To be fair, the use of TFR had approximately zero context to clue that person in to what it could mean. If you go back and read the first paragraph, there is no mention of children, birth, babies, or any other context clues that help the reader understand what the acronym is even relating to. It abstractly compares ‘TFR’ of several religious groups, it could mean anything. If you want to casually drop semi-obscure acronyms it’s good practice to give context clues by using words related to the acronym near the use of the acronym instead of being abstract like the OP.

I knew what the acronym was but I’ve spent time reading about religious groups and economic/social classes and fertility rates of those groups depending on the level of whatever you would call devotedness or strict adherence to the most conservative version of that belief system.

Which one of these two sentences makes it easier to guess what the acronym means or to google it? I could probably think of a better example using an acronym that has collisions, but this will have to do.

1. “The SOFR has not changed during 2026.”

2. “The Federal Reserve has voted to maintain the SOFR during 2026.”

I, myself, documented that ACE stands for AI Compute Extensions, on a post on HN that used it without defining it, and got a couple points for it. I'm pushing back against that everything has to be spoonfed to us and that we shouldn't be expected to do any of our own work to understand something here and complaining about it.