The American mother is tired. For one, she is older: the average age of a first-time mom is 27, up from 22 in 1994. If she is a high-earning, Bay-area working mom, she had her first child at 33 and is paying $35 an hour for a nanny. If she works late, she may have two nannies trading off shifts. One of those nannies would have likely come down with Omicron in the last few weeks, so she will have needed a backup nanny to cover for her primary one. She will be managing a spreadsheet of household contractors who are so busy working for other mothers that they often don’t answer her call. And even if her marriage is balanced in responsibilities, I know that she is managing these affairs because she is pinging my mommy group chats asking if I know a baby-sitter who’s available tomorrow.
These are the few and lucky women of extreme privilege. They have the money to pay for help. Now, subtract the funds to pay for the nanny or the housekeeper. Subtract the on-call babysitter who makes it possible for an American mother to have a career where there are “working dinners.” Add some student loans for that master’s degree because this mother is more in debt and more educated than previous mothers, working more hours than she ever has and raising children in a more competitive world where housing, education and specialized healthcare have become more expensive than previously imaginable.
The fertility crisis isn’t just a crisis of fertility. It’s a crisis of the family.
The fertility crisis isn’t just a crisis of fertility. It’s a crisis of the family.
A year ago, my husband and I decided we couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do this. And like many American families, we moved East from California and actively chose a different life for our family. We bought a house that our friends have described as “in the middle of nowhere” where our mortgage is less than our rent in California. But most importantly, the house has enough space for a grandma to move in and help us raise our child.
Help raise our child. My grandparents helped raise me when my mother went to work. And my great-grandmother helped raise my mother. And my other grandma moved into the basement of my aunt’s house to help raise my cousins. And on and on this family history goes, especially if you were from a poor immigrant community who knew that the ladies at the church could fill in while you worked a laborious job. In the long history of motherhood and childrearing, the women were tired and overworked—often raising kids and supporting a family business or bringing in extra income. But they weren’t alone. There were other mothers. Grandmothers. Neighbors next-door. This was how the family worked. How it scaled.
