Babies - A Bridge Too Far?
Friends!
Again, so grateful for your reactions, reflections, and ruminations on religion based on last week's post. It's clear from the many comments that most of you have some relationship with religion that you value, and that there is also SOME vacuum that needs to be filled and itches of meaning and purpose that need to be scratched.
This week, I was inspired by Ann-Marie Slaughter’s great NYT Op-ed from last week. I have admired her work for decades and so appreciate her ability to articulate what we need to hear, particularly when it is complicated, nuanced, and most of all, inconvenient.
Ann-Marie has spent her career in law, as a professor at Princeton University, as a leader at the State Department under Secretary Clinton, and currently as the CEO of New America. She has also written several books including Unfinished Business which brought many of the issues raised in this Op-ed to life. You might remember her famous 2012 Atlantic article, Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.
For years, she has been vocal about the importance of upgrading and placing greater value on the work of CARE. We are all caregivers. Many raise children. All have parents, and many have brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. And we are all the lucky recipients of care extended to us, especially at the beginning and end of our lives. Without care, life would not exist. Like oxygen, love, and food, CARE is the thickest, strongest, and most colorful thread in the tapestry of life.
Historically and presently, most of the work of CARE has been planned, designed, and delivered by women. This significant investment of time, energy, and money has been undervalued, which means that caregiving women have been underpaid or in most cases — not paid at all. In addition, the demands of these many duties have effectively blocked far too many women from pursuing other career aspirations.
In our public square, the gendered inequality between men and women is obviously a long and sustained conversation. While significant progress has been made, it’s inexcusable, unacceptable, and rather inconceivable that there are such persistent gaps between men and women in so many important areas of society.
Having raised four children and stepped into the role of the lucky grandfather of six (and counting...), I have gained some personal experience on the challenges of raising kids in a household where both parents are working. Having been a leader of many organizations and a strong advocate for women within them, I have also witnessed the challenges and struggles families have in balancing career and care.
But here is Ann Marie’s punchline, which I believe is so poignant. As we speak, we are debating a huge infrastructure investment. What’s encouraging is that this bill does INCLUDE investments in early childhood care. Or, at least intentions of such investments. But in the political conversation so far, people seem to look at bridges very differently from babies, which I find rather curious.
What’s more important for the future of our economy? People seem to be so focused on the tangible rather than the operational side of infrastructure. What is it with large, monolithic steel structures and physical interpretations that resonate more with lawmakers than investments in enabling more meaningful infrastructures that help all people be more productive and happy?
Don’t get me wrong, we do need better bridges, roads, electric grids, and public transport. For sure. But we also need a much more accessible and affordable childcare infrastructure. Why? Consider this graph below:
Fertility rates in the United States keep falling. Overall, this is a good sign. Let’s not be too dramatic. We do not want to go back to a time when people had more kids because not all made it to adulthood and parents needed even more help to provide for their own sustenance. Nor do we want to go back to a time with more unwanted pregnancies.
However, the fertility rate is a litmus test for the hope and promise of our future and speaks volumes to many other social issues at hand. First, when young people no longer want to have children, what does that say about their financial opportunity and optimism for our future? Second, a country needs a natural fertility rate of around 2.1 to “repopulate” itself. In other words, if the fertility rate falls below 2.1 it means that (excluding immigration) the country’s population will keep shrinking in the future. This has massive economic implications for our country’s finances and future stability.
The United States Fertility rate has now fallen to 1.76 which is 16% BELOW what we need in order to keep our population at the same level in the future as it is today. This excludes immigration (which is a whole different chapter, of course.) This is not just about men and women. It’s even bigger than that. It’s about how we value what we cannot see.
You know I am passionate about health. We don’t value prevention or nutrition the same way we value surgeries or medicines. I am still furious that we have lost (so far...there is still time) the opportunity to use this awful pandemic as a catalytic event to inspire America to eat better.
We now know that the majority of people suffering and dying from Covid (or, actually, almost any disease) are people with chronic underlying diseases. Almost all of which are preventable by investing more in helping people make better lifestyle choices. But, somehow, we don’t invest in them. The same is true with CARE.
There is an old truth. You get what you pay for. Let’s expand our investment horizons to the many underlying currents of life that contribute to so much happiness, wellbeing, and health. A more affordable and expanded childcare would be among the highest returning investments we could ever make. If you don’t believe me, read the article below by Economic Nobel Laureate from the University of Chicago, James Heckman.
Here are some articles referenced above and some bonus material:
Ross Douthat’s NYT piece on Baby Bust, and what we might be able to do about it
Nobel Laureate Heckman argues in this two-piece PDF that investments in early childhood education are the best way to reduce our fiscal deficits
Bill Maher’s last week's New Rules on why we don’t want politics to interfere with our medicine. I am sharing because it’s funny, sad, and true. Ignore some of it if it's not your taste, but jump in at 6:20 where he talks about how many lives we could have saved if we would have launched a national campaign with the urgency of the pandemic behind it. We would have saved thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.
This Atlantic article about outdoor masks is another example of where pendulums swing too far. Valuable to keep our perspectives balanced. Always. This one from NYT is also good. The "2 out of 3" rule is a smart one. Wear a mask when 2 out of 3 conditions are NOT met. Outdoors, Distanced, and Masked. If you are outdoors, you either should be distanced or masked. Sharing this since a more balanced and nuanced conversation is at the core of this blog.
That's a wrap. What we measure matters and what we value matters even more. Both publicly and privately, governments and businesses are better at investing in hard, physical assets with more visible and near-term returns than they are investing in soft assets or "enabling systems" that produce long-term value.
As Ann-Marie so correctly suggests, the main reason for inequality between men and women is that men were the architects of most of our measures and systems. They didn't imbed CARE as part of the value they wanted simply because they were not part of that world. Out of sight, out of mind -- you know. But, it's certainly past time to fix that now.
I would like to add that we also live in a short-term world with long-term problems which I primarily wrote about here. Our timeframes have been so compressed that few have the patience to invest in a tree and then wait until it bears fruit. We rather sell the wood. We have to move our "investment" decisions to more of 7th generation thinking, where we really consider the long-term value of our actions. Equality between men and women is one such value. Respecting planetary boundaries is another. Living within our means and having a fair distribution of both assets and liabilities between people are more examples of the types of thinking we need to embody if we are to leave the world in better shape than we found it. Which I contend is all of our responsibility.
As I bring this to a close, I want to mark an anniversary of sorts. This was my 53rd newsletter. Not sure how the math works exactly but around this time last year, I began this newsletter. It's been a gift to step away occasionally during this remarkably challenging year and reflect on things that matter. Your reactions, comments, and support means everything. Without it, this would be meaningless.
So, I salute you and thank you.
