergarten, then changed her mind after a few years as she found it so frustrating and tedious. My wife and I looked forward to when our kids started preschool, so I could do work and she could take classes. Neither of us are defined by having kids.

There's a reason Valium was "Mother’s Little Helper" in the trad-wife home of the 1960s!

I think the oppression part is the "this is the most fulfilling thing you should aspire to and society will collapse if you don't".

> a generation of women were brainwashed to see it as a form of oppression

Is that really the biggest reason why people are having less kids? Or is it more the idea that these days you two good incomes live in a world with a rising cost of living? Most women I know either have or want kids. And it's really the financial situation that influences these decisions the most.

You make some pretty big assumptions here.