Did you know that the National Bureau of Economic Research keeps a database called the "Child Penalty Atlas?"

In principle, what it tracks is a phenomenon worth measuring: what impact does having a child make on work habits, income, and other variables? 

OK. I am all for doing social science and all that. We should gather and keep all sorts of data. 

Notice that motherhood is described solely in negative terms of how it "hurts careers."

No mention of the incredible fulfillment parents feel when they cut back on paid work to have more time to raise and educate their children.

And mothers who cut back on paid employment to… https://t.co/wVAJOAS6sg

— Nancy Pearcey (@NancyRPearcey) April 9, 2024

But child PENALTY? Last I checked having a child is one of God's greatest blessings, and the idea that somehow it is a punishment for not using a rubber is a pretty awful way of looking at things. 

Here's how NBER describes the database:

This paper builds a world atlas of child penalties in employment based on micro data from 134 countries. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using panel data for a subset of countries. Most countries display clear and sizable child penalties: men and women follow parallel trends before parenthood, but diverge sharply and persistently after parenthood. While this pattern is pervasive, there is enormous variation in the magnitude of the effects across different regions of the world. The fraction of gender inequality explained by child penalties varies systematically with economic development and proxies for structural transformation. At low levels of development, child penalties represent a minuscule fraction of gender inequality. But as economies develop — incomes rise and the labor market transitions from subsistence agriculture to salaried work in industry and services — child penalties take over as the dominant driver of gender inequality. The relationship between child penalties and development is validated using historical data from current high-income countries, back to the 1700s for some countries. Finally, because parenthood is often tied to marriage, we also investigate the existence of marriage penalties in female employment. In general, women experience both marriage and child penalties, but their relative importance depends on the level of development. The development process is associated with a substitution from marriage penalties to child penalties, with the former gradually converging to zero.

This is totally idiotic on so many levels. Not only does it completely abstract from basic realities of being a human being--we are social creatures who love, procreate, and work to live and not live to work--but it also assumes that we exist solely as economic entities whose life-satisfaction is measured solely in total dollars collected through work. 

The bigger the pile you die with, the bigger a winner you are. Scrooge McDuck dying on his pile of gold is the big winner of the race of life. 

This is an attitude that is now trendy, with the antinatalism of the Left coming to dominate people of child-bearing age. Throughout the West, the anti-child propaganda is everywhere. We are told that kids are bad for the environment, will emit not just noxious fumes from their behinds before potty training but CO2 to ruin the earth, and that they will die a slow, horrible death in a burning world. 

Plus, they cost a lot. They cut into your budget for lattes and Costco trips. 

The pressure and propaganda to eliminate procreation is bizarre, but clearly, it is working. Birth rates have dropped through the floor in Western countries. There has been what appears to be a coordinated campaign to convince people that childlessness is an ideal lifestyle choice. 

If you regret the choice, you can always purchase a child anyway. 

The NBER report is along the same lines: having kids hurts your job prospects and your income. 

To which I say: so what? Of course, they do. They are kids. They are messy, smelly, annoying, demanding, and the biggest blessing in the world. 

They are NOT a penalty. And thinking so is very, very sick. And perfectly on-brand in our bizarro world where the powers-that-be want to abort, sterilize, mutilate, or euthanize everybody. 

To me, the most bizarre thing is that the push to focus life on generating more income is the simultaneous Gen Z push to drop working at all. Quiet quitting comes to mind. 

The goal, it seems, is to make a lot of money, do little work, and die alone without leaving a mark on the world or mattering to anybody. 

Nice.